Construction Journal Entry Week of 6/6/10

6/8-10/10 I went up to Camp Serendipity for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

I arrived at 12:20. After moving in and having lunch, I fertilized and watered the giant sequoia trees Ellen and Bill. They looked noticeably better after having been fertilized and watered a week ago. Maybe they can be rejuvenated and make it after all.

Next, I went up to the loft and installed the ventilation system master switch in Box P. I remembered to turn off the breaker this time so the light was a little dim to work but I didn’t get zapped.

Next I tackled the harder job of building a mount for the fan. It was harder only in that I had to design it as well as build it. I found a nice scrap of ¾” plywood which I decided to fasten to the concrete block wall. The fan needed to be mounted 7 ¼” out from the wall so I decided to fasten a vertical 2x8 parallel to the plywood so the surface would be out 7 ¼” from the wall so I could screw the fan mounting bracket directly to it.

To do this, I ripped a left-over riser from the concrete stair forms, and cut it in half. I screwed each half to the plywood edgewise and then screwed the plank to them. I used a lot of screws so the structure was super sturdy.

Then to fasten the structure to the wall, I used one of the 5/8” bolts that stick through the wall holding up the porch ledgers on the outside. The plywood happened to lap over one of these bolts, so I simply drilled a hole in the plywood, took the nut and washer off, hung the structure to the wall with the bolt through the hole, and replaced the washer and nut. By tightening the nut, the structure would stay in a vertical position even though the bolt was going through one corner of the plywood.

Then, to complete the fastening, I got the Bulldog out, drilled two ¼” holes in the bottom corners of the plywood and into the concrete a couple inches, and then drove anchors into the holes to pin the plywood to the wall.

With that structure in place, the fan mounting bracket fit nice and flush on the surface of the plank with the top flange fitting perfectly with the stovepipe coming down from the floor above. I screwed the bracket in place and the mount job was done.

Before I went in for the night, I fed quite a few peanuts to a chipmunk, or maybe it really was a ground squirrel. I still can’t tell the difference. This one, though, looked like a pregnant female and I expect to see some new little critters running around soon.

On Wednesday, I installed the fan in its bracket and wired it up. I was happy with how neat the job turned out to be.

I was a little shaken, though, when I went up to the loft and tested it. It didn’t turn on when I flipped the switch. I dreaded having to open everything back up and diagnosing the problem, but I continued with the testing procedure.

When I turned the switch to what I thought was the thermostat position, the fan turned on. But in this position, the thermostat seemed to have no effect. Then it dawned on me that the switch was upside down from what I had figured it to be.

The switch has three positions, with off being the middle position. I had thought up was going to be “on”, and down was going to connect the fan to the thermostat. It ended up the other way around. It didn’t take me long to decide to leave it that way. In a way it makes more sense anyway. Normal operation will be with the switch down. You flip it all the way up to turn the fan on manually and to the middle to shut it off altogether.

Just as I figured this out, Larry came by for a visit. He said he had just seen a black bear walking down the road toward him as he turned into my driveway. I got my camera and the two of us went back down to the road to see if we could see the bear.

We didn’t see it on the road so we walked up the road to where Larry had last seen it. We looked around in the bush but didn’t see any sign of it. We figured that the bear was probably watching us, though.

We went back up to the cabin and Larry decided to take a break and rest on the porch bench after having climbed up the hill twice. I took a picture of him sitting there.

I told Larry about the mistakes I had made, drilling through the electrical wires, twice. We both had a good laugh over it. By now it seems pretty funny. I took a picture of Larry looking up at the conduit that had caused the problems.

Larry told me that Dick Tutino had suffered a severe complication during an operation which left him in a vegetative state. He said Mike went back East to be with him and that he was going to bring his dad’s leather working equipment back with him and start making saddles. He also told me that Shirley was going to attend the 100th anniversary Boy Scout Jamboree this summer as a guest of the Forest Service.

After Larry left, I went in for lunch and a nap. Then I went back to work and installed my home-made duct switch to the bottom of the fan, and the duct from there to the vent pipe going outside.

By that time, the temperature in the loft was 80 degrees. It was gratifying to measure the temperature of that hot air being blown out the end of the pipe that once served as my one-way rodent valve. The summer-mode of the ventilation system is now in operation.

The next project is to install the wire for the eventual ceiling fan in the living room ceiling. To do that I need a scaffold tower in there to allow me to reach the ceiling. I carried two sets of steel scaffold frames up from the crawl space and used them along with one set that was still up on the loft to erect a three-tier scaffold tower that straddled the wood stove. One corner of it provides access to the ridgepole where the fixture needs to be installed, and the rest of it provides access to the rafters through which the wire needs to go. That was a lot of lifting and carrying for an old man, but I took it slow and easy. In the process, I fed the pregnant ground squirrel a few times while I was outside.

On Thursday morning, Bert and Ernie showed up for hugs and biscuits. At about the same time, a big flock of gray jays also showed up for peanuts. I never saw all the birds at once so it was hard to count them. There were probably six or eight adults and there were two juveniles. The young birds were very inexperienced. It was fun to watch them trying to learn from the adult birds. Eventually they learned to land on my hand and finally one of them picked up a peanut, but he definitely did not know what to do with it. They’ll get it figured out sooner or later.

And if that weren’t enough, the ground squirrel came around a couple times to muscle in on the birds and get peanuts for herself too.

I loaded a table into the truck that I had been storing for Kalimba and Chuck. Then I mixed some fertilizer in a bucket of dirt and took it and a bucket of water to Ellen’s sequoia tree. When I talked to Ellen she suggested putting the dirt around the tree and pouring water on it so that the dirt could filter down into the duff to help the tree root better. It seemed to work, because after while the water didn’t seem to disappear as fast. I also watered Dave, Chuck, Bill, and Andrew.

Next, I coiled up another hose I had hung out to dry that I had forgotten about. I stored it in the crawlspace with the others. Then, after mulling it over for a while, I decided to caulk the seams inside the duct valve I had made. I should have done it before I installed it, but I didn’t think it was necessary. Now, looking inside and seeing light coming through the cracks, I decided that if I didn’t fill the cracks now, I would always regret it.

This was almost my last chance so I decided to do it. I had to take apart two pipe joints to remove the duct I had just installed, and I would have to work on the seams with the valve mounted to the wall, but that wasn’t all that awkward. I used a long stick and gooped the seams up with Vulkem and sealed them up good. I put the ducting all back together again and was very happy that I did it. It will make that valve a lot less leaky.

Then, to complete the summer-mode ventilation system, I devised a way to hold the duct valve in one position or the other. I drilled two holes in the mounting plank so that I could stick a short dowel in either hole. With the dowel in a hole, it sticks out so that it holds the wire lever that controls the position of the valve flapper. To change position, you pull the dowel out, move the flapper lever, and then stick the dowel back in the other hole to hold the flapper in that position. It is simple and it will work great.

Before I left for home, I cleaned up the porch and swept it off. I fed the gray jays and the ground squirrel in the process. I left for home at 1:40.



Go to Next Journal Entry
Previous Journal Entry

Index to all Journal Entries
Go To Home Page

©2010 Paul R. Martin, All rights reserved.