Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.  Boy does that turkey look like a dinosaur!  This year, I'm thankful I stayed home alone with the critters and didn't give my cold to anyone.  I don't feel up to a big dinner anyway.  Last week, I went to the Big Island, Hawaii for a wonderful week but the long, exhausting plane ride home seems to have made me succumb to a cold.  It has been years since I've had a cold, so I can be grateful that it rarely happens.  I can also be grateful that it isn't causing asthma.  I'm thankful I have such a nice neighbor who took such good care of the critters while I was away too.  My girl cat, Nissa has been pretty glued to me since I got back.  The dog is a bit more pushy in asking for pets but otherwise showing no trauma from my absence     It's been 3 years since I took a trip away from the cats and this dog had never been away from me.

Today, I took advantage of warmish weather and evicted the last of the carpenter bees from one of the jambs on my front door.  I cut a replacement piece and started filling a tunnel with putty to start the repair.  That just about did me in for today.  Lots of herb tea, vitamin C, and sleep to get over the cold.

Hope everyone has a nice thanksgiving.

Hurricane Sandy in the Mid-Atlantic

Here she comes!  Hurricane Sandy is turning northwest into the mid Atlantic area with unusual force for this area.  This is a very rare meteorological event.  Most hurricanes bop up the east coast  and head for Long Island or east and out to sea and just brush by this area.  A fairly rare upper level air pattern developed where a strong cold front that dumped on the west coast a few days ago arrived combined with a low pressure system out in the middle of the Atlantic along with what we call an Omega ridge in the middle of the two.  The Omega form is a strong ridge and not easily dislodged.  The upper air isobars form what looks like the capital Greek letter omega with the two low pressure systems forming the legs and the ridge in the middle forming the arch of the letter.

Refrigerator Compressor Ventilation - The Problem

Note: This ventilation idea was a failure.  It is just too hot in the summers to adequately ventilate with outside air. 
 
My broken thermistor wire problem on my trip this summer dramatically revealed the conditions behind the Isotherm refrigerator in my van.  It was very hot back there.  I used a towel rolled up to block the heat streaming in from it after I opened it up to try to fix it.  I had put insulation all around the refrigerator leaving a hole above the compressor and behind the entire refrigerator open to the upper and lower vents.  I assumed the compressor fan would be sufficient to draw air in and out. Crossing the Great Plains meant very hot conditions in the 90's to over 100F as well as uncomfortable humidity levels.  Added to that was my westward trek meant the refrigerator side of the van had the sun beating down all day as well.

Thermistor Replaced

The new thermistor came for my Isotherm refrigerator.  They sent a 6' phone cord and they had already wired it to a new thermistor, only this time with a nice flat connection protected by a heat shrink tube.  A much better connection that should be able to withstand some knocking about if it should fall again.  My contact said to use a pencil to poke a hole thru the silicon where the coolant tube and wire goes thru and poke it thru.  It was easy enough to get a hole thru but pushing the thermistor thru was not easy.  I ended up using a 1/4" wide piece of vinyl flashing to use as a fish wire poked thru the hole, then taped the thermistor to it to pull it thru.  

Isotherm Refrigerator Saga

I replaced my original 3-way refrigerator last spring with an Isotherm CR130 marine refrigerator.  The old one never worked for more than a few hours and mostly not at all.  I tried everything but to no avail.  After much research, I settled on the Isotherm because of it's excellent reputation for ruggedness, efficiency, and the company standing behind it's products.  It was expensive but I really wanted one that would be reliable and very miserly on the battery usage.

Route back east

The high dry plains of NE CO - CO14

I got back home on August 3.  Once I get home, the work piled up is daunting!  Mowing and 8-10 foot weeds, my laundry, get food going again, the pets.  My attempt to get the little volunteer job I do failed as my friend somehow did the opposite of what I asked and sent my home mail to my sister's instead of the PO Box mail.  Before I know it, 2 weeks have passed.  Here's a quick post about the route I took back.  It was just to get home in a reasonable amount of time but still look for swimming opportunities for the dog.

Getting ready to go

I've been moochdocking at my sister's house over the weekend again.  Got the ASU back and a new remote switch from the company for my refrigerator Thursday evening.  He had emailed me that the ASU tested good and that it might be the switch.  I reinstalled it, first trying the original wire, then the replacement wire.  No joy.  For a while, I thought the compressor might be going but not the fan.  That turned out not to be the case.  It is exactly like it was when it failed.  I think it must be the ASU despite their tests.  The electronics box attached to the compressor and wired to a manual switch to turn the compressor on and off works fine and it cools very well including the freezer (a workaround).  I just have to watch the temperature and keep it from freezing and remember to turn it back on when the temp rises.  Not ideal but better than ice in a cooler.  So, after determining it simply does not work Friday, I reinstalled the manual switch and put the fridge back into the cavity and secured it for the ride home.  It started cooling.