1/18-20/11 I went up to Camp Serendipity for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

This week marked a milestone in that I decided to begin living in the cabin instead of the trailer while I am working up there. We had moved a lot of stuff, primarily for cooking and eating, from the trailer to the cabin while Harold visited Camp Serendipity, so I decided that instead of moving it all back down, I would move bedding up and make the move more or less permanent.

I arrived at 1:15 and found that the driveway had been plowed so I was able to drive right in. My back had healed up since last week and I was grateful for that. Bert showed up by himself so he got all the hugs and biscuits. There had been no new snow since last week. I carried my gear directly to the cabin and then moved my bedding and some more things from the trailer to the cabin. I also scooped off the concrete staircase.

Both Bert and Ernie showed up later for more hugs and biscuits. Ed Barnes called and we had a fairly long conversation about insuring the place.

That night, it was so clear that I could see the stars through front windows, and the moon was so bright I could clearly see detailed features on Nason Ridge. It was beautiful. I never got views like that at night when I slept in the trailer. It was also a great relief to have no back pain during the night.

On Wednesday, I went to work finishing the wiring of the three smoke detectors. I started by stringing the MC cable from the bedroom closet ceiling where it came out from under the phony log, over to the site in the bedroom ceiling where I wanted to put the smoke and CO detector.

Next I needed to supply power to that location. I didn't need the MC cable for this because I didn't need that third conductor. What I needed was some 14-2 wire. I was sure that I had some somewhere but I couldn't find it. I figured that I must have been mistaken about having some so I decided to use a length of 12-2 that I had. I would rather not work with such stiff wire, but that's what I had so I went ahead.

I decided to tap into the power at Box 47, which is the closest outlet box to the bedroom smoke detector. I took the box apart and wired up the end of the 12-2 cable. But when I went to put it back together, I could see that the box was too crowded.

I felt stupid for having wasted the time, but I took Box 47 apart and put it back together again the way it was. Then I strung the 12-2 wire through the loft floor all the way over to Box 50, which is the last box in that string so the wires would fit in the box nicely. I took Box 50 apart, wired up the new wire, and put the box back together again.

Just before lunch, from 11:00 to noon, I listened in on a nationwide political phone conversation.

After lunch I installed the octagon box in the bedroom ceiling for the smoke detector and hooked up the wires. I got the three wire harnesses out of the boxes for the three new smoke detectors I had bought and I wired them into the two boxes in the loft and the one in the bedroom.

When I opened the boxes to get the harnesses, I also got the installation instructions out and read them. I had looked at them before, but this time I decided to study them in detail. There were no surprises until I reached the line that said that the smoke detectors are not to be powered by a circuit protected by GFCI. I had connected them to my circuit 10 so I consulted my diagrams and learned that circuit 10 is AFCI protected. That was a blow that made me feel even stupider than my earlier mistake. I should have read those instructions earlier.

Now I didn't know what to do. The prohibition was against GFCI, not AFCI. But it only made sense that it should apply there as well, for whatever the reason was in the first place. I thought that in the morning I would call either the electrical inspector, or the manufacturer to find out what to do.

During the night I couldn't help thinking about my problem. In the process of thinking about my options, I remembered that I had stored a box of 14-2 wire in the crawlspace as part of a campaign of cleaning things up and organizing them a little. This solved one of my puzzles and gave me another option.

On Thursday morning after breakfast, I went down to the crawlspace and sure enough, there was plenty of 14-2 wire to replace the 12-2 wire running to Box 50. I decided to replace the wire with 14-2, but since I would have to dismantle Box 50, I could choose another circuit that is not GFCI or AFCI protected. There would be no need to call anybody for advice. The obvious choice was circuit 6 because I could tap into it from the bedroom ceiling light fixture box, which is only five feet or so from the smoke detector box. This was going to be easy.

I dismantled Box 50 again, unhooked and removed the 12-2 wire, and then put the box back together again the way it was. Removing the wire was a lot easier than stringing it so it didn't take me long to do that. Then I wired up a short piece of 14-2 between the smoke detector box and the light fixture box in the bedroom, replaced the light fixture, and wired the harness back into the smoke detector box. Then I installed and tested the two smoke detectors in the loft and I tested the one in the bedroom. I didn't install the one in the bedroom because it needs to be uninstalled in order to do the sheetrocking. I placed dust covers over the ones in the loft and I'll remove the covers when all the construction is done. In spite of all the stupid mistakes, I was happy to be done with smoke detectors for the time being. After a few weeks, the wasted time won't be missed anyway.

The weather was changing so it began snowing lightly early in the morning. Bert and Ernie showed up for another round of hugs and biscuits.

Before I stopped for lunch, I had time to make an insulated chamber out of rigid Styrofoam to enclose the hose spigot tee in the crawlspace so it won't freeze. The chamber encloses about a foot of the 1" copper pipe with 55 degree water circulating in it so that should supply enough heat to keep the tee from freezing. I feel a lot better now that that is done. I left for home at 1:00 and just got over the pass as a fairly major snowstorm moved in. There was fresh snow on the road all the way to Index.