Follow Our Progress
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December 3rd
2003
Today was a solo day. Becky and Emily stayed home to take care
of some things around the house. I dropped Erika off at school on
my way to pick up our new hot water heater that I had put on hold
earlier.
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The new hot water heater is the exact same model as the one we
pulled from the trailer. By installing the same model, I
don't have to buy a new door trim piece and can just swap the
two.
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I couldn't remove the drain plug from the old heater. It
was rusted solid and without a socket big enough to get around
it, I had to resort to draining it from the connections on the
inside of the bus.
I had to make 2 trips to dump the water. The pan I
found just wasn't quite big enough to hold all of the water.
I managed not to get too much water on the floor in the
process...
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Once I had the old water heater disconnected from the gas and
water lines, I pulled of the door trim ring. It was stuck
pretty good with both double sided foam tape and about a half
tube of silicone sealant.
It took a bit of cleaning and scraping with a metal putty
knife to get it cleaned off and ready to be installed on the new
water heater.
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The installation of the new heater was a snap. Everything
lined right back up and all of the connections went right back
together.
I checked the gas line for leaks by wetting the connection
with a mixture of dish soap and water.
You can buy some gas leak test fluid, but it basically is
just liquid dish soap with a bit of water added. I find
that the dish soap works just fine.
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My first attempt bubbled slightly, so I gave the connection
another 1/4 turn... No more bubbles.
I have checked all of my gas connections this way. I am
very sensitive to the smell of the propane, but the bubble
test is the only safe way I know of to make sure that there are
no gas leaks.
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I've been holding off on the kitchen cabinets and tops until we
have all of the wood at least covered with a good thick coat of
primer.
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I absolutely hate working with fiberglass
insulation...
Since I was the only one at the bus and it was basically the
end of the day, I went ahead and filled in the wall behind the
toilet.
I still have some work to do to get the shower permanently
put in place, so for now the rest of the wall will have to stay
accessible. |
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The last task of the day was to scrub off another
ceiling panel.
It still amazes me that the panels come so clean. They
are almost as bright as white Z-Prime that we painted on all of
the walls. |
Quite a few people have been e-mailing me with concerns about the
wood stove... Let me assure everyone that is reading this that the
current "pot belly" stove that we have in the bus will not be
staying with us for much longer. Nobody will be sleeping in the
bus with the wood burning stove running. It's basically a way for
us to burn up scrap lumber and keep the bus heated while we are working
on it. Because of the constant traffic in and out of the bus
(carrying pieces of cut paneling, tools, etc.) the wood burning stove is
about the only way to keep things warm. We've installed both smoke
alarms and carbon monoxide alarms in the bus "just in case". I
will write up all of the reasons that the stove is not desirable.
There are much better alternatives. I'll try to put all of my
reasons for swapping the wood stove out for a better one here on the web
site tomorrow. |
