Lots of little projects behind us

We arrived at Al & Camiel's exactly a week ago and what a week it has been. I installed Jim Shepherd's temperature monitor system last weekend. On Monday I tried to install a 3 pole automatic transfer switch that I bought in Saskatoon. I got it installed but it was a crude affair and then once I had it in place it turned out that it didn't work. Not only that but it somehow affected our inverter to the point where I ended up taking the inverter out and taking it into Calgary for service. John determined that there was nothing wrong with the inverter but the transfer switch was definitely no good so off I went to Bucar RV for a new transfer switch.

On Tuesday I had a meeting in Red Deer. When I got back we tackled a messy job that neither of us wanted to tear into but both of us knew had to be done. For quite a while now we've known that the bathroom floor had "issues". We had tightened the toilet down a couple of times but each time it took less time before it started to flop around when we sat on it. Not a good feature in a toilet but what was more alarming was the odours that emanated from the toilet. It was becoming increasingly clear that we had a leak somewhere around the base where the toilet connected to the plumbing or the tank - we weren't 100% sure what the situation was. The stinky head came to a head a couple of weeks ago when we waited too long to dump the black tank and ended up backing the sewer up into the toilet bowl. That shouldn't have been a problem if the system was sealed but let's just say that it became apparent that the system was no longer completely sealed.

So Tuesday night we pulled the crapper out of the bathroom and then commenced ripping up the ceramic floor tiles. A couple of them around the toilet were already cracked and another one had cracked in front of the toilet which was just further confirmation that the floor beneath our feet was giving way. The tiles were pretty easy to lift where the floor was rotten immediately around the toilet but they were a serious challenge further out where the floor was still sound. We were pleasantly surprised once we got all the tiles lifted because while the floor was clearly in bad shape it wasn't so bad that we would need to completely replace it.

We ended up putting a layer of fibreglass cloth over the entire floor with double layers around the base of the toilet. I saturated the whole works in epoxy resin and let the resin flow to the low spots to fill up some of the areas that had rotted the worst. Once that had cured we poured about 3/8" of levelling compound over the whole floor which brought us back to roughly the level of the top of the tiles. On top of that we painted a rubber membrane. Then we layed vinyl flooring over the whole issue. Today Marilyn finished caulking the edges and I put the toilet back in it's place. Not bad for 4 days work.

I ended up making a rush trip back to Bucar RV today to get the gasket for where the toilet base connects to the floor. When I bought the transfer switch last Monday there was a girl at the parts counter who looked to be about 18. I wasn't wild about dealing with her but I couldn't find what I wanted so I asked her. She promptly trotted off to the back and returned with a 50 amp 3 pole transfer switch - just what I needed. So I wasn't nearly as nervous about asking her help today and she was just as efficient. We both looked directly at the gasket hanging on the wall but neither of us knew exactly what we were looking for so we didn't recognize it. She eventually found the part number online and matched it to the package on her wall. I have never had anything but excellent service from Bucar's and the two trips there this week were no exception.

Marilyn leaves for a return trip to McLean Lake tomorrow so I enlisted her help to pull the wire for the Trimetric monitor tonight. It looks to be a pretty straight forward install so I should have that done tomorrow night. I've been told that you shouldn't try to install solar panels without some kind of a battery monitoring system and that the Trimetric is the gold standard for those systems. We bought the parts while we were in Florida and had them shipped to Albuquerque. We've been tripping over them ever since so it will be good to have them off the floor and on the wall.

I got the oil changed in the cube van today - the genset is on the agenda for tomorrow. Then I have to crawl underneath the bus with a squirt bottle of soapy water looking for air leaks. And that should be the end of the list of little projects.