Cloudy Day Makes For A Good Work Day

 We could have named it "GREY FRIDAY" as the clouds didn't let sunshine though, so our 3 connected Solar panels couldn't deliver much power. But the weather enticed me for another work day on the roof.

But first I had to drive to Holtville and the ACE-store. I had been running out of washers and the screws for the strut channel were just a tad too long, so I had to get 3/4" screws to continue the mounting work. The first three panels got mounted until noon. After lunch I brought the remaining 4 strut channels onto the roof, and Bea helped reaching them up to me!

Left: The line

Both strut channels glued on

The attached photos are showing the steps to install strut channels. First, a line along the edge of the roof, then the Eterna Bond and as the last step the strut channel. It is important to put pressure on the channel to make sure it really connects to the Eterna Bond.

I did all 4 channels today and I am ready to mounting 6 more solar panels.

The latest 3 panels - not yet connected and flat on the roof.

Tomorrow, I will mount the last 6 panels to the strut channels.

I Was On The Roof Again

 While Bea was walking Dixie this morning, I readied myself for another job on the roof.

Challenge #1 was to get the panels onto the roof without damaging them - or the rig. Climbing the ladder with them was not an option as I had to use both hands to keep me from falling off it. So I borrowed an extendable ladder from a neighbour and placed it behind the coach. Then I took a solar panel, covered the solar side with some of the cardboard they came in and put 2 slings of rope around it all. This "package" was then placed against the leaning ladder. With the end of the rope I climbed onto the roof and was no able to pull the wrapped solar panel along the ladder until I could grab it from above. This procedure was done three times.

I mounted the crossbars onto the mounting rails (strut channels) then bolted the solar panels to the cross irons.

By specially tightening the nuts on the outside, I was able to tilt the panels towards the sun. They will get a support for that position later.

Then it was to connect wires and run the main connecting wires down the side of the motorhome, where I temporarely connected them to the charge controller. 

The panels down on the trailer had already been disconnected, so now the roof aray could take over. The whole operation today took about 6hrs. I clambered up and down the rear ladder many times and tonight I can feel it in my knees.

Today's achievement is only one quarter of all work I still have to do.

A Little More Progress

I knew that getting 12 solar panels installed on an RV Roof wouldn't be done in a hurry. Lots of time passed just to get all the parts for the installation. Repeatedly I just got the last inventory the stores had, and I have been at Home Depot and Lowes as well. Besides, I discovered that both stores have a lousy customer service andjust about the highest prices for everything.

But we got a nice break in the work as yesterday we had a Potluck Thanksgiving dinner in Camp. 33 people showed up.

Like always, cutting the turkey was a "man-matter" as the photo bears proof of. We ate very well, nobody left hungry.

Today, I was "back to work". I went to town and picked up 2 parcels containing more solar wire, solar in-line fuses and a package of strut nuts and bolts. I also stopped by the local ACE-store where I found 3 4ft. length of slottet angle iron, which completed my total need. I bought a hundred small hex screws, with washers and stop nuts. Also a bunch of selv-drilling screws to eventually drive into the roof, though I am still not sure whether to do that.

The beauty of an ACE-store versus big-box stores like Home Depot is that you can buy a lot of things without pbeing pre-packed. Bolts and nuts can be found in loose weight from small bins. And you just pay by the weight.

So today I spent only 80bucks on all of it. And they actually have staff you can ask if you need something special. Try that in a Lowes store! 

Back in camp, I started mounting the previously cut 2ft. long cross bars on the solar panels. The panels have pre-drilled holes, which made the work more efficient. I did 7 panels, while 5 are temporarely connected to the motorhome batteries.

While being in town I also stopped at a car-parts store to get a marker light for the front of our bus.

And even one of our 5gal. drinking water containers got filled.

So overall, a pretty satisfactory day I'd say.

Passing Days

When you are on a long-term vacation days may go into a blur. While we always have something or else to do, it is not always I take pictures of things I do. And there are days we don't remember what day in the week it is. But I guess, it's a perfect sign to blocking out a lot of daily concerns.

F.ex. the other day, when we had a cooling breeze, I put two more mounting rails on the roof. So now, I have covered one side of the rig with it. I also went to Lowes in El Centro og purchased the angle irons needed to actually mount the solar panels with. I cut the 8ft long irons down to handy 2ft. lengths. Unfortunately, Lowes was no better than Home Depot, as I could not find enough of the strut nuts and bolts. 

So when I got home I went online and to my surprise, I found both nuts and bolts at a much, much lower price than what the stores here in town are charging. I expect them to arrive on Thanksgiving day, though I won't be able to pick them up tomorrow.

I have also added a 4th solar panel to the temporary setup.

But we still need to run the generator for a few hours in the evenings.

It is now a month ago that we took over this motorhome in Colorado.

The time has been used for various repairs and fixings, one of them being replacing the main door lock. So far we had to use the dead bolt to lock the door. It wasn't very satisfactory, so I had ordered a new door lock. It's a lot of work with taking out a lot of screws to get behind the door panel, but eventually I got it done and it works perfectly!

The day after we arrived in Trinidad,CO we went to a propane place and got the tank filled.

Today, after one month, we took the rig to an RV-park in El Centro for propane. We were greatly surprised when we learned that we had only used 18.5gal of propane for the whole month. That is quite a bit lower than what we would have used with our trailer. The much better insulation of this rig along with using a residential AC fridge might account for the low use of propane.

As the propane tank takes 38gal. we won't go for more propane any sooner than 6 weeks from now.

While I have been puttering around outside with any number of projects, Bea has been keeping a good eye on issues inside the coach. CLEANING has been a major part of her work. Some times you might find a rig being super clean when you purchase it, but I guess most times its cleanlyness is not what you want for yourself. 

But we are far from letting work projects take away the fun of enjoying this motorhome. So we have time for meeting friends, taking doggy walks and simply hanging out around the rig. Weather is fantastic with warm days and cool nights. It is great that desert nights are cooling off so we can sleep. Evenings we read or are watching a movie on the TV or Internet.

"Rosy" the pink elephant is always with us on tour

                                                  A little Christmas out front

Solar Power Set-Up In The Desert

 If you think you have read that very same headline before on this blog, you are absolutely right. I have consciously chosen the same headline.

Link to the page from 2012:

https://american-traveler.blogspot.com/2012/12/solar-power-setup-in-desert.html

This time though, the solar project has a different dimension.

Our rig has a residential fridge, meaning it needs 120V all the time. So in order "to feed that thing", and keep us with power for other gadgets, we need a certain amount of battery capacity and power generating capacity.

So far, we have used our small 2000W inverter generator. Combined with a smart-charger, I had to set the charger on either 20amps or 40 amps to keep our batteries charged up and the on-board inverter running.

But we don't like generators running. So obviously, quiet solar power would be the answer.

Checking our the available space on our roof, I came up with a plan to order 12 100W panels, 6 on either side of the rig. Bigger panels were available, but I couldn't find space for them on the roof. These panels, all together, brand new, were $717 plus tax only. The first 100W panel we ever bought back in 2002 was $500!!! So prices have come down a lot.

The ordered panels have arrived and we picked them up at the host station.

I have spent hours upon hours of planning how to mount these panels on the roof. Watching youTube videos has helped. The problem was that we don't have a plan of the steel-truss layout of this rig. That makes using screws into the roof difficult. And the roof has no plywood of substantial thickness, all it shows is 1/8" of something called luaun, which is a very, very thin sort of plywood.

The skin of the roof is alluminum and most of the rest of the roof is foam insulation. So no good for putting screws into it.

In my search for a solution, I watched a video where an RV-owner had mounted solar panels without drilling any holes. What he used was a double-sided tape. 

It was strong enough to hold down the entire installation. Yet he reenforced it with 'Sikaflex', a combined adhesive and caulking. Though I was very sceptical, I found this idea very interesting. And maybe, just maybe on, I could get 2 or 3 screws into the steel trusses of the rig. I used a deep-scan stud-finder to locate some trusses and marked off the center line on the roof.

So what did this RV-guy put on the tape? He used strut-channel, which is used by electricians. Strut channel is commonly available at both Home Depot and Lowes, and probably at some other stores as well.

I went to Home Depot in El Centro. I bought 8 10ft strut channels, which was almost all the store had in stock. The actual mounting of the solar panels is gonna happen by mounting them on crossbar angle-irons. Strut channels come with strut-nuts and bolts. Home Depot did not have enough of them, but I will get the missing amount from Lowes soon.

Today was the day that I climbed up on the roof.

First, I had to make lines for where the strut channels were gonna be. The distance between the channels would be 2ft.

After I had thoroughly cleaned the surface of the roof, first with water, then with alcohol, it was time to get the double-sided tape. The roll was wrapped in plastic and had a paper attached to either side. I removed all of that, which turned out to be a big mistake. The tape I use is called ETERNA BOND. The name hints on eternity and I was about to learn about what that meant for this project.

So I unrolled the required length of 10ft for the strut channel. Both sides of the tape have a plastic strip on the sticky surfaces. Cautiously, I removed the plastic on one side for 5-6inch only, then set the end of the tape into position. Now I peeled off more of the plastic and gradually put the tape down along the lines I had put on the roof. Once that was done I pressed down the tape with my hands all along the length of it.

While I had been working with lining up the tape, the roll fell over on its side. When I wanted to grab it, I couldn't pull it off of the roof. I finally had to use all my strength to get it off. This, of course, was the result of removing the protective paper on the side of the roll. So I quickly put the paper back on. The stickyness of this product is simply astounding.

Then I took one of the strut channels and put one end down on the tape, first then I lowered the metal channel  onto the tape. Once it was sitting there I stepped on top of the channel pressing it fully down on the tape using my weight of 76kg.

Naturally, I now was curious how well this would hold up. So for a test I grabbed the channel at one end with both hands trying to pull the channel off the tape. My sceptic mind was taught a lesson. There was no way that I, or anybody else, would be able to pull the channel off the roof again. once it was glued to the tape, it would stay there for good.

If one takes into account that I am also gonna use SIKAFLEX along the channel to further improve the hold on the roof, it becomes clear that screws into the roof would not be needed. No screws also means no risk of potential leaks in the future.

Let me also say, that it is nearly impossible to cut the tape with a knife. Once the blade is touching the sticky part, it pulls the material behind like chewing gum.

I still need more parts for completing the project, but once we have further progress, I will put out more postings.

While all of this is under development, I have hooked up 3 panels, positioned on our trailer. They are connected in parallel and during day hours, they feed great power into the batteries. The use of our generator is now reduced to a few hours in the evening.

By-the-way, though solar power is great, it needs to get paired with enough battery capacity. 

We have 4 new Trojan deep-cycle batteries with a combined capacity of 900 amp-hours. 12 100W solar panels will be able to feed 60amp-hours over approx 6-7hours a day. Since our batteries will never be 100% discharged, the system with the coach inverter will be able to keep us with power 24hrs/day.

Want to follow this project? Check back in a few days!

Stormy Weather

Everything was fine at 10pm when we went to bed, but that peace just lastet until around 2am when I woke up to one hellish noise. Something was terribly wrong. And something seemed to be banging against the bus. The pushing resulted in the bus shaking, and the howling outside was scary. Didn't take long and we both were awake.

I started thinking of our camp furniture outside. Where would that go? 

I tried to dive under the covers, ignoring the outside happenings, but I was fooling myself. I got out of bed looking after how Dixie was doing, she too was awake but not panicking.

Back to bed I tried another round of sleep. The whole thing lasted until about 4am, then the storm went down.

6am I was up again. In California that means daylight. I could still hear some wind outside, but not as bad as it had been earlier. Our furniture had tumbled around, but it was still there, so nothing got lost.

Got Dixie out the door, made some coffee, opened the phone and started reading some of the world's bad news. Have you noticed that there never is good news? We are all fed the bad news, day after day after day.

It takes some strong personality to uphold a positive mood.

After breakfast we took a walk with Dixie. Now that the sun was up, it wasn't bad at all.

After the walk I drove to Holtville to check on the mail and get some vegetables and fruits.

The postmaster handed me a lightweight cardboard box. It turned out it contained a package of 12" long flourescent lights for the rig. This would keep me busy for some time.

We have two kitchen lights which don't work. After replacing two of the tubes, it turned out they didn't work. 

Trying to find out why, I discovered that the former owner had placed an LED light tube into one of the fixtures. To power it, he had cut the two wires supplying power to the flourescent tubes and connected them to the LED. Naturally, I had to reverse this. I wouldn't have played with this at all, if it hadn't been 12V wires. 

After 2 hours of working with the lights, we finally had good lighting in the kitchen area.

And though I have no love for neither plumbing nor electrical matters, I can do simple work involving 12V gadgets. I was quite satisfied with what I had achieved. 

The rest of the day was spent relaxing with another doggy walk around 3pm. Wind was still strong, but I had taken a light jacket, so not bad.

For dinner I prepared sort of an exotic pork stew with lemon juice, banana, onion, honey, mustard, ketchup, a red pepper, lemon pepper and onion powder, finished off with a good Merlot Red Wine.

We had it with cooked rice. It was delicious

Sunny Days Are Here Again

 And that's the reason why we, and so many others, are spending winters in the south. The warm days, the rising sun every day, the relaxation we can afford here, it's worth the long drive and the thousands of dollars we spend in this country every year, despite of an unfortunate currency exchange rate, though that might change in the coming year, when the US-Dollar will decrease in value as we will see a recession coming up.

Probably the oldest RV place in Yuma. You look for something vintage, gone out of production, you can strike gold here

Enough of this, today we went to town to spend more of our dollars. Temps were rising to 28C (82F) and it was a rather hot experience. Wallymart was packed with shoppers, so was the Goodwill-Store. 

So the last items I had on my list were left at the Home Depot. Just had to get back to our peaceful spot in the desert. The ride across the dunes is always a special experience, especially when you live at the ocean.

A special landscape with its own beauty - no doubt.

Taking in on this special transport on the Interstate

The afternoon was spent with a cool drink in the shade of the rig. Ah - life is good as our friend from Saskatchewan used to say. (Never forgot it Bob!)

Still looking green - East Mesa

Occupying myself

As if I had to numb the powerlessness, the disappointment, and fight down a feeling of despair, I made this day a busy day. I had to occupy myself to avoid a depression, telling myself, "I am Canadian, I am not part of this country, I can ignore, I can survive. I have to concentrate on the positive things, our life, my wife and our dear dog. We are here on our winter vacation and to enjoy the warm weather and our friends.

Unfortunately, I also learned today that a bunch of Canadians here had a victory party to celebrate the Trump win. How dare they! How tasteless, how ignorant, how unbelievably dumb!

But good to know to avoid these people.

So what did I occupy myself with?

We started the day with a nice and early doggy walk. So refreshing to breathe the clear and cool morning air!

Later I took our propane stove from the van and mounted it on our auto trailer. With it I cooked a nice marinated pork filet. It turned out delicious. And I cooked a complete dinner with it. Super yummy!

I also took all our tie-down straps which had been in a heap back in the van, rolled them up neatly and tucked them away into a milk crate.

This pull-out tray makes stowing away things much easier

At around 11am I got a call from a tire place in town that they had received a van tire I had ordered. So after lunch I drove to town to get the tire mounted. Back in camp I put the wheel where it belonged, up under the rear of the van.

When going to town, I also dropped into a donut place and got 2 chocolate glazed delicacies, then onto the Dollar General for a new gallon of milk.

The day came to an end with another doggy walk. Underway we met a dear friend from Alberta who had arrived just the evening prior. Being a real true Canadian he expressed his opposition to the result of the US election and we stood around and talked about it for a while.

It does get dark early here. At 4:30pm daylight is almost gone. So time to stow away things outside and cozy up in our motorhome, which we now enjoy a lot.

Within the next 2 weeks more people will show up in camp and it will get more busy here.

Dixie found a great place under a bush. Here she sleeps many hours

The Day Many Are Grieving About

The Plumber Showed Up - We Got A New Faucet - But No Water From It

I have always maintained that Plumbing and Electrical work are two areas I should stay away from. I'm not too bad with woodworking but as soon metal becomes involved I'm calling for help.

So Plumber Derek from Affordable RV Repairs in Quartzsite came right on time, and he had a new faucet with him. It took him one hour only to install the new faucet, something I would have needed a day for it and probably would have gotten blood flowing from my hands. (not kidding here)

When it was time to test the system, I turned on the water pump. We waited, and waited.....and waited. The only thing coming out of the new faucet were a few droplets.

WHAT?????

Left, the new faucet - right, the tap for filtered water - both fed from the same water line

Now, besides of the new faucet is a little tap from where filtered water was actually running. The basic waterline is the same as to the regular faucet, but it just branches off to the filter. So how could it be that there was water from the little tap, but not from the main faucet?

Plumber Derek didn't know it either and so we checked around for some shut-offs, but found nothing. Now, there was also water in the bathroom faucet, but not from the faucet in the toilet room. The shower, however, showed full pressure! Very mystical!

But at least we could have the water pump running and didn't have to carry water around the rig.

So, this morning we were packing up to take on the last 2.5hrs from Quartzsite to Holtville,CA. Before leaving the area we topped up our water tank.

Had a great morning ride and arrived in Holtville mid-morning local time.

There I started the water pump to wash my hands. As soon as the water was flowing I heard Bea shouting from the kitchen: There is water here!

Ready set up at the Holtville Hot Springs LTVA

WHAT???

Sure enough, the new kitchen faucet had sprung to life and was producing a steady stream of water. However, the faucet in the toilet room is still mute. What in the world is going on???

Now you know why plumbing is not a favorite occupation of mine.

Fixing A Major Problem

Today was one of those Quartzsite days when the wind produces dust devils which eventually turn into local sand storms. The northern wind made the day rather cold and unpleasant. Days like this happen quite often at Quartzsite while they are very rare in Holtville. There is no doubt that we wouldn't be snowbirds if Quartzsite would be the only alternative. Btw, it also blows a lot in Yuma, AZ.

 I believe I mentioned that we have a leaky kitchen faucet and that said faucet was almost non-accessible. It had grieved me to no end that we hadn't been able to use our water pump. And since there was nothing else to do today, I threw myself into this adventure of fighting down that water faucet.

So with the mood and guts of desperation I decided to make another attempt on it. After a research on Google about how to repair a leaky one-handle faucet, I received a few hints.

I began on the top taking the faucet itself apart, which provided me with a feeling of immediate success. However, the thing needed to come out of its seat and for that I had to deal with the nut, which was screwed against the sink from underneath. This item was placed between the two sink bowls and quite far into the cupboard, its door so small that you can't get your body through it.

I wriggled and turned the faucet to losen the nut which eventually worked. I disconnected the water lines in the cupboard and after hours of hard work, I finally got that nut removed and was able to pull the whole thing out of the sink. VICTORY!

After this battle there is no more option of "repairing" the faucet, but rather do a replacement. Luckily, I got the RV-plumber on the phone and he promised to bring a new faucet and install it tomorrow. My removal of the old equiment has probably saved us an hour of work for tomorrow's installation. Once we have the man here, I will ask him to replace an over pressure valve at the hotwater boiler as well.

So if all this goes well, come Tuesday, we will be heading down the valley towards Yuma and Holtville.

And then....we will relax.

Writing down what happened on this daty

Life In Camp

After our arrival in Quartzsite we both fell into a state of laziness, not in mood to do anything substantial, though we had to go to town for laundry, gas and some necessary grocery shopping. The visit at the gas station turned into a huge surprise. The current advertised price of regular gas is 3:19/gal. But I have a "FUEL REWARDS" card which usually nets a 10-15cts. rebate. Not so today! The rebate was ONE DOLLAR/gal. After filling 30 gallons I left that station with a happy saving of 30 bucks! 

Being back in camp, it was mainly relaxing, taking shorter walks with Dixie and simply "hanging out".

Today, we were expecting some friends to stop by. Yves and Louise are folks we once met in Holtville and have been good friends with. This winter, they will not be around much in Holtville as they will go to Mexico. For us this would mean another 1200 miles (return trip) and we just don't feel for it. Besides, we have a big rig now and roadways in Mexico tend to be narrow.

But I went to town today for some donuts, a few tools and to find an ATM, as the host station only takes cash or cheques. So we got our seasonal permit for 180 bucks, which allows us to stay in any BLM area between September 15 and April 15.

On the way back I found our friends and guided them to our site. We had coffee and the donuts and lots to talk about.

In the afternoon I put up my "fixer hat". Fixed the snap function at our screen door (Mickey Moused it), then I looked at the tail lights of the motorhome as passenger side didn't show a brake light.

After removing the red cover, it appeared that there was no bulb. How come? To find out, I also removed the inner part of the lamp, and lo and behold, there I found a totally dusted-in bulb hanging down behind the whole thing. Somehow the thing had worked its way out of the seat and fallen down. After cleaning the bulb and returning it into its seat we found the bulb working perfectly. So I used the opportunity to remove all dust out of the housing and from the red cover. Then I repeated the same operation on the driver side, which wasn't looking any better.

Things to fix  like this can still be found other places on this rig. Re. the fixing of our kitchen faucet we tried to call the RV-Tech, but it turned out we had to wait until Monday when the guy actually starts working. His phone # indicates he is not a local but runs a business here during winter season only. And his winter season starts Monday. I hope we can get him over here Monday.

Bea did some interior photos after "cleaning up all around".

And that's all for now. 

Enjoy life, it's shorter than most people realize.