October 2nd
2003
I woke up this morning with a terrible feeling that I had forgot
something that I had meant to do before we put up the siding in the
front of the bus... At about 6:00 AM I finally figured it
out. I forgot to cover the two sections of the bus where the vents
are located. With the air conditioning system running, the vents
pull in fresh air from two holes on either side of the bus. I
wanted to leave these vents as originally designed, but the plywood
sheeting exposed to the outside air or water was not my intention.
So, first order of the day was to remove the wood panels that
partially covered the vents so I could get in there and come up with a
weather resistant solution...
We stopped by the Hardware store, but they did not have the right
kind of self drilling screws that we liked, so we drove all the way to
the RV supply store. We came back with several other types of
screws to finish up framing the back bedroom.
Within the first hour or so, we ran out of lath again. We only
needed about 4-5 more strips, so we headed out and picked up 6 more
strips of lath, one sheet of 1/4 in plywood for the last upper panel and
6 2x2's for the final framing in the back of the bus.
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We had to fix the vent issue, so we searched around the scrap
pile of parts that we had pulled out of the bus and found some
aluminum pieces. They turned out to be exactly the same
width as the section that has the vent hole. They were
also pre-drilled with holes that made it easy to overlap the
pieces and keep them aligned.
We screwed the aluminum plates to the metal supports and
overlapped them a bit to prevent any water that might get pulled
in the vent from making it's way through to the wood paneling.
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For a little extra piece of mind and a bit of insulation, Becky
put a couple of pieces of blue foam sheeting over the plates to
keep the moisture out and air leaks to a minimum.
She taped it in place with duct tape and the plywood panel
will pin it in place as well once we put the panel back in
place.
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Once the fix was in place, we put the panel back up and moved on
to installing the last upper panel in the front of the bus.
The rest of the side wall paneling is fairly easy now.
The joints at the floor level will be hidden from view, so they
do not have to fit as perfectly as all of the upper panels had
to.
It will be nice to have all of the side walls paneled and all
of the pink foam and lath hidden from view.
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The other side of the bus is already paneled all the way to the
back of the bus and I got as far as the bathroom door with the
lower panels before we called it quits for the day.
You can just see the blue foam insulation covering the other
vent that we had to cover up. At least we got it covered
before the entire wall was paneled.
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Last night we had a touch of rain. I should have known
that as soon as I said something about being lucky with the
weather that the rain would start...
We spent a few minutes cleaning up all of the appliances,
tools and supplies and covering them all with tarps. The
tarps will keep them dry over night at least.
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We got a call from my 1/2 brother Peter in Arkansas while we were
gone. He asked me to call him ASAP and said that it was
urgent... It turns out that my biological father Gary died
yesterday... I'm not sure how to feel yet... I think it's
sad, but I'm OK with it.
Our trip back in August put us through Arkansas and we had a chance
to spend a bit of time with Gary before heading back home. It's
good that Becky and the girls got a chance to meet him before he
died. I had spent some time with him about 10 years ago. We
never really got close to each other. I think of my adopted father
as "dad", so I guess in a way it's too distanced from me...
It was good to hear from Peter. I hadn't heard from him in the
same amount of time (10 years). My 1/2 sister Tianne (sp?) was
there too. She wanted to say "Hi". I only remember
her as a 6 year old, but she sounded like a young adult on the
phone. Peter told me that my other 1/2 brother Aaron was almost
done with law school... Wow, I remember him as a young teenager at
most...
I got their e-mail address and promised to send them some pictures
and bring them up to date with what we've been up to. It would be
nice to see them again - I missed the chance to visit with all of them
when we were in the neighborhood. I wish them all well and hope
that they make it through this as easily as possible. |
