Summer coming to a close, projects and a new bike.

It's been a busy summer, between getting Amanda moved, maintaining Mom's house and yard and trying to get a few upgrades to the coach and the annual maintenance completed, the summer is almost over! We had our annual Labor Day Picnic so you know the summer is winding down.

We didn't do any major projects at Mom's, just the normal fix ups plus cleaning and sealing 3 decks, and putting in a couple of raised beds in her garden. She seems to be happy with the way her root crops came out when using the raised beds. She has pretty heavy clay soil so carrots and beets always came out short and deformed. The compost/soil mix I filled the raised beds with sure seemed to make them happy.

Coach upgrades: We use a RV Sani-con macerator pump that I purchased from RVUpgrades to empty the holding tanks since the drain I dump into is about 50 feet away and slightly up hill. It has been leaking from the seal between the pump and the motor since the middle of last summer. It wasn't a big deal but sure make a distasteful job all the more nasty.

Earlier this summer I was able to find and purchase a repair kit for the pump so I gloved up and tore into it for a rebuild. I was quite surprised when I opened the pump housing to find a piece of rag wrapped around the blade used to chop everything up small enough to pumped through the impeller. I think this probably was left over from the coach build, since the first dump of the tanks was with the macerator pump. The cleaned and rebuilt pump sure cut down on the time required to pump 45 gallons out of the black water tank!

I was in a rush when we first got the macerator so my installation consisted of using a couple of alligator clips to make the power and ground connections. Since I only looked at it when doing the dumping I never got around to actually doing a nice clean install. Well I finally took care of it this year (this is only the third summer for using the temporary setup). I had some heavy wire left over from the solar panel install and purchased a connector designed for connecting the battery to a electric boat winch. Now the connection is easy to make and disconnect and the pump is running faster and cooler.

As part of our efforts to conserve we only start the water heater up when we are ready to do dishes and take our showers. As the water goes from cold to hot it expands and so builds a fair amount of pressure in the water lines of the coach. If you can keep a good sized air bubble in the water heater it lessens the effect but since water has a tendency to absorb that air bubble it eliminates that cushion fairly quickly. My solution was to install an expansion tank. I picked up a tank at Lowes and installed in under the sink in the kitchen. I originally thought I would install it in the storage area next to the water heater but realized there was a lot of unused space under the kitchen sink. I also figured it would get knocked around a lot less there than where I try to store the ladder, chairs and grill. I have really been surprised at how much better the water flow seems to be with the two gallon reserve we now have.

While I was at Lowes picking up the tank I also picked up a whole house water pressure reducer. I have been using a small adjustable Watts water pressure regulator but flow was substantially restricted due to the small size of the inlet, outlet and internal passages. I decided it was time to upgrade to something that would really flow some water. The new one has 3/4 inch inlet and outlet and is designed to supply a whole house so should have more than enough flow for our needs. I am not currently using it since I know the pressure at the Mom's is less than 50 pounds, I will let you know how it works once we are on our way again.

I also reorganized my storage area getting rid of some the the stuff I hadn't used in the last couple of years and just trying group like items together so I could find them when needed. I decided to move my air hoses and a heavy duty extension cord up to the generator compartment.

There is a nice open area between the generator and the square tubing used to support the front fiberglass shell. I took a couple of straps from Lowes that are normally used to tie walls together in house construction and bent them up to use as hooks to hang the hoses and cables. I don't use the air hoses and extension cord often and they were a pain to get to since the box they were in ended up buried in the lower storage area. Now the air hose is right next to the air connector in the front of the coach and much easier to get to when needed.

I go each year for a physical and this year the Dr wants me to work on lowering my LDL and to loose some weight. The only way to lower the LDL and raise the HDL is to do exercise. I have been walking but when I try to do more my knees and hips suffer from the impact so I have been trying to ride a bike. I've been using my sister's old Schwinn mountain bike, but that's pretty tough on the pelvic bone and puts a lot of pressure on my wrists. The pressure causes my hand to go to sleep, so I tend not to ride it as far as I should. The solution was to plunk down the money I have been earning from fixing computers for a new comfort bike. I couldn't believe the difference in the way this new bike rides compared to the old one.

The new bike (a TREK Navigator 3) shifts great, peddles easier and stops a whole lot better. In addition it has some suspension to smooth out the bumps! I have been trading off the walking and bike riding on a daily basis and am still getting 40 plus miles in a week. I think it was a good investment.