It has been a good long time since I've posted (and rightly so, maybe more on that at some future time). Things have been quite crazy "out there", but that's what was expected and should most certainly come as no surprise. Between the now admitted triple meltdown at the Fukushima nuke plant, the record breaking floods that currently threaten one or possibly two nuclear plants here in the US and the raging wild fires currently threatening the Los Alamos nuclear storage containers in New Mexico, there definitely appears to be a "running theme" developing. Then there's the continuing "GlobalRev" uprisings around the world along with the failed attempts to hijack the movements by TPTB, the continuing economic collapse playing out like a slow motion train wreck and the incredible weather anomalies that are only now being recognized as "incredible" by the MSM. Again, maybe more on these at a future time.
See, that's not what this post is about. I'm not interested in posting an "update" on the news, nor an editorial opinion piece...nor even a "how to" type article about RVing or growing a container garden in a campground somewhere in Florida.
If you're not already "up-to-date", you're simply doing it wrong.
If you're more interested in what I have to say than what an expert has to say, I thank you but please do check out the expert first - we can chat later about what he/she says.
If you haven't been greedily consuming everything you can find on the net about "how to" this or that, you are not only wasting valuable time but you most likely deserve the ignorance you currently possess on your particular "this or that".
No - this "post" is a sort of reminder of what should be considered sustainable. This post is here to help clarify some very false and potentially lethal misinformation that's out there (and has been out there), and hopefully help guide the misguided toward a more rational middle path (both in a physical, practical sense and in a more "spiritual path" or "way of life" kind of way).
And to top it all off, I'm not even going to write a "proper post". I'm going to simply embed a video you should watch, in which an actual expert talks about this, and leave it at that. So here's that video:
Showing posts with label RV. Show all posts
Showing posts with label RV. Show all posts
2.28.2011
When Mars and Saturn Conjunct, Expect Disaster
Something intriguing, and truly terrifying, happened last year from July 29th through August 2nd, and I am sure I'm not the only one who's noticed it. It's like everyone lost their friggin minds and the universe itself became hostile to life. People were quick to anger and nothing seemed to get done. Everything blew up in your face, all at once. It became a Hell on Earth, and it seemed to come out of nowhere. At least, that's how I experienced it.
You see, the two "big bad guys" of astrology, Mars and Saturn, went conjunct in the first degree of Libra. They formed a T-square with the Uranus/Jupiter conjunction on the Aries cusp in opposition and Pluto in Capricorn at the apex. Anyone paying attention should have seen it coming, and with my own natal Mars just beyond 1* Libra, and my natal Saturn at about 17* Libra, I definitely should have. But who would have thought a "silly conjunction" could lead to what transpired?
While this conjunction was happening, a friend and I were RVing our way out to New Mexico. We were on our way through Alabama on the 2nd, taking what I believed to be the more relaxed and scenic route. A severe, record-smashing heatwave was in progress, with temperatures soaring over 110*F and humidity beyond anything I thought was possible on this planet, so we had been driving at night. Each day, when the roads got too hot to drive safely, we'd pull off and either find a motel or pull into a rest area. This particular morning, we had pulled into a rest area and had fired up the generator so we could run the AC. When the generator would overheated and quit on us, which happened at a fairly regular interval, I'd wait a little while before running out to fire it back up. Meanwhile, we were kicking back and enjoying the AC, chatting about trivial things and what had been on the radio that night. I remember my friend telling me a story about something that had happened that morning which struck me funny in a bad way. I knew then that it was important, but I had no idea that it was foreshadowing the week-long living nightmare that would have us actually fearing for our lives.
She had gone to get a couple gallons of water from the restrooms. On her way up to the restrooms, a young shirtless man, American Indian, pointed her toward an old style water pump. Not thinking much of it, she went over and started pumping like crazy trying to fill the jugs. Barely anything was coming out. She gave up and went into the restroom to use the sink at this point, if memory serves. After getting the water and on her way back to the RV, an old man (I think she said he was wearing all black) was walking down the steps next to her and had said something to her. For the life of me, I can't remember what he said to her, but it struck me as a sort of admonition or judgement, whatever it was.
I had immediately remembered that Saturn and Mars were conjunct in Libra, and connected it to that - the young shirtless man represented Mars as "Warrior" (with a mean sense of humor evidently) and the old man was Saturn as "Judge". We both got a bit of a chuckle out of it, but didn't really know what to make of it.
It was only a little while later, on one of my trips out to fire up the generator, that I realized we had sprung a massive leak and gasoline was pouring out from under my friend's RV. An urgent call went in to her roadside assistance service and before we knew it, all hell seemed to be breaking loose. They had called out the fire department, police and hazmat. The entire rest area was being cleared out for fear of explosions. For people who don't like to be in the spotlight, this was becoming humiliating.
Hours were going by as we waited for a tow truck to show up, and temperatures were already soaring over 110*F in that unshaded parking lot. My friend and I were overtired and hungry, and quickly becoming severely dehydrated and sunburned. Nothing was going right. In my attempts to figure out the cause of the leak, and hopefully stop everything from pouring out of the tank, my whole upper body and most of my face had become covered with dirt, melted tar and gasoline. It felt like my skin was on fire as the gasoline burned the surface of my skin. A second call had gone in to roadside assistance...A third... "Someone should be out there in about 45 minutes," they kept saying.
The police and hazmat team had left after a little while, but "fire and rescue" stayed waiting for the tow truck to show. Their "chief", or whatever he was, continuously quizzed me, asking pointed questions as if probing for dirt and honestly looking to piss me off. This guy wanted to pick a fight with me for whatever reason. It was a miracle I didn't knock the guy's teeth down his throat, honestly - I was stressed right to (what I thought was the breaking point) and this guy was purposely, and very obviously, trying to throw me over the edge.
After about the 5th call in to her roadside assistance (it all got pretty blurry after a while), we learned that they had been waiting for an "all clear" phone call from the fire department before they could send out a tow truck. "Wow, what a mess," was all I could say. Once we were told they were waiting for this, and they were told in no uncertain terms that the fire department had been waiting for hours with us, we were finally able to get our tow.
When the tow truck had arrived, the driver insisted that it was ok for us to leave my friend's car on the tow dolly attached to her rig while he towed it. This way I could follow with my rig and my friend, who was in no shape to be driving, with severe dehydration and sun poisoning setting in, could just ride with me as we followed him to the shop. Everything seemed great until he got it on the highway and commenced driving at speeds over 65 miles per hour. I could barely keep up, hauling my rig with my undersized truck, and we could see the car violently bouncing all over the road behind him.
And that's when then the next series of disasters began. You see, the roadside assistance service called him to come out and haul the rig to a closer shop where another company would fix the gas leak. We ended up getting towed miles further, into what seemed the middle of nowhere, to the "shop" run by the towing company. But this "shop" was not a shop at all - it was a scrap yard. We found ourselves standing inside a barbed wire fence and surrounded by busted up cars and trucks, rusty and falling apart, replete with bullet holes and smashed up windshields, in the middle of Central Alabama, miles from the nearest town. The place was truly like something out of a horror film.
They asked me to pull the car off the tow dolly so they could back up the rig into the shade and start working on it - no problem...but as I put the car into gear, a loud grinding sound erupted from underneath. The car rolled back off the dolly and the driver's side wheel went sideways! The ball joint had snapped, quite obviously from the violent 70mph towing, and now nobody wanted to fix it!
At this point, trying to handle all the pressure, as I argued angrily with the people that ran the scrap yard, I found myself shaking all over and on the verge of hysteria. All I knew was someone had to fix this. We couldn't even put the car back on the tow dolly the way it was! My friend, at this point, was beginning to pass in and out of consciousness, and was becoming delirious, because of the extreme heat and dehydration combined with sun poisoning from severe sunburn. My keys had gone missing and the pets were locked up in my 5th wheel, baking in the full sun.
I found myself in the middle of a literal Hell on Earth.
I don't know who made the call, but somebody decided to cut me a bit of slack. Someone was sent out to fix the car. A small miracle. Of course, they weren't going to fix it for free - we would have to pay for parts and labor. They had no idea how that ball joint broke and assumed zero responsibility for it. Being stuck the way we were, I said no problem...I just wanted things fixed so we could get away from there ASAP. Interestingly, the timing of this small reprieve coincides with the Moon coming within a 3* orb of my natal Sun in Taurus.
But then a new disaster began. Yes, another disaster. Evidently, after arguing with the woman in the "office" (if you could call it that), she had decided to call her brother to come "beat me up". It was suddenly like a fight scene from a grade school playground - this guy comes walking over and starts pushing and shoving me. Six others come out from nowhere and begin circling. I remember the guy having some kind of long metal tool in his hands - a tire iron? I'm yelling at this guy to calm down - that I don't want to fight anyone - barely believing this is happening. He's in a fit of rage, yelling about something to do with his sister and me threatening her, and can't even hear me. My friend suddenly appeared in the middle of all this, pushing the guy back and yelling at him. Absolute chaos.
Honestly, I remember so very little, and everything was basically a blur, but no punches were ever thrown and nobody got hurt. It's like another small miracle occurred. Next thing I remember was that I was trying to help the guy who was tasked with fixing the gas leak, handing him tools again. I assume I was starting to black out because of the extreme stress, both physical and mental. A good portion of the day is nothing but a hazy fog.
Anyway, the "shop" was proving itself completely incompetent at this point, and was unable to fix the gas leak. We ended up spending the night boondocking (no water/electric/sewer) in their dirt "parking lot" and once everyone left the scrap yard for the night, we contacted the roadside assistance service and told them all of what had happened. They seemed extremely concerned and informed us to call the next day if they weren't getting it fixed right away, or if there was any more trouble whatsoever. I had some water still in my tanks and a fully charged battery, so I was finally able to get the gasoline and other filth off my skin. At this point, though, I was pretty numb all over and wasn't feeling any pain. We settled in and talked about the events of the day in utter disbelief. Needless to say, we waited all night for someone to show up looking to "disappear" our bodies in that scrap yard.
The next day we were woken at 7:30am and informed they wanted to start on fixing the leak "first thing". Hours went by as the temperature increased and nothing was touched. At noon, we gave the roadside assistance another call to let them know that nothing had been done. They replied, in a somewhat snotty tone, that they couldn't do anything about it and we'd just have to wait. I can tell you, the look on our faces must have been priceless.
About an hour later, however, the "shop" decided to send someone out to begin working on it. Less than 2 hours later, they told us it was fixed and we owed them some outrageous amount of money. They claimed to have adjusted the carburetor, replaced hoses and all other sorts of unnecessary and non-approved work. We happily payed them and left that place as fast as we could.
On our way to the highway, we pulled off to wait for the roads to cool down as it had been another scorcher with temperatures around 110*F. We couldn't afford to ruin expensive tires on hot roads, especially now. Besides that, we desperately needed a mental and emotional break before we got back on the road. The ordeal of the last two days had been rough on both of us, so we got some fast food and sat in a grassy spot under a shade tree, relaxing for a couple hours.
As the sun got lower in the sky and the roads began to cool, we made our way back to the rigs to get ready for the road...and we found another puddle of gas starting to develop.
Another call in to the roadside service - and we flat out refused to have the same people work on the leak. After some arguing and talking with supervisors, they called the place we were supposed to be towed to originally who showed up in record time to tow the rig. The story of what had happened at the last place had been told, so this shop went the extra mile to make sure we were comfortable - even going so far as to get us water and electric hookups so we could shower and run the AC...but then the waiting game began...
Hours went by...and then days...without any work being done on the leak. The one mechanic they had on duty was being called over and over to on-site truck repairs, one after another, until he could barely stand up straight. We didn't dare complain. The mechanic was friendly, plus we had water and AC now, so we felt that to complain or seem impatient would be insulting...if not to him, then to the universe itself.
Days went by as we waited patiently for him to have time. Each night we spent there, we found ourselves keeping our ears perked, listening for the people from the scrap yard looking to get revenge for our complaints. We started to feel like prisoners - like we'd never get out of Alabama without leaving my friend's RV behind.
Finally, as Venus conjuncted with Saturn on the 9th, the mechanic found a couple hours in his day to fix the leak. He told us that he felt bad we had to wait so long, and gave us a deal on labor. And that night, we were back on the road.
I'm wondering if anyone else out there had an experience last summer coinciding with that Mars and Saturn conjunction. If you did, what happened? Was it related to heat? Combustion? Anger? Broken metal or bones? Delays?
I, for one, will never underestimate the power of transits again.
You see, the two "big bad guys" of astrology, Mars and Saturn, went conjunct in the first degree of Libra. They formed a T-square with the Uranus/Jupiter conjunction on the Aries cusp in opposition and Pluto in Capricorn at the apex. Anyone paying attention should have seen it coming, and with my own natal Mars just beyond 1* Libra, and my natal Saturn at about 17* Libra, I definitely should have. But who would have thought a "silly conjunction" could lead to what transpired?
While this conjunction was happening, a friend and I were RVing our way out to New Mexico. We were on our way through Alabama on the 2nd, taking what I believed to be the more relaxed and scenic route. A severe, record-smashing heatwave was in progress, with temperatures soaring over 110*F and humidity beyond anything I thought was possible on this planet, so we had been driving at night. Each day, when the roads got too hot to drive safely, we'd pull off and either find a motel or pull into a rest area. This particular morning, we had pulled into a rest area and had fired up the generator so we could run the AC. When the generator would overheated and quit on us, which happened at a fairly regular interval, I'd wait a little while before running out to fire it back up. Meanwhile, we were kicking back and enjoying the AC, chatting about trivial things and what had been on the radio that night. I remember my friend telling me a story about something that had happened that morning which struck me funny in a bad way. I knew then that it was important, but I had no idea that it was foreshadowing the week-long living nightmare that would have us actually fearing for our lives.
She had gone to get a couple gallons of water from the restrooms. On her way up to the restrooms, a young shirtless man, American Indian, pointed her toward an old style water pump. Not thinking much of it, she went over and started pumping like crazy trying to fill the jugs. Barely anything was coming out. She gave up and went into the restroom to use the sink at this point, if memory serves. After getting the water and on her way back to the RV, an old man (I think she said he was wearing all black) was walking down the steps next to her and had said something to her. For the life of me, I can't remember what he said to her, but it struck me as a sort of admonition or judgement, whatever it was.
I had immediately remembered that Saturn and Mars were conjunct in Libra, and connected it to that - the young shirtless man represented Mars as "Warrior" (with a mean sense of humor evidently) and the old man was Saturn as "Judge". We both got a bit of a chuckle out of it, but didn't really know what to make of it.
It was only a little while later, on one of my trips out to fire up the generator, that I realized we had sprung a massive leak and gasoline was pouring out from under my friend's RV. An urgent call went in to her roadside assistance service and before we knew it, all hell seemed to be breaking loose. They had called out the fire department, police and hazmat. The entire rest area was being cleared out for fear of explosions. For people who don't like to be in the spotlight, this was becoming humiliating.
Hours were going by as we waited for a tow truck to show up, and temperatures were already soaring over 110*F in that unshaded parking lot. My friend and I were overtired and hungry, and quickly becoming severely dehydrated and sunburned. Nothing was going right. In my attempts to figure out the cause of the leak, and hopefully stop everything from pouring out of the tank, my whole upper body and most of my face had become covered with dirt, melted tar and gasoline. It felt like my skin was on fire as the gasoline burned the surface of my skin. A second call had gone in to roadside assistance...A third... "Someone should be out there in about 45 minutes," they kept saying.
The police and hazmat team had left after a little while, but "fire and rescue" stayed waiting for the tow truck to show. Their "chief", or whatever he was, continuously quizzed me, asking pointed questions as if probing for dirt and honestly looking to piss me off. This guy wanted to pick a fight with me for whatever reason. It was a miracle I didn't knock the guy's teeth down his throat, honestly - I was stressed right to (what I thought was the breaking point) and this guy was purposely, and very obviously, trying to throw me over the edge.
After about the 5th call in to her roadside assistance (it all got pretty blurry after a while), we learned that they had been waiting for an "all clear" phone call from the fire department before they could send out a tow truck. "Wow, what a mess," was all I could say. Once we were told they were waiting for this, and they were told in no uncertain terms that the fire department had been waiting for hours with us, we were finally able to get our tow.
When the tow truck had arrived, the driver insisted that it was ok for us to leave my friend's car on the tow dolly attached to her rig while he towed it. This way I could follow with my rig and my friend, who was in no shape to be driving, with severe dehydration and sun poisoning setting in, could just ride with me as we followed him to the shop. Everything seemed great until he got it on the highway and commenced driving at speeds over 65 miles per hour. I could barely keep up, hauling my rig with my undersized truck, and we could see the car violently bouncing all over the road behind him.
And that's when then the next series of disasters began. You see, the roadside assistance service called him to come out and haul the rig to a closer shop where another company would fix the gas leak. We ended up getting towed miles further, into what seemed the middle of nowhere, to the "shop" run by the towing company. But this "shop" was not a shop at all - it was a scrap yard. We found ourselves standing inside a barbed wire fence and surrounded by busted up cars and trucks, rusty and falling apart, replete with bullet holes and smashed up windshields, in the middle of Central Alabama, miles from the nearest town. The place was truly like something out of a horror film.
They asked me to pull the car off the tow dolly so they could back up the rig into the shade and start working on it - no problem...but as I put the car into gear, a loud grinding sound erupted from underneath. The car rolled back off the dolly and the driver's side wheel went sideways! The ball joint had snapped, quite obviously from the violent 70mph towing, and now nobody wanted to fix it!
At this point, trying to handle all the pressure, as I argued angrily with the people that ran the scrap yard, I found myself shaking all over and on the verge of hysteria. All I knew was someone had to fix this. We couldn't even put the car back on the tow dolly the way it was! My friend, at this point, was beginning to pass in and out of consciousness, and was becoming delirious, because of the extreme heat and dehydration combined with sun poisoning from severe sunburn. My keys had gone missing and the pets were locked up in my 5th wheel, baking in the full sun.
I found myself in the middle of a literal Hell on Earth.
I don't know who made the call, but somebody decided to cut me a bit of slack. Someone was sent out to fix the car. A small miracle. Of course, they weren't going to fix it for free - we would have to pay for parts and labor. They had no idea how that ball joint broke and assumed zero responsibility for it. Being stuck the way we were, I said no problem...I just wanted things fixed so we could get away from there ASAP. Interestingly, the timing of this small reprieve coincides with the Moon coming within a 3* orb of my natal Sun in Taurus.
But then a new disaster began. Yes, another disaster. Evidently, after arguing with the woman in the "office" (if you could call it that), she had decided to call her brother to come "beat me up". It was suddenly like a fight scene from a grade school playground - this guy comes walking over and starts pushing and shoving me. Six others come out from nowhere and begin circling. I remember the guy having some kind of long metal tool in his hands - a tire iron? I'm yelling at this guy to calm down - that I don't want to fight anyone - barely believing this is happening. He's in a fit of rage, yelling about something to do with his sister and me threatening her, and can't even hear me. My friend suddenly appeared in the middle of all this, pushing the guy back and yelling at him. Absolute chaos.
Honestly, I remember so very little, and everything was basically a blur, but no punches were ever thrown and nobody got hurt. It's like another small miracle occurred. Next thing I remember was that I was trying to help the guy who was tasked with fixing the gas leak, handing him tools again. I assume I was starting to black out because of the extreme stress, both physical and mental. A good portion of the day is nothing but a hazy fog.
Anyway, the "shop" was proving itself completely incompetent at this point, and was unable to fix the gas leak. We ended up spending the night boondocking (no water/electric/sewer) in their dirt "parking lot" and once everyone left the scrap yard for the night, we contacted the roadside assistance service and told them all of what had happened. They seemed extremely concerned and informed us to call the next day if they weren't getting it fixed right away, or if there was any more trouble whatsoever. I had some water still in my tanks and a fully charged battery, so I was finally able to get the gasoline and other filth off my skin. At this point, though, I was pretty numb all over and wasn't feeling any pain. We settled in and talked about the events of the day in utter disbelief. Needless to say, we waited all night for someone to show up looking to "disappear" our bodies in that scrap yard.
The next day we were woken at 7:30am and informed they wanted to start on fixing the leak "first thing". Hours went by as the temperature increased and nothing was touched. At noon, we gave the roadside assistance another call to let them know that nothing had been done. They replied, in a somewhat snotty tone, that they couldn't do anything about it and we'd just have to wait. I can tell you, the look on our faces must have been priceless.
About an hour later, however, the "shop" decided to send someone out to begin working on it. Less than 2 hours later, they told us it was fixed and we owed them some outrageous amount of money. They claimed to have adjusted the carburetor, replaced hoses and all other sorts of unnecessary and non-approved work. We happily payed them and left that place as fast as we could.
On our way to the highway, we pulled off to wait for the roads to cool down as it had been another scorcher with temperatures around 110*F. We couldn't afford to ruin expensive tires on hot roads, especially now. Besides that, we desperately needed a mental and emotional break before we got back on the road. The ordeal of the last two days had been rough on both of us, so we got some fast food and sat in a grassy spot under a shade tree, relaxing for a couple hours.
As the sun got lower in the sky and the roads began to cool, we made our way back to the rigs to get ready for the road...and we found another puddle of gas starting to develop.
Another call in to the roadside service - and we flat out refused to have the same people work on the leak. After some arguing and talking with supervisors, they called the place we were supposed to be towed to originally who showed up in record time to tow the rig. The story of what had happened at the last place had been told, so this shop went the extra mile to make sure we were comfortable - even going so far as to get us water and electric hookups so we could shower and run the AC...but then the waiting game began...
Hours went by...and then days...without any work being done on the leak. The one mechanic they had on duty was being called over and over to on-site truck repairs, one after another, until he could barely stand up straight. We didn't dare complain. The mechanic was friendly, plus we had water and AC now, so we felt that to complain or seem impatient would be insulting...if not to him, then to the universe itself.
Days went by as we waited patiently for him to have time. Each night we spent there, we found ourselves keeping our ears perked, listening for the people from the scrap yard looking to get revenge for our complaints. We started to feel like prisoners - like we'd never get out of Alabama without leaving my friend's RV behind.
Finally, as Venus conjuncted with Saturn on the 9th, the mechanic found a couple hours in his day to fix the leak. He told us that he felt bad we had to wait so long, and gave us a deal on labor. And that night, we were back on the road.
I'm wondering if anyone else out there had an experience last summer coinciding with that Mars and Saturn conjunction. If you did, what happened? Was it related to heat? Combustion? Anger? Broken metal or bones? Delays?
I, for one, will never underestimate the power of transits again.
1.31.2011
Simple Solar Heating for RVs
Having lived full-time in an RV for several years now, my "green" side tends to run wild at times yielding some interesting results. With the economy just totally sucking the way it does, and so many people ending up living in campers "not by choice", some of these quirky projects from my past may be invaluable. This will be the first of a series of posts where I share some of these projects.
For those of you living in a location that receives cold winters, this project might prove invaluable. It saved me hundreds of dollars in heating costs while living in central New Hampshire, and only cost less than $50 to set up!
Firstly, here's an animated gif that demonstrates simple passive solar heating. With just a basic understanding of how this works, you'll probably find yourself coming up with some pretty cool ideas on how to harness the power of the sun. Keep in mind that the amount of heat generated when sunlight hits black collector plates is substantial - up to 800 or even 1200 BTUs per square foot! That easily translated to air temperatures of 50 to 100 degrees warmer coming out of the heater than the air that goes in.
I tried various ideas, from what I called a "solar curtain" hung in my kitchen window to various simple window collectors made from old cardboard boxes spray painted black. They certainly worked, and worked well, but I knew I could do better. Plus, all the projects I had been trying would just recycle the stale indoor air. You see, I smoke cigarettes and absolutely refuse to "smoke outside" in the middle of a New Hampshire winter. I wanted a way to pipe in heated fresh air from outside.
The solution was to set up some solar collectors on the outside of my camper, one on each south-facing window. To ensure the temperature of the air coming in to the camper was good and hot, I used 12V computer fans (hooked into my RV's 12V system of course) to blow the air in through the window when a thermostat registers high enough temperatures.
The "collector plates" were simply thin sheets of wood, painted black and taped to the side of my camper. I used 1x2 lumber to create a simple frame for securing the clear plastic (.7 mil). The cold outside air entered through the bottom of the collector and heated up against the black collector plates. The heated air naturally rose to the top of the collector, where it was then blown inside by a computer fan.
Outside air temperatures were around 30 degrees on the day I took these photos. By 3:30pm, the temperatures inside the collector were over 110 degrees and the temperature of the air blowing into the camper was about 87 degrees.
A cheap programmable thermostat, set to the "cool" mode, monitored the air temperature inside the collector. When the temp was above my setting of 80 degrees, it sent power, as though it were turning on the AC, to the computer fans. When the air inside the collector cooled down, either because the sun was beginning to set or it had gone behind clouds, the thermostat stopped sending power and the fans shut off.
Like I said, this system saved me hundreds of dollars in heating costs over the course of that one winter, and the total cost to set it up was less than $50. There were problems with the system, of course: on windy nights, cold air would often sneak through creating drafts. Overall, though, this system was a huge success.
Watch for my post about a makeshift "sun room" made from plastic and electrical conduit that ended up saving me over a thousand dollars AND provided fresh greens all winter!
For those of you living in a location that receives cold winters, this project might prove invaluable. It saved me hundreds of dollars in heating costs while living in central New Hampshire, and only cost less than $50 to set up!
Firstly, here's an animated gif that demonstrates simple passive solar heating. With just a basic understanding of how this works, you'll probably find yourself coming up with some pretty cool ideas on how to harness the power of the sun. Keep in mind that the amount of heat generated when sunlight hits black collector plates is substantial - up to 800 or even 1200 BTUs per square foot! That easily translated to air temperatures of 50 to 100 degrees warmer coming out of the heater than the air that goes in.
I tried various ideas, from what I called a "solar curtain" hung in my kitchen window to various simple window collectors made from old cardboard boxes spray painted black. They certainly worked, and worked well, but I knew I could do better. Plus, all the projects I had been trying would just recycle the stale indoor air. You see, I smoke cigarettes and absolutely refuse to "smoke outside" in the middle of a New Hampshire winter. I wanted a way to pipe in heated fresh air from outside.
The "collector plates" were simply thin sheets of wood, painted black and taped to the side of my camper. I used 1x2 lumber to create a simple frame for securing the clear plastic (.7 mil). The cold outside air entered through the bottom of the collector and heated up against the black collector plates. The heated air naturally rose to the top of the collector, where it was then blown inside by a computer fan.
Outside air temperatures were around 30 degrees on the day I took these photos. By 3:30pm, the temperatures inside the collector were over 110 degrees and the temperature of the air blowing into the camper was about 87 degrees.
 |  |
| Kitchen window collector Fan is not in operation (note plastic flap) | Bedroom window collector Fan in operation |
 |  |
| Thermostat in operation At 80* and above, the thermostat sends 12V power to the fans | Air temperatures in operation Numbers top to bottom: temp of air blowing in, temp inside the collector and humidity |
A cheap programmable thermostat, set to the "cool" mode, monitored the air temperature inside the collector. When the temp was above my setting of 80 degrees, it sent power, as though it were turning on the AC, to the computer fans. When the air inside the collector cooled down, either because the sun was beginning to set or it had gone behind clouds, the thermostat stopped sending power and the fans shut off.
Like I said, this system saved me hundreds of dollars in heating costs over the course of that one winter, and the total cost to set it up was less than $50. There were problems with the system, of course: on windy nights, cold air would often sneak through creating drafts. Overall, though, this system was a huge success.
Watch for my post about a makeshift "sun room" made from plastic and electrical conduit that ended up saving me over a thousand dollars AND provided fresh greens all winter!
1.07.2011
A Warning on the Perilous Act of Buying a Camper, or How I Learned to Trust Nothing and Got Stuck with a Rotting Tin Can
Back in 2006, I knew nothing about what to look for in a camper. At the time, I was recently out of college after a year studying for a philosophy major. Money was so tight that I was unable to qualify for another loan, so it was a no-go on continuing my education. I left school and moved in with Mom to help her sell the house she was living in (and about to lose). After a thorough house prep, I got a job doing graphic arts for a major corporation and we started putting money into "important things" - learning such things as how to make our own herbal tinctures and soap-making as well as good quality "Bug Out Bags" and miscellaneous survival gear.
After months of trying to sell and barely ever showing the house, we got a bite. It wasn't much of a bite, however, as the selling price was a mere $6k above what was still owed - we felt lucky to get that much.
So the next move, carefully planned out based on internal feelings, money supply and the prophecies, predictions and trends of the time, was to buy a camper. This would allow us to be mobile in the event of a disaster. It cost less than an apartment or house and would not only allow, but actually force us to get out and enjoy nature again. Many aspects of the full-timer lifestyle appealed to us, not the least of which was the idea that if you don't like your neighbors, you could just move your house.
But in retrospect, I should have done a lot more research on what to look for. With such a small amount of money to work with, the only options were used and mostly abused rigs, most of which were literal nightmares manifest. We checked the floors for soft spots and wouldn't buy anything with signs of water damage. We knew enough to ask about water tanks and heaters, furnaces and propane lines. And we finally found one: a 26' fifth wheel rig that seemed a wonderful investment.
Note the use of the word "seemed".
We found a campground that was like an oasis in the middle of the city, here in Florida, with trees and grass and big, roomy sites. A few months later, we hauled north to New Hampshire to spend time with my ailing grandmother. But after a total of maybe 6 months living in the rig, we discovered something shocking: the wall around the stove vent was completely rotted out. You see, we didn't know how rot occurs in these rigs. The wall may look 100% normal from both the rig's inside and out, but behind that wall-paper covering, the wood might be sopping wet, rotted out and full of termites and carpenter ants. We started running around checking everywhere and found that most of the walls in the camper were fine. We assumed it was isolated.
Then, about 8 months later, during a prolonged period of rainy, dreary New England days, a drip developed from the ceiling in the overhang, directly over the queen bed. I made my way to the roof to check things out and realized the rubber membrane showed no signs of cracking or anything. There was no pooling water, no rips or tears...no sign of why the ceiling was leaking. By the next morning, the ceiling was dripping fast and steady from a couple locations along the panel joints. I opened things up to check where the water was getting in since the roof seemed fine, not knowing what I was going to find.
And I found mold. A lot of it. I found the 2x2 framing was rotted through in spots. I found the 1/8" chip board that presses directly against the rubber membrane swelled up and sopping wet. It fell apart with the lightest touch of the finger.
From there, I proceeded to remove the entire ceiling in the overhang. The damage was extensive, showing what must have been years of water damage, rot and mold. Fungus of all colors covered the face of the chip board. The small amount of fiberglass insulation was blackened and soaked with water. As I opened up the walls, I found the same thing had happened there and was only just starting to penetrate into the interior panelling.
At this point, I got very discouraged. My mother had moved out of the camper a few months previous and I was fairly cash poor - there was no way I could afford to strip everything down and rebuild, nor could I afford to get another rig. I opted to just seal things off and sleep on the couch until my situation improved. Up went the plastic to protect both myself and the pets from the infestation of mold, to at least some extent. I made it a regular habit to spray down the walls and ceiling with a mist of bleach solution.
And I resolved to save money up to get myself another rig - a rig that I could be sure is safe from such disastrous neglect.
That was back in 2007 when I made that resolution. Of course, like most long term goals, nothing has gone to plan. In 2008, I was forced to change jobs. I began earning a bigger and much more reliable paycheck, but my savings grew slowly. My car broke down, then my truck, then my car again...then my truck again. Gas prices went through the roof and I found myself driving my 8-cyl Dodge pickup 60 miles a day. Frankly, in today's world, what money there is just doesn't like to hang around long.
By the summer of 2009, I finally had enough saved to start figuring out what the next step would be. I began vigorously researching various rigs and was disappointed by everything that was available. The better rigs cost more than I could afford and what was in my price range had all the same weaknesses I had discovered with this rig: rubber membrane roof, basically no insulation, poorly designed electrical systems, and cheap construction materials with no thought to durability.
The best solution, I decided, was to literally build my own - a "Bus Conversion", and specifically one on a "flat-nose schoolie". I drew up the plans and budget, then set out looking for my bus.
But then, that October, I got a wake up call I couldn't ignore. My gut told me to get moving in no uncertain terms. By that December, I had quit my job and moved back to Florida. I spent around $2k of my meager savings in that move, paying for gas, repairs, new tires, rent and food. It took me three months to find work, but once I did I was ok again. After 3 more months, I was back to where I was and felt comfortable.
But then another wake up call. Another push into the unknown. I found myself moving to New Mexico and spending out of my savings yet again. And the trend continued.
You see, I'm now effectively stuck with this rig. No matter what plans I make, I can't seem to get out of it. Something else always comes up. I'm back in Florida with about half of my original savings left. Meanwhile, the exterior seams have popped and the roof leaks in dozens of places. In fact, the roof is caving in now on the overhang.
So you ask yourself, what's the point? What's the moral of the story?
Due diligence and thorough research. Never take anything at face value.
If you, like so many others, are finding yourself ready to buy a used camper and become a full-timer, learn about what to look for. Learn about what might go wrong. By making a single honest mistake in the beginning of all this, I have spent years dealing with dripping ceilings and worries about mold.
What appears to be is rarely the case with these rigs, and you're probably going to be stuck with what you buy for years to come.
After months of trying to sell and barely ever showing the house, we got a bite. It wasn't much of a bite, however, as the selling price was a mere $6k above what was still owed - we felt lucky to get that much.
So the next move, carefully planned out based on internal feelings, money supply and the prophecies, predictions and trends of the time, was to buy a camper. This would allow us to be mobile in the event of a disaster. It cost less than an apartment or house and would not only allow, but actually force us to get out and enjoy nature again. Many aspects of the full-timer lifestyle appealed to us, not the least of which was the idea that if you don't like your neighbors, you could just move your house.
But in retrospect, I should have done a lot more research on what to look for. With such a small amount of money to work with, the only options were used and mostly abused rigs, most of which were literal nightmares manifest. We checked the floors for soft spots and wouldn't buy anything with signs of water damage. We knew enough to ask about water tanks and heaters, furnaces and propane lines. And we finally found one: a 26' fifth wheel rig that seemed a wonderful investment.
Note the use of the word "seemed".
We found a campground that was like an oasis in the middle of the city, here in Florida, with trees and grass and big, roomy sites. A few months later, we hauled north to New Hampshire to spend time with my ailing grandmother. But after a total of maybe 6 months living in the rig, we discovered something shocking: the wall around the stove vent was completely rotted out. You see, we didn't know how rot occurs in these rigs. The wall may look 100% normal from both the rig's inside and out, but behind that wall-paper covering, the wood might be sopping wet, rotted out and full of termites and carpenter ants. We started running around checking everywhere and found that most of the walls in the camper were fine. We assumed it was isolated.
Then, about 8 months later, during a prolonged period of rainy, dreary New England days, a drip developed from the ceiling in the overhang, directly over the queen bed. I made my way to the roof to check things out and realized the rubber membrane showed no signs of cracking or anything. There was no pooling water, no rips or tears...no sign of why the ceiling was leaking. By the next morning, the ceiling was dripping fast and steady from a couple locations along the panel joints. I opened things up to check where the water was getting in since the roof seemed fine, not knowing what I was going to find.
And I found mold. A lot of it. I found the 2x2 framing was rotted through in spots. I found the 1/8" chip board that presses directly against the rubber membrane swelled up and sopping wet. It fell apart with the lightest touch of the finger.
From there, I proceeded to remove the entire ceiling in the overhang. The damage was extensive, showing what must have been years of water damage, rot and mold. Fungus of all colors covered the face of the chip board. The small amount of fiberglass insulation was blackened and soaked with water. As I opened up the walls, I found the same thing had happened there and was only just starting to penetrate into the interior panelling.
At this point, I got very discouraged. My mother had moved out of the camper a few months previous and I was fairly cash poor - there was no way I could afford to strip everything down and rebuild, nor could I afford to get another rig. I opted to just seal things off and sleep on the couch until my situation improved. Up went the plastic to protect both myself and the pets from the infestation of mold, to at least some extent. I made it a regular habit to spray down the walls and ceiling with a mist of bleach solution.
And I resolved to save money up to get myself another rig - a rig that I could be sure is safe from such disastrous neglect.
That was back in 2007 when I made that resolution. Of course, like most long term goals, nothing has gone to plan. In 2008, I was forced to change jobs. I began earning a bigger and much more reliable paycheck, but my savings grew slowly. My car broke down, then my truck, then my car again...then my truck again. Gas prices went through the roof and I found myself driving my 8-cyl Dodge pickup 60 miles a day. Frankly, in today's world, what money there is just doesn't like to hang around long.
By the summer of 2009, I finally had enough saved to start figuring out what the next step would be. I began vigorously researching various rigs and was disappointed by everything that was available. The better rigs cost more than I could afford and what was in my price range had all the same weaknesses I had discovered with this rig: rubber membrane roof, basically no insulation, poorly designed electrical systems, and cheap construction materials with no thought to durability.
The best solution, I decided, was to literally build my own - a "Bus Conversion", and specifically one on a "flat-nose schoolie". I drew up the plans and budget, then set out looking for my bus.
But then, that October, I got a wake up call I couldn't ignore. My gut told me to get moving in no uncertain terms. By that December, I had quit my job and moved back to Florida. I spent around $2k of my meager savings in that move, paying for gas, repairs, new tires, rent and food. It took me three months to find work, but once I did I was ok again. After 3 more months, I was back to where I was and felt comfortable.
But then another wake up call. Another push into the unknown. I found myself moving to New Mexico and spending out of my savings yet again. And the trend continued.
You see, I'm now effectively stuck with this rig. No matter what plans I make, I can't seem to get out of it. Something else always comes up. I'm back in Florida with about half of my original savings left. Meanwhile, the exterior seams have popped and the roof leaks in dozens of places. In fact, the roof is caving in now on the overhang.
So you ask yourself, what's the point? What's the moral of the story?
Due diligence and thorough research. Never take anything at face value.
If you, like so many others, are finding yourself ready to buy a used camper and become a full-timer, learn about what to look for. Learn about what might go wrong. By making a single honest mistake in the beginning of all this, I have spent years dealing with dripping ceilings and worries about mold.
What appears to be is rarely the case with these rigs, and you're probably going to be stuck with what you buy for years to come.
12.21.2010
A Rolling Stone Gathers No Moss?
I had never really thought about the meaning of the phrase "A rolling stone gathers no moss." On the latest cross-country jaunt, returning to Florida, I found myself contemplating this quite a bit. What was meant by "rolling stone" exactly? I'm reminded of those rocks in a desert somewhere that, due to wind patterns, appear to roll across the plains and flats. They aren't actually rolling forward of their own volition, but rather wind causes the sand to erode and the rock slowly "rolls forward". It's similar to when you stand on the beach and a wave breaks over your feet - as the water rushes back out to sea, it erodes the sand around your feet and you find yourself off-balance.
But these rocks "live" in extremely dry and windy locations. Moss tends not to grow in those locations as it is, so even the non-rolling stones of the area would "gather no moss". Obviously, that's not what was meant, but it's a start.
Where do stones regularly gather moss then? My thoughts go to the streams and brooks of childhood. Cool, clear water cutting through pine forest floors, replete with large rounded stones and giant boulders dropped by glaciers many thousands of years ago. There was certainly a lot of moss along those trout streams, making them slick and tricky to navigate. But I never really saw any of these stones "roll" on their own. It occurs to me, however, that the same process as the "rolling stones" of the desert undergo via wind erosion simply must happen within the turbulent streams of New Hampshire. As the water erodes the soil and sediment around the pebble or stone, the water's push against the stone becomes ever more difficult for the friction and gravity to withstand. Eventually, the stone will go tumbling downstream, settling in a new location where either the path is clogged with other stones and debris or the current subsides enough that the forces of gravity and friction can again take hold.
I like this idea. Not only does it bring to mind images of the beautiful rounded stones that massaged bare feet as I'd wade hip deep and cast my trout flies. It also brings to mind the idea of a great rushing current pushing us along toward some universal ocean, carrying sand and sediment over us, slowly eroding us until we've become round and our surfaces polished. To fight this constant current means being buried alive in the onslaught of sand and mud meant only to perfect us. And, if your head is above the proverbial water line, it means gathering moss.
So choosing to be like the "rolling stone" in the babbling brook that is life, "no moss" will be gathered. But what exactly is this moss? Is it material stuff? Is it emotional baggage? Of course it is. It's this and much more. The moss referred to here is composed of both good and bad things, like love and family, enemies and debts. It is all of the things we accumulate throughout life: savings accounts, family heirlooms, long time friendships or your favorite bench in the city park. Life, though, is constantly pushing us. Holding on to these things can be difficult in the rushing torrents of a spring flood. If we hold on too long, we can become buried and suffocated by the very things we hold on to.
So some of us just choose to "roll". We choose to let the current take us downstream, toward that mysterious unification where all the streams of life lead. On the way, we'll bump into many moss covered stones, making brief encounters with those who choose to hold on and stay put. Our journeys will often slow and even stop for a time as the current slacks during the dry months of the late summer. We'll often become tangled in the piles of debris during spring floods, or find ourselves washed up on the embankments after large, violent storms. But we always resume our journey to the sea. We always find our paths moving forward again.
And sometimes we find ourselves feeling envy for all that moss other stones have gathered. We dream of lives where we can settle in a small pool with a sandy bottom, gather moss and just take a break. Tumbling along with the current often seems more difficult than just staying put. But then the draw of the sea reminds us of why we choose to roll.
"A rolling stone gathers no moss," and this is a choice some of us have made.
So I'm back in Florida again. This is my 4th time here. Life, up to this point, has certainly been a wild ride. The journey to here has been rich and full of experience. I think, though, at this point, I'll stay put and rest for a while before the next storm carries me away again. It's good to catch your breath every now and then.
But these rocks "live" in extremely dry and windy locations. Moss tends not to grow in those locations as it is, so even the non-rolling stones of the area would "gather no moss". Obviously, that's not what was meant, but it's a start.
Where do stones regularly gather moss then? My thoughts go to the streams and brooks of childhood. Cool, clear water cutting through pine forest floors, replete with large rounded stones and giant boulders dropped by glaciers many thousands of years ago. There was certainly a lot of moss along those trout streams, making them slick and tricky to navigate. But I never really saw any of these stones "roll" on their own. It occurs to me, however, that the same process as the "rolling stones" of the desert undergo via wind erosion simply must happen within the turbulent streams of New Hampshire. As the water erodes the soil and sediment around the pebble or stone, the water's push against the stone becomes ever more difficult for the friction and gravity to withstand. Eventually, the stone will go tumbling downstream, settling in a new location where either the path is clogged with other stones and debris or the current subsides enough that the forces of gravity and friction can again take hold.
I like this idea. Not only does it bring to mind images of the beautiful rounded stones that massaged bare feet as I'd wade hip deep and cast my trout flies. It also brings to mind the idea of a great rushing current pushing us along toward some universal ocean, carrying sand and sediment over us, slowly eroding us until we've become round and our surfaces polished. To fight this constant current means being buried alive in the onslaught of sand and mud meant only to perfect us. And, if your head is above the proverbial water line, it means gathering moss.
So choosing to be like the "rolling stone" in the babbling brook that is life, "no moss" will be gathered. But what exactly is this moss? Is it material stuff? Is it emotional baggage? Of course it is. It's this and much more. The moss referred to here is composed of both good and bad things, like love and family, enemies and debts. It is all of the things we accumulate throughout life: savings accounts, family heirlooms, long time friendships or your favorite bench in the city park. Life, though, is constantly pushing us. Holding on to these things can be difficult in the rushing torrents of a spring flood. If we hold on too long, we can become buried and suffocated by the very things we hold on to.
So some of us just choose to "roll". We choose to let the current take us downstream, toward that mysterious unification where all the streams of life lead. On the way, we'll bump into many moss covered stones, making brief encounters with those who choose to hold on and stay put. Our journeys will often slow and even stop for a time as the current slacks during the dry months of the late summer. We'll often become tangled in the piles of debris during spring floods, or find ourselves washed up on the embankments after large, violent storms. But we always resume our journey to the sea. We always find our paths moving forward again.
And sometimes we find ourselves feeling envy for all that moss other stones have gathered. We dream of lives where we can settle in a small pool with a sandy bottom, gather moss and just take a break. Tumbling along with the current often seems more difficult than just staying put. But then the draw of the sea reminds us of why we choose to roll.
"A rolling stone gathers no moss," and this is a choice some of us have made.
So I'm back in Florida again. This is my 4th time here. Life, up to this point, has certainly been a wild ride. The journey to here has been rich and full of experience. I think, though, at this point, I'll stay put and rest for a while before the next storm carries me away again. It's good to catch your breath every now and then.
12.04.2010
RV Heating and Cooling, or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Use a Multimeter
Look, I'm no tech wiz. I've learned along the way to do a bit of electrical and mechanical work myself, but when it comes right down to it, I'm usually afraid to even touch things like "complicated" heating and cooling systems. I mean, the little experience I have with things like replacing starters, water pumps or head gaskets in cars, or wiring up a new electrical outlet, new thermostat, etc - these things are small potatoes when you start thinking about the dangers of working with a live AC unit or something that burns propane. The dangers there are real - explosions, electrocutions, or worse.
In 2009, just as the New Hampshire winter was setting in, my furnace decided to quit on me. The thermostat said "turn on" but the furnace did nothing. I tore apart my couch, pulled the furnace out and started applying low amperage 12 volt to various things that looked like they should take it. Of course, this produced no results. I decided the blower motor must be dead and gave up. I spent a few months running an electric heater to keep warm and quickly found my pipes freezing up.
In December, I picked up and moved to Florida. Problem solved - don't actually need a furnace there.
While in Florida, however, my AC unit decided to quit on me just as the summer heat set in. Thankfully, a long-time family friend was staying in the same campground. He, having been an HVAC specialist a good portion of his life and even teaching classes at a college for it, knew a little something about what to look at and how to test it. He brought over his multimeter and started poking at things with what appeared to be little fear of electrocution. His determination was that the "running capacitor" was shot. I pulled it and ran down the street to get a new one but, after they tested it and said it was fine, I decided that rather than bother him to come over and keep testing for me, I'd get my own hands dirty and bought myself a multimeter.
Best tool investment I've ever made.
I tested this and that. After a few minutes of poking the probes at different terminals, I found that the problem was definitely BEFORE the capacitor, not in it. No voltage ever made it to the capacitor when the thermostat said "turn on". After scouring the internet for info on how an RV air conditioner works, I found myself probing the control board. Lo and Behold - it was a simple relay switch in the control board. $80 and 2 weeks later, I had a working AC again. Thank God as my interior temps were soaring to 100*F almost every day!
This taught me a valuable lesson - if you expect to have a shot at fixing things in your rig, you not only NEED a multimeter, you simply CAN'T be afraid to use it. A multimeter allows you to test for three things that will almost always narrow down the problem - voltage (both VAC and VDC), amperage and resistance (ohms). 9 times out of 10, simply testing for voltage at some connection point will tell you exactly where the problem is.
After moving here to Albuquerque, I knew I had to try to fix my furnace. Winter was coming and temps were already dropping to the upper 30s at night. Since I had found the problem with the AC and replaced a cheap part rather than the whole unit, my optimism was up and I was pretty sure I could find the problem. Firstly, let's outline the basics of how a standard RV heating system works so you can follow along.
1 - The Thermostat:
When the thermostat registers an interior temperature cooler than the requested temperature, it sends DC voltage to the furnace. When it registers warmer than the requested temperature, it stops sending that voltage. It's that simple.
2 - The Furnace On/Off Switch:
I'm not sure if all furnaces have this, but my Suburban does. Two wires come from the thermostat, and one goes through a simple on/off rocker switch. When off or malfunctioning, the voltage from the thermostat will go no further than this switch.
3 - The "Time Delay Relay" / aka "Klixon" Relay:
This relay controls the running of the blower motor itself, turning it on and off based on the DC voltage signal from the thermostat. It allows 12VDC to run from your main house battery/converter to the blower motor when the thermostat is sending a signal, then will actually wait a certain number of seconds before stopping that 12VDC when the thermostat has stopped sending voltage.
4 - The "Sail Switch":
This switch is mounted on the side of the blower motor, with a "sail" piece inside the blower motor itself. It simply monitors the operation of the blower motor. When the blower motor turns on and starts blowing air, the "sail" part of the switch gets blown in a certain direction and the switch turns on, allowing the voltage from the thermostat to flow to the control board. If the blower motor doesn't turn on, or isn't blowing the air strongly enough, the sail never gets pushed to the "on" position, preventing the burner from ever starting.
5 - The Control Board:
This is where all the rest of the magic happens - opening the "orifice" to allow propane into the burning chamber, ignition of that gas, overheat monitoring, etc. I wont go into details because, well, I don't know the details.
Very, VERY simple system, at least compared to what I expected. So how did I test mine?
Firstly, I made sure there was voltage coming from the thermostat. I turned on the heat so the thermostat would tell the furnace to turn on, then I took the multimeter and put the black/negative probe on the 12VDC ground wire and the red/positive probe on the wire coming from the thermostat. Yep - got voltage. That means the thermostat is fine and there's no break in the wire between it and the furnace. Next, I checked to see if the on/off switch was working correctly by doing the same thing, but putting the red/positive probe on the connection to the relay switch, which is the next connection point after the point I was testing. Yep - I got the same voltage there, so that's fine. Then I checked to see if there's 12VDC running to the relay. I put the positive probe on the relay terminal and registered a clean and steady 13.1VDC. When I checked to see if the 12VDC was coming out the opposite terminal, however, I got nothing. Looks like the relay's dead.
I ordered a new relay from the internet (less than $20) and installed it. Turned on the thermostat and on pops the motor. Good. Fixed everything for $20. A new furnace, which I was convinced I would have to buy back in New Hampshire, would have cost over $250.
Moral of the story? Buy a multimeter and learn how to use it, then learn about how RV heating and cooling systems work, especially the ones in your rig. They're much more simple than we realize, and they're often VERY easy, and very CHEAP, to repair.
Afterall, when you're RVing these days, you've gotta save EVERY PENNY you can.
In 2009, just as the New Hampshire winter was setting in, my furnace decided to quit on me. The thermostat said "turn on" but the furnace did nothing. I tore apart my couch, pulled the furnace out and started applying low amperage 12 volt to various things that looked like they should take it. Of course, this produced no results. I decided the blower motor must be dead and gave up. I spent a few months running an electric heater to keep warm and quickly found my pipes freezing up.
In December, I picked up and moved to Florida. Problem solved - don't actually need a furnace there.
While in Florida, however, my AC unit decided to quit on me just as the summer heat set in. Thankfully, a long-time family friend was staying in the same campground. He, having been an HVAC specialist a good portion of his life and even teaching classes at a college for it, knew a little something about what to look at and how to test it. He brought over his multimeter and started poking at things with what appeared to be little fear of electrocution. His determination was that the "running capacitor" was shot. I pulled it and ran down the street to get a new one but, after they tested it and said it was fine, I decided that rather than bother him to come over and keep testing for me, I'd get my own hands dirty and bought myself a multimeter.
Best tool investment I've ever made.
I tested this and that. After a few minutes of poking the probes at different terminals, I found that the problem was definitely BEFORE the capacitor, not in it. No voltage ever made it to the capacitor when the thermostat said "turn on". After scouring the internet for info on how an RV air conditioner works, I found myself probing the control board. Lo and Behold - it was a simple relay switch in the control board. $80 and 2 weeks later, I had a working AC again. Thank God as my interior temps were soaring to 100*F almost every day!
This taught me a valuable lesson - if you expect to have a shot at fixing things in your rig, you not only NEED a multimeter, you simply CAN'T be afraid to use it. A multimeter allows you to test for three things that will almost always narrow down the problem - voltage (both VAC and VDC), amperage and resistance (ohms). 9 times out of 10, simply testing for voltage at some connection point will tell you exactly where the problem is.
After moving here to Albuquerque, I knew I had to try to fix my furnace. Winter was coming and temps were already dropping to the upper 30s at night. Since I had found the problem with the AC and replaced a cheap part rather than the whole unit, my optimism was up and I was pretty sure I could find the problem. Firstly, let's outline the basics of how a standard RV heating system works so you can follow along.
1 - The Thermostat:
When the thermostat registers an interior temperature cooler than the requested temperature, it sends DC voltage to the furnace. When it registers warmer than the requested temperature, it stops sending that voltage. It's that simple.
2 - The Furnace On/Off Switch:
I'm not sure if all furnaces have this, but my Suburban does. Two wires come from the thermostat, and one goes through a simple on/off rocker switch. When off or malfunctioning, the voltage from the thermostat will go no further than this switch.
3 - The "Time Delay Relay" / aka "Klixon" Relay:
This relay controls the running of the blower motor itself, turning it on and off based on the DC voltage signal from the thermostat. It allows 12VDC to run from your main house battery/converter to the blower motor when the thermostat is sending a signal, then will actually wait a certain number of seconds before stopping that 12VDC when the thermostat has stopped sending voltage.
4 - The "Sail Switch":
This switch is mounted on the side of the blower motor, with a "sail" piece inside the blower motor itself. It simply monitors the operation of the blower motor. When the blower motor turns on and starts blowing air, the "sail" part of the switch gets blown in a certain direction and the switch turns on, allowing the voltage from the thermostat to flow to the control board. If the blower motor doesn't turn on, or isn't blowing the air strongly enough, the sail never gets pushed to the "on" position, preventing the burner from ever starting.
5 - The Control Board:
This is where all the rest of the magic happens - opening the "orifice" to allow propane into the burning chamber, ignition of that gas, overheat monitoring, etc. I wont go into details because, well, I don't know the details.
Very, VERY simple system, at least compared to what I expected. So how did I test mine?
Firstly, I made sure there was voltage coming from the thermostat. I turned on the heat so the thermostat would tell the furnace to turn on, then I took the multimeter and put the black/negative probe on the 12VDC ground wire and the red/positive probe on the wire coming from the thermostat. Yep - got voltage. That means the thermostat is fine and there's no break in the wire between it and the furnace. Next, I checked to see if the on/off switch was working correctly by doing the same thing, but putting the red/positive probe on the connection to the relay switch, which is the next connection point after the point I was testing. Yep - I got the same voltage there, so that's fine. Then I checked to see if there's 12VDC running to the relay. I put the positive probe on the relay terminal and registered a clean and steady 13.1VDC. When I checked to see if the 12VDC was coming out the opposite terminal, however, I got nothing. Looks like the relay's dead.
I ordered a new relay from the internet (less than $20) and installed it. Turned on the thermostat and on pops the motor. Good. Fixed everything for $20. A new furnace, which I was convinced I would have to buy back in New Hampshire, would have cost over $250.
Moral of the story? Buy a multimeter and learn how to use it, then learn about how RV heating and cooling systems work, especially the ones in your rig. They're much more simple than we realize, and they're often VERY easy, and very CHEAP, to repair.
Afterall, when you're RVing these days, you've gotta save EVERY PENNY you can.
11.30.2010
Scanning the news this morning
Interesting times indeed. Of course, the mainstream is flooded with stories about the latest Wikileaks. If you're like me, you're sipping your coffee and smiling, occasionally chuckling, as you read these articles. "First Amendment or Espionage" reads one headline on Drudge Report. "Ecuador offers residency" reads another. Wait, I seem to remember something about them offering amnesty/residency during the last "leak". Ehh, neither here nor there. These aren't the things that really interest me.
Could Wikileaks Revealing Major Bank Secrets Crash the Global Economy?, over at The Market Oracle, however, DOES interest me...A LOT...
Lets just say, I've got my fingers crossed hoping for that one. You could say I'm hoping for doom and gloom. The truth is, I'm just tired of waiting. It's obvious to everyone with "eyes to see" that the current system doesn't work. We're being raped and pillaged from the top down, and it's not going to get any better until it's gotten much worse. My hope is that I'll be there on the other side of the great collapse to help get things right.
And on a more cheerful note, there's this post over at Life After the Oil Crash. I especially enjoyed this snip of the tirade:
"...it’s not just the food that’s killing you, it’s the drugs. If you show any sign of life when you’re young, they’ll put you on Ritalin. Then, when you get old enough to take a good look around, you’ll get depressed, so they’ll give you Prozac. If you’re a man, this will render you chemically impotent, so you’ll need Viagra to get it up. Meanwhile, your steady diet of trans-fat-laden food is guaranteed to give you high cholesterol, so you’ll get a prescription for Lipitor. Finally, at the end of the day, you’ll lay awake at night worrying about losing your health plan, so you’ll need Lunesta to go to sleep."
The whole post/email deals with an interesting proposition: why bother continuing to live in the US? My answer to this is difficult at best. One reason is that, well, let's face it...I'm lazy. Another reason is that I have a lot of debt - student loans, of course. A third reason (this is the one I prefer to think is the most important, though I may be just deluding myself) is that I want to help this country SUCCEED. I'm a patriot in that way. I believe in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the principals of our founding fathers. I want to be there to help bring us, the US, back to wholesome greatness on the other side of the great collapse.
Again, that may be just me deluding myself. It happens.
In other news, we dropped to 16*F last night and I woke up to find my hot water line frozen leading to the bathroom. Going to have to set up some circulation fans back there to keep that from happening again. We were forecasted to drop to 7*F last night, but as suspected, the meteorologists out here don't seem to know their ass from their elbow. Since I moved out here to Albuquerque in August, they've been forecasting temps in sometimes 20* ranges for overnight lows and have been typically 5-10* off from actual temperature forecasts. They hit it pretty close for about a week and a half, starting with the last big cold snap, but guess that's over. Of course, high temps have been being forecasted 5-10*F below actual realized all along.
Question is, has this become the case elsewhere as well, or is it just here?
After moving out here to ABQ/"Duke City", my mother an I were discussing the backwards, nearly retarded way in which things are run out here. It came up that this same thing might have happened EVERYWHERE in the US for all we know. I mean, it was bad before, but early August, right after the transits of Saturn and Mars into Libra, it was like we had entered the Twilight Zone. Of course, we've living off "Old Route 66" since we arrived, so we really might have.
Could Wikileaks Revealing Major Bank Secrets Crash the Global Economy?, over at The Market Oracle, however, DOES interest me...A LOT...
Lets just say, I've got my fingers crossed hoping for that one. You could say I'm hoping for doom and gloom. The truth is, I'm just tired of waiting. It's obvious to everyone with "eyes to see" that the current system doesn't work. We're being raped and pillaged from the top down, and it's not going to get any better until it's gotten much worse. My hope is that I'll be there on the other side of the great collapse to help get things right.
And on a more cheerful note, there's this post over at Life After the Oil Crash. I especially enjoyed this snip of the tirade:
"...it’s not just the food that’s killing you, it’s the drugs. If you show any sign of life when you’re young, they’ll put you on Ritalin. Then, when you get old enough to take a good look around, you’ll get depressed, so they’ll give you Prozac. If you’re a man, this will render you chemically impotent, so you’ll need Viagra to get it up. Meanwhile, your steady diet of trans-fat-laden food is guaranteed to give you high cholesterol, so you’ll get a prescription for Lipitor. Finally, at the end of the day, you’ll lay awake at night worrying about losing your health plan, so you’ll need Lunesta to go to sleep."
The whole post/email deals with an interesting proposition: why bother continuing to live in the US? My answer to this is difficult at best. One reason is that, well, let's face it...I'm lazy. Another reason is that I have a lot of debt - student loans, of course. A third reason (this is the one I prefer to think is the most important, though I may be just deluding myself) is that I want to help this country SUCCEED. I'm a patriot in that way. I believe in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the principals of our founding fathers. I want to be there to help bring us, the US, back to wholesome greatness on the other side of the great collapse.
Again, that may be just me deluding myself. It happens.
In other news, we dropped to 16*F last night and I woke up to find my hot water line frozen leading to the bathroom. Going to have to set up some circulation fans back there to keep that from happening again. We were forecasted to drop to 7*F last night, but as suspected, the meteorologists out here don't seem to know their ass from their elbow. Since I moved out here to Albuquerque in August, they've been forecasting temps in sometimes 20* ranges for overnight lows and have been typically 5-10* off from actual temperature forecasts. They hit it pretty close for about a week and a half, starting with the last big cold snap, but guess that's over. Of course, high temps have been being forecasted 5-10*F below actual realized all along.
Question is, has this become the case elsewhere as well, or is it just here?
After moving out here to ABQ/"Duke City", my mother an I were discussing the backwards, nearly retarded way in which things are run out here. It came up that this same thing might have happened EVERYWHERE in the US for all we know. I mean, it was bad before, but early August, right after the transits of Saturn and Mars into Libra, it was like we had entered the Twilight Zone. Of course, we've living off "Old Route 66" since we arrived, so we really might have.
11.29.2010
You Dare Quit Your Job In This Market!?!?
There are two ideals that anyone with a brain MUST hold sacred.
The first ideal is individuality. We people are not cows and should not be treated like them.
The second ideal is having a sense of real self-worth. You should receive rewards based on what you're actually putting out into the world, not on what some rich elitist asshole believes they can get away with paying for it.
Warning: wild tangent follows
We all have a dream of something better. We all want to live life the way that we see fit. Lots of noise accompanies the dream - noise from advertising and propaganda, noise from self-doubts, noise from peer pressure and established norms. The noise is not only deafening, it's horrifying. The dream seems impossible to obtain.
The truth is, however, when you clear through the noise and really see what it is you truly, deep-down-inside want in life, it turns out to be something easily attainable. Your day job, the one you go to every day just trying to pay the bills, may be just what's holding you in place and making it impossible to fulfill this dream. At least, that's what I came to realize.
I've been a bit of a renegade most of my life. I've hated many of the established norms. I've challenged authority. I've got myself in to trouble countless times for breaking rules I didn't agree with.
When I was 16, I had a job at a plant nursery for a summer. I went to work when I was scheduled and plucked weeds from around the plants. I liked that job, but I didn't like the schedule. In fact, I loved that job. I would spend hours just pulling weeds and thinking, admiring the beauty of the natural world. But I didn't like the schedule. Needless to say, I just stopped showing up. Instead, I went bass fishing. At 17, I did the same thing with high school itself. I didn't like having to go and sit in classrooms chewing the same information day after day like a cow chewing its cud. So, instead, I went fishing. I stopped going to class and started learning on my own time.
I became an official "drop out" in the fall of 1999. In January 2000, I landed a "job" working as a freelance computer programmer with a local business, a $600/wk contract that took me overseas to Spain and Australia. When the contract ended, I was sure I would have no trouble finding more work just like it. But by 2001, the stark "reality" of the world had sunk in. I found myself grinding away working dead-end security jobs while I attended college. I spent years "working for the man", never feeling any control over any of it. Being an employee was akin to being a slave.
The jobs got better over time, from working security to working as a graphic designer, and eventually to working as a web developer. But I was still a lowly, underpaid and under appreciated employee. I forgot what it felt like to have true freedom.
Then, in 2009, I quit my day job. What followed was a remembering of what it is to be self-employed.
Back to these ideals of individuality and real self-worth.
The truth boils down to this: as an employee you are a cow. Your sole purpose is to produce milk and doing anything other than this is forbidden. The farmer places you with the other cows, who also produce milk and do nothing more. You don't need to know anything other than how to produce milk. In fact, learning how to produce, say, butter can be dangerous to your own well being.
If you take it upon yourself to learn to produce butter, there are two likely outcomes:
Outcome #1 - You get reprimanded. After all, you were hired to produce milk, not butter. That's someone else's job.
Outcome #2 - The farmer throws an extra handful of hay into your trough. You will now be expected to produce butter, day in and day out, for less hay than the other butter making cows get. After all, you were hired to produce milk, not butter, and you will always be a milk cow to the farmer.
Your life as a cow won't get easier the more you try to produce - it just gets harder. You do more and more work for no real gains. The extra bite or two of hay at the end of the day is hardly worth all that churning it took to make butter.
If you choose to be a cow, the only viable option is to give up and just make milk - nothing more, nothing less - and be happy with your meager rations of hay each day.
Imagine, though, that you decide to quit being a "cow" and you walk away from the farm to start producing milk and butter on your own time. You sell what you make at the market rate. You are now in charge of your own production, not the farmer. There's no farmer to reprimand you for producing butter instead of milk. In fact, you can expand your knowledge further and learn to produce cheese, yogurt and even ice cream if you'd like, each fetching more at market providing you with all the hay you deserve. You're in charge now.
I know, it's terrible metaphor, but it works well enough for our purposes here. What I'm saying is this: in pursuing a dream, there's not much room for being a cow. You have to hold on to the ideals of individuality and self-worth. Anyone with a brain has a dream of what life should be like, and it's your responsibility in life to move toward that dream. It's your responsibility to attain it. You'll never achieve your dream by sacrificing your individuality or your sense of real self-worth.
The first ideal is individuality. We people are not cows and should not be treated like them.
The second ideal is having a sense of real self-worth. You should receive rewards based on what you're actually putting out into the world, not on what some rich elitist asshole believes they can get away with paying for it.
Warning: wild tangent follows
We all have a dream of something better. We all want to live life the way that we see fit. Lots of noise accompanies the dream - noise from advertising and propaganda, noise from self-doubts, noise from peer pressure and established norms. The noise is not only deafening, it's horrifying. The dream seems impossible to obtain.
The truth is, however, when you clear through the noise and really see what it is you truly, deep-down-inside want in life, it turns out to be something easily attainable. Your day job, the one you go to every day just trying to pay the bills, may be just what's holding you in place and making it impossible to fulfill this dream. At least, that's what I came to realize.
I've been a bit of a renegade most of my life. I've hated many of the established norms. I've challenged authority. I've got myself in to trouble countless times for breaking rules I didn't agree with.
When I was 16, I had a job at a plant nursery for a summer. I went to work when I was scheduled and plucked weeds from around the plants. I liked that job, but I didn't like the schedule. In fact, I loved that job. I would spend hours just pulling weeds and thinking, admiring the beauty of the natural world. But I didn't like the schedule. Needless to say, I just stopped showing up. Instead, I went bass fishing. At 17, I did the same thing with high school itself. I didn't like having to go and sit in classrooms chewing the same information day after day like a cow chewing its cud. So, instead, I went fishing. I stopped going to class and started learning on my own time.
I became an official "drop out" in the fall of 1999. In January 2000, I landed a "job" working as a freelance computer programmer with a local business, a $600/wk contract that took me overseas to Spain and Australia. When the contract ended, I was sure I would have no trouble finding more work just like it. But by 2001, the stark "reality" of the world had sunk in. I found myself grinding away working dead-end security jobs while I attended college. I spent years "working for the man", never feeling any control over any of it. Being an employee was akin to being a slave.
The jobs got better over time, from working security to working as a graphic designer, and eventually to working as a web developer. But I was still a lowly, underpaid and under appreciated employee. I forgot what it felt like to have true freedom.
Then, in 2009, I quit my day job. What followed was a remembering of what it is to be self-employed.
Back to these ideals of individuality and real self-worth.
The truth boils down to this: as an employee you are a cow. Your sole purpose is to produce milk and doing anything other than this is forbidden. The farmer places you with the other cows, who also produce milk and do nothing more. You don't need to know anything other than how to produce milk. In fact, learning how to produce, say, butter can be dangerous to your own well being.
If you take it upon yourself to learn to produce butter, there are two likely outcomes:
Outcome #1 - You get reprimanded. After all, you were hired to produce milk, not butter. That's someone else's job.
Outcome #2 - The farmer throws an extra handful of hay into your trough. You will now be expected to produce butter, day in and day out, for less hay than the other butter making cows get. After all, you were hired to produce milk, not butter, and you will always be a milk cow to the farmer.
Your life as a cow won't get easier the more you try to produce - it just gets harder. You do more and more work for no real gains. The extra bite or two of hay at the end of the day is hardly worth all that churning it took to make butter.
If you choose to be a cow, the only viable option is to give up and just make milk - nothing more, nothing less - and be happy with your meager rations of hay each day.
Imagine, though, that you decide to quit being a "cow" and you walk away from the farm to start producing milk and butter on your own time. You sell what you make at the market rate. You are now in charge of your own production, not the farmer. There's no farmer to reprimand you for producing butter instead of milk. In fact, you can expand your knowledge further and learn to produce cheese, yogurt and even ice cream if you'd like, each fetching more at market providing you with all the hay you deserve. You're in charge now.
I know, it's terrible metaphor, but it works well enough for our purposes here. What I'm saying is this: in pursuing a dream, there's not much room for being a cow. You have to hold on to the ideals of individuality and self-worth. Anyone with a brain has a dream of what life should be like, and it's your responsibility in life to move toward that dream. It's your responsibility to attain it. You'll never achieve your dream by sacrificing your individuality or your sense of real self-worth.
Begin
What the hell happened to us?
I remember a time when things were cheerful and bright, and the future was full of wonderment. Long gone are those days.
Today's world is filled with chaos and an alphabet soup of evils. From prescription drugs to airport security, "quantitative easing" to little boys being suspended over patriotic flag displays. This is not the country...not the WORLD I expected.
Today's mentality, between the greedy corporate giants and the "impoverished" welfare dropouts, makes me moan in disgust. My love of humanity is challenged every day by the headlines. A simple visit to the grocery store turns into an exercise in holding one's lunch. The latest "Black Friday" rampage is but a whisper of the real story - how many of the crazed, faceless people trampling one another for a video game receive food stamps every month?
Our society is crumbling around us. Anyone can point to countless symptoms of the problem but I don't think anyone ever points to the cause. A breakdown of morality? The loss of good christian values? Television and video game violence? Rap music? These are all symptoms of the greater evil. We have become diseased.
A lot of us like to point at a time when things changed. I'm one of them. However, that day, 9/11, things didn't really "change". No - that was simply the day that we noticed. The change has been happening, behind the scenes, for decades. On 9/11, as we watched the horror of what later became, clearly, "in your face" treason, we finally realized that things had changed; that life had changed. We no longer could look forward in life and see the same blue skies we had previously. Everything turned gray.
Maybe I'm one of a minority here. Maybe not.
What happened to all of us, all over the world, was we realized that our technology gods had failed us. A small corner of the fantasy world in which we lived began to peel away revealing the atrophy and horror of the way we lived. Many wrote off this realization, smoothed back the corner and got in line to buy a new smart phone with their monopoly money welfare vouchers. Many others were shocked into thinking for the first time in their lives.
Personally, that day sent shockwaves through my psyche. I found myself reading the Bible for the first time. I studied Nostradamus' Centuries and read about Fatima. Ancient prophecy, remote viewing and astrology became everyday topics in my pursuit of understanding. Economic bubbles and not-so-federal reserve banks quickly came into view. By 2004, Alex Jones and his bullhorn documentaries had shed rays of light on a dark aspect of a reality that had previously only consisted of quaint ideas such as owning a house and raising children.
In 2006, I moved into an RV. I had begun learning about alternative energy, herbal medicine and survival preparedness. I had begun to let my Heart, God Himself as Spirit, lead me in life. I've followed my heart for years now, letting it lead me from place to place, job to job, and topic to topic; it hasn't been easy, but who ever said it was supposed to be?
And this is where this blog will pick up, here in Albuquerque, November of 2010.
I remember a time when things were cheerful and bright, and the future was full of wonderment. Long gone are those days.
Today's world is filled with chaos and an alphabet soup of evils. From prescription drugs to airport security, "quantitative easing" to little boys being suspended over patriotic flag displays. This is not the country...not the WORLD I expected.
Today's mentality, between the greedy corporate giants and the "impoverished" welfare dropouts, makes me moan in disgust. My love of humanity is challenged every day by the headlines. A simple visit to the grocery store turns into an exercise in holding one's lunch. The latest "Black Friday" rampage is but a whisper of the real story - how many of the crazed, faceless people trampling one another for a video game receive food stamps every month?
Our society is crumbling around us. Anyone can point to countless symptoms of the problem but I don't think anyone ever points to the cause. A breakdown of morality? The loss of good christian values? Television and video game violence? Rap music? These are all symptoms of the greater evil. We have become diseased.
A lot of us like to point at a time when things changed. I'm one of them. However, that day, 9/11, things didn't really "change". No - that was simply the day that we noticed. The change has been happening, behind the scenes, for decades. On 9/11, as we watched the horror of what later became, clearly, "in your face" treason, we finally realized that things had changed; that life had changed. We no longer could look forward in life and see the same blue skies we had previously. Everything turned gray.
Maybe I'm one of a minority here. Maybe not.
What happened to all of us, all over the world, was we realized that our technology gods had failed us. A small corner of the fantasy world in which we lived began to peel away revealing the atrophy and horror of the way we lived. Many wrote off this realization, smoothed back the corner and got in line to buy a new smart phone with their monopoly money welfare vouchers. Many others were shocked into thinking for the first time in their lives.
Personally, that day sent shockwaves through my psyche. I found myself reading the Bible for the first time. I studied Nostradamus' Centuries and read about Fatima. Ancient prophecy, remote viewing and astrology became everyday topics in my pursuit of understanding. Economic bubbles and not-so-federal reserve banks quickly came into view. By 2004, Alex Jones and his bullhorn documentaries had shed rays of light on a dark aspect of a reality that had previously only consisted of quaint ideas such as owning a house and raising children.
In 2006, I moved into an RV. I had begun learning about alternative energy, herbal medicine and survival preparedness. I had begun to let my Heart, God Himself as Spirit, lead me in life. I've followed my heart for years now, letting it lead me from place to place, job to job, and topic to topic; it hasn't been easy, but who ever said it was supposed to be?
And this is where this blog will pick up, here in Albuquerque, November of 2010.
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