Tag Archives: Weil-McLain Gold

2013_09_23-27 (M-F) Getting Ready

There is always lots to do around the house when we return from an RV rally, more so since we are still getting moved in to our new (to us) house and trying to get it ready for an open house / house warming.  We decided about a month ago to have the house warming as a way to “force” us to accelerate the moving-in process and so far that seems to be working.

Arriving home yesterday we were able to pull in to our pull-through driveway with the car attached, which was very nice.  With the added “fines” (sandy silt) material mixed in with the 21aa road gravel, the driveway is now packing together very tightly and easily supporting the weight of the bus.  The planned driveway geometry has worked out well allowing us to pull in and out with the car attached.  That means we cook hook/unhook the car in the driveway rather than in the street.

Linda babysat for Madeline on Monday while I worked around the house, unloaded the clothes and bedding from the bus, and started doing laundry; not very interesting, perhaps, but satisfying work in its own way.  We both spent a fair amount of time on our computers this week, Linda with household accounting chores and RV park research and me with some CEPI work, our website/blog, and websites for several other organizations.  Using WordPress to create/manage websites and blogs has really grabbed my interest.  I’m not very proficient yet, but I’m leaning.

We hung the last few pieces of artwork for now and spent part of the week opening and moving boxes.  Linda was looking for papers we could take to a shredding company and managed to accumulate quite a few boxes of them.  At this point we’ve run out of time to open boxes and sort through the contents, so we turned our attention to finding places to “hide” them until after the open house.  We’re not there yet, but we are comfortable that the house will be presentable enough by the time it needs to be.

We decided to harvest some of the apples from our apple tree and discovered that a large branch (3-4” diameter) had peeled loose in three places, probably due to the copious amount of fruit on it, the age of the tree, and the fact that it had not been pruned properly (or at all) for years.  We don’t know much about fruit trees, but we know that this is not the time of year to prune them.  With the tree obviously damaged, however, we decided to cut the branch off and let nature take its course.  We took it off in three pieces to make sure we could handle them.  The branches of an apple tree tend to get intertwined, especially if it isn’t pruned, so we really had to pull to get the pieces down.  That brought lots of apples to the ground besides the ones on the damaged branch.  We left the branches and their apples on the ground for the deer and other animals that frequent our backyard.

We collected a large bag of apples and Linda spent time during the rest of the week peeling them, dipping them in lemon, and freezing them.  She also made apple sauce and apple bread (both of which were outstanding).  She commented at one point that “I am starting to understand why farm wives never got out of the kitchen.”  Cooking real food with real ingredients (whole-food, plant-based) is a lot of work.  Linda finds the work satisfying, however, now that she has the time to do it, and I certainly find the results satisfying as well.  Yummy.

Ed and Betty Burns arrived on Thursday afternoon in their Tiffin Phaeton motorhome and stayed until late Friday morning.  This was their second visit in about a month and we really enjoyed having them here again.  They have been working at the Middleton Berry Farm and finished their tour of duty on Thursday.  I moved our motorhome out of the pull-through driveway so they could pull in and park in a level spot with power.

They got here in time for dinner and Linda put out a nice meal.  She served a nice Waldorf style green salad using some of our fresh-picked apples with homemade apple bread.  The main course was a lentil loaf with a baked potato and homemade applesauce on the side.  I chose the Blueberry Wine from Forestedge Winery in LaPorte, Minnesota to go with the meal.  (It only occurred to us later than we had an apple wine from the same winery, which would have really completed our apple-themed meal.)  Forestedge Winery is owned by Paul and Sharon Shuster, who are members of our FMCA Freethinkers associate chapter as are Ed and Betty.

Linda made apple crisp for dessert, but none of us had room, so we saved it for breakfast the next day.  In addition to the apple crisp, breakfast included Linda’s homemade granola cereal with fresh blueberries, fresh banana slices, and raspberries that we had personally picked at the Middleton Berry Farm a few weeks ago and frozen.  A little orange juice and a 50/50 blend of Ethiopian Yirga Cheffe and Kona coffee rounded out the meal.

We decided earlier in the week that we would try Florida for our first snowbird experience.  (Snowbird is a term used to describe folks who live in northern climates where it snows and head south for the winter to get away from same.  If there is a corresponding term for folks who live in the south and travel north in the summer to avoid heat and humidity, I don’t know what it is, other than perhaps Bridwons.  Think about it.)  Our decision was motivated by the desire to attend a large converted bus rally in Arcadia, Florida that is held each year from December 26 to January 1st.  (The actual rally is Dec 29, 30, 31, but you can arrive as early as the 26th and departure is the 1st.)  The rally was started by Jack and Paula Conrad, who ran it for the first ten years.

Ed and Betty used to live in Florida so we were eager to draw on their knowledge and experience before trying to book a place or places to stay.  Earlier in the week we called the Low-Key Hideaway RV Park and Motel in Cedar Key, but they were not able to accommodate us.  We knew about Low-Key Hideaway Cherie Ve Ard’s Technomadia blog postings, and it appears that the place has developed quite a clientele, perhaps in part as a result of Technomadia’s publicity.

At the last two GLCC rallies we had talked at length with Pat and Vicky, who winter in Florida.  I also had an in-depth conversation this week with two other fellow RVers (Ed and Al) who winter in Florida and got their thoughts, suggestions, and recommendations.  Our friends and fellow H3-40 owners, Chuck and Barbara, have spent the last seven winters in Florida and the last several at Pelican Lake Motorcoach Resort in Naples, Florida.  We delayed our return home following the Holistic Holiday At Sea cruise in March so we could drive over from Ft. Lauderdale to see the resort and have dinner with them.  It was very nice, as you would expect.

We learned a number of things as a result of this quick “research”.  Some of it was stuff we knew, or assumed as a form of common sense, but some of it we did not:

  1. The cost per day generally goes down the longer you stay in one place.  The usual breakpoints are week, month, 2-month, 3-month, 4-month, 6-month, and year.  (You can also purchase lots, but probably don’t want to calculate the per day cost for that.)
  2. The farther south you go, the more expensive it gets.
  3. The reason for the previous point is the average daily temperate range.  In northern Florida it is not unusual for temperatures to drop into the upper 30’s at night, and record lows have been recorded in the teens.  That doesn’t happen in Key West, and money tends to follow the pleasant climate.
  4. The closer you are to one of the coasts, the more expensive it gets.  You pay a price for beaches and sunrises/sunsets.
  5. No-See-Ums, however, can be a real problem near the coasts, and some folks have very bad reactions to their bites.
  6. If the RV park has “resort” in the name, it will be more expensive, with “motorcoach resort” costing even more, and “luxury motorcoach resort” costing even more than that.
  7. Most of Florida is swampy; being inland or staying at a “luxury” resort does not guarantee that you are not camped in or next to a swamp.  Think bugs, snakes, and alligators.
  8. You can almost always rent a deeded site at a higher-end park directly from the owners much cheaper than you can rent it through the park management office.  Check the classifieds in the back of FMC Magazine.
  9. Moving every week is expensive and tiring, but gets you access to more of the state.
  10. Staying more than one month at the same place can get a bit boring, but that’s a personal thing.
  11. Some parks are in dense urban areas, others are near small towns, and some are in the middle of nowhere.  It’s a shopping convenience versus solitude thing.  You can end up having to drive 20 miles or more for groceries if you are not paying attention when you choose an RV park.
  12. Not all parks are “big rig friendly” (even though they will claim they are).
  13. Most parks have punitive refunds polices, so be sure before you know what they are before you book.
  14. Make sure your park of choice is located near things you want to do (hike, bike, kayak, fish, watch sunrises and/or sunsets, or have access to highways so you can visit natural and historic sites in your car, etc.)  Tallahassee is not a good base camp for visiting Key West.
  15. Many RV parks are adjacent to a major freeway, railroad track, or airport; sometimes all three.  If you don’t think the noise will bother you, you’re wrong.
  16. Some RV parks are gated (if you care).
  17. Whether the residents in a park or nice or not seems to have little to due with the physical appearance and amenities of the place.
  18. There are a lot of older parks with mixed use, i.e., year-round “Park Models” in addition to sites for vacationers and snowbirds.
  19. Check the type/quality of the interior roads and parking pads (concrete, gravel, grass, hard dirt, or sand), it might matter with a big, heavy coach.
  20. The spacing of the sites varies greatly; some parks have sites that are small and close together (but they will tell you they are very spacious).
  21. Find out whether there is any landscaping, especially shade trees around the sites.
  22. Find out whether the roads and sites have trees trimmed up and back sufficiently to not scratch your RV.
  23. Check to see if “lakes” on the property actually have water in them (seriously).
  24. Check on the availability and cleanliness of onsite bath/shower facilities and Laundromats.
  25. Check the availability of onsite activities (which could be a plus or a minus) and facilities such as swimming pools, tennis courts, etc.  If you don’t want them, why pay for them?
  26. Find out if the park has pet restrictions, and if so, what they are.
  27. Some parks are 55+ operations, others allow/encourage/cater to families with children.  Know which type you are signing up for and make sure it’s what you want.
  28. The photos on the website always look beautiful, but somehow manage to avoid showing you views of the parking sites from a vantage point that allows you to assess all of the factors mentioned above.
  29. Google Earth and other satellite image websites/apps are your best friend and ultimate research tool.

Our goal was to book a park or parks for January and February by the end of the day Friday, but we didn’t make it; too much to ponder and no time to make phone calls.  We will get back to it early next week as Tuesday is October 1st, and January 1st will only be three months away.

Tom and Tom from TOMTEK HVAC were back on Friday afternoon to finish up repairs on our hydronic heating system.  They did not have one of the parts they were going to replace but it didn’t matter as they discovered some additional issues that will require a return visit.

The first thing they discovered was that the propane shut off valve didn’t shut off the propane.  We had to turn off the supply at the tank so they could replace the valve before doing anything else.  When they removed the propane diffuser cone to clean it and replace the gasket they discovered that the end of the cone had large holes in it.  These holes were preventing the propane from burning as efficiently as it should, and if they got bigger could prevent the furnace from working at all.  Parts like this for a Weil-McLain GV Gold Series hydronic heating system are not common, i.e., they don’t carry them on their truck or even stock them at their office, so they had to special order it.

As long as they had the combustion chamber open, they went ahead and vacuumed it out.  They had me look at it, and it had what appeared to be a couple of inches of rusty debris lying in the bottom, the result of a lack of proper (professional) service over a very long period of time (or perhaps any service at all).  They put it all back together and will replace the diffuser cone, gasket, and igniter (along with the part they forgot to bring) when they return next week.

I don’t know if this qualifies as serendipity in the usual sense, but we are lucky that we decided to have the system “serviced” in advance of the start of the heating season.  If not, we would not have discovered defects that could have led to a wintertime failure of the furnace with serious consequences for the house.

As I was working at my computer Friday evening an e-mail showed up with the PDF version of the October 2013 issue of Bus Conversions Magazine.  The article I wrote on the mid-August Back-To-The-Bricks rally in Clio, Michigan was the cover/centerfold article, the fifth one I have had published in BCM.  (See the BCM page of the website for the complete list and information about Bus Conversions Magazine.)  That was a nice end to nice week.

 

2013_09_06 (Fri) House Systems

I have often commented here about the “house” systems in our converted coach; the water (fresh and sewage) and electrical (lights, appliances) systems and their components that make a large motorized vehicle behave like a stationary house.  Those components include things that are found in any stationary dwelling (water and sewage pipes, plumbing fixtures, electrical wires, circuit breakers, switches, light fixtures, appliances, etc.), things that are found in some stationary dwellings (sewage tanks, macerator pumps, well pumps, fresh water pressure tanks, reverse osmosis systems, power generators and transfer switches), and things that are not commonly found in stationary homes (yet) (various gauges, batteries, inverters & chargers, power protection devices, solar panels, and even wind turbines.)  RVs do not have geothermal or low-head hydro systems.

Today, however, was about actual house systems, that is to say, systems for our actual (stationary) house.  We have had a “rotten egg” smell in our domestic fresh water system since we bought the house and finally called Adams Well Drilling and Water Treatment, a local Howell-based company, to come out and take a look at our current equipment.  Brian arrived as scheduled at 9 AM and we walked him through the complete fresh water system.  He took some water samples directly from the well (before any filtering, softening, or other treatment).  The good news was that our dissolved iron was at 1.2 ppm (mg/L), which is a treatable level, but above the 0.3 ppm at which iron starts to become a problem in the water.  The less good news came from two directions: 1) that our Water Boss water softener wasn’t doing a very good job and 2) we appeared to have iron bacteria, which a regular water softener doesn’t treat very well (or at all) even with the special “iron out” salt.

We discussed a range of options but Brian’s recommendation, which we accepted, was a new water softener and a “carbon unit”.  The carbon unit is self cleaning using special chlorine crystals, and is very effective in dealing with iron bacteria.  We will also have new sediment and taste filter housing installed as part of the installation.  There may be other issues with the water system in this house, which was built in 1977, but the water treatment equipment was probably due to be replaced regardless of what else we do.  The following website from the Illinois Department of Public Health gives a nice synopsis of iron in drinking water:   http://www.idph.state.il.us/envhealth/factsheets/ironFS.htm .

The other fresh water issue we have, based on the testing that was done as part of the purchase inspection, is Arsenic.  The level that came back from the lab was 34 ppb (ug/L).  The old “safe” level was 50 ppb, but the current “safe” level is 10 ppb.  Zero ppb would be ideal, of course, but is not achievable at a reasonable cost. To further complicate matters, there are two kinds of Arsenic found in well water: Arsenic 5 and Arsenic 3.  The prior water testing did not test for these separately, but the sample Brian took today is going to a private lab that can/will test for each separately.  We were told previously that Arsenic 5 is the more typical and is mostly removed by Reverse Osmosis (RO) but that Arsenic 3 is not removed by RO.  The house has a Culligan RO system installed that supplies water to the refrigerator and a special faucet in the kitchen sink.  It was in the house when we bought it and we decided to continue renting it until we could determine our true needs and consider our options.  Not knowing if we had Arsenic 3 in our water, we purchased a special Arsenic 3 filter from Culligan which installs in the manifold after the RO membrane.  We made a call to Culligan to check on our contract and got a call back from our rep (Jeff) who has been a good guy to work with.  Long term it makes no sense to rent the unit, so we are exploring purchasing it or removing it and having Adams install a similar system.

While Brian was doing his thing, Darryl showed up from DMC HVAC.  Darryl did the HVAC installation for our office/library/garage addition/renovation at the old house and did a great job.  When it comes to contractors I like to use local people when I can but I also like to stick with people we have worked with before.  Darryl is not local to our new place, but he is a known quantity whose work we respect.  Although we have a loop from the hydronic hot water heating system in the Florida room/library, it has some issues.

The major issue is that the supply and return lines run through the ceiling and into the wall which adjoins the garage.  We think this house originally had a detached garage with a concrete patio between the garage and the end of the house.  Sometime later a roof was added connecting the house and the garage and the two open sides were closed in with 16 feet of doorwall and fixed glass panels.  The only practical way to extend the heating systems was to run the pipes overhead.

The other issue is that this space does not have air-conditioning.  (There is a small window mount unit in the garage wall.  Yup, it exhausts heat into the garage.)  We have space in a corner of the garage by this room to install a small forced-air furnace/air-conditioner and get the air to/from the room easily along the garage ceiling.  We would also like a ceiling mounted forced-air furnace in the garage so we can store paints and other things that we want to be able to keep above freezing, or bump the temperature up a bit and have a comfortable place to work.  Darryl installed one of these at our old house, and it was a very nice feature.

In anticipation of this work, we had a second propane tank installed next to the garage when the whole house backup generator was installed back in May.  I told AmeriGas at the time what we planned to do so they did a temporary installation of the tank and ran a line directly to the generator.  One of the thinks Darryl will need to do is mount a permanent pressure regulator on the side of the garage and then run pipe to get the propane over to the two new furnaces.

As Darryl was finishing up, Tom and Tom showed up from TOMTEK HVAC.  TOMTEK is a Howell-based company that we decided to have service our hydronic heating system.  It’s an old Weil-McLain Gold unit with some corroded parts.  It was also filled with water.  When we looked at the house originally the heating loop to the Florida room was shut off.  It turned out that something had failed while the owners were away during the winter and that loop had frozen and ruptured.  They repaired it prior to closing, but I never did understand why the system didn’t have an appropriate anti-freeze in it instead of water.  As of today, it does.

One of the nice things about hydronic heat is that it is easily zoned.  Our system has four zones, each with its own thermostat.  One of those thermostats also controls the air-conditioning for the main floor of the house.  That may seem odd, but it is a consequence of the A/C unit probably being added sometime after the house was built.  As a result, the air handler is in the attic and all of the air ducting is too.  It’s a single system controlled from a single point, and is completely separate from the hydronic heating system except for this one shared thermostat.  It was the failure of this particular thermostat that prompted us to go ahead and contact TOMTEK and have them out to service the system and install four new thermostats.  The one that controls the living/dining rooms and kitchen, as well as the air-conditioning, is a Wi-Fi enabled device that will allow us to monitor the temperature in the hallway, which is the most central point in the house, and control the main heating loop and the air-conditioner remotely if we so desire.  Pretty cool; literally.  The “boiler” needed some additional service for which TOMTEK had to order parts, so they will be back another day to finish up the maintenance on the unit.

Overlapping contractors made for a somewhat intense day.  Fortunately there were two of us available to interact with them, and they all got the attention they needed from us, when they needed it.  As soon as Brian was done I called Adams Well Drilling and Water Treatment and scheduled him to come back on the 11th to install the new water treatment equipment.