… why it is that I need to move the batteries. They are blocking up the front door. And if I’m going to start some kind of serious work inside, I need the front door off so that I can bring messy stuff in that way rather than in through my little room.
Today, I put a row of breeze blocks down on the concrete base that I laid yesterday. I can’t build it right up as just right now I don’t know how high the suspended floor is going to be. But tomorrow I’ll be putting a layer of 40mm polystyrene on the base and around the sides, and dropping 10 batteries (thats 920 amp-hours in total) in there.
I’ve also started building the control panel as you can see. There are three charge controllers on there right now. From right to left, we have the charge controller for the 2nd bank of solar panels (the one for the first bank is currently nailed to the front door and will be moved onto the control panel in early course), then in the centre is the charge controller for the wind turbine, and on the left is the charge controller for the overload.
In case you don’t know, when the batteries are fully-charged the charge controllers shut down the charging circuit. And that’s a waste of energy. So what I’m doing is having an overload controller that will divert the surplus current into a “dump load” – in this case a 12 volt water heater element. So that way I’ll have plenty of hot water.
There’s also a bus bar or two on there. These are for connecting loads of heavy duty wires and cables together. Bus bars range from sophisticated professional jobs down to flattened copper pipe and self-tapping screws, but for many years now I’ve been developing the “ring terminal onto long bolt with butterfly nut” and it works just fine, so there’s no reason to change.
There will be a few other things on there too, like a mains inverter, a couple of clocks, some circuit breakers, a fuse box and all that kind of thing. Here is one I made earlier, but that has undergone considerable … er … modification since then.
And what do you think about the wallpaper in the house? The house as you know is built of stone and they plastered over it on the inside, and then put up some wallpaper of … er … stone. Why didn’t they just knock the plaster off?
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Claude’s son came round this afternoon. he’d been rummaging around in one of his dad’s many sheds and came across a trailer board.
Well, a sort-of trailer board. The lenses on the lights were smashed and all the cable was missing but I cleaned it up, cleaned all the contacts and rewired it, and now there is in theory a working trailer board. I say “in theory” because there are no bulbs either but I have a 12-volt piazzo tester and when I connected it up to the contacts for the bulbs it did what it was supposed to do at the time it was supposed to do it.
So all Pascal needs to do now is to buy some lenses (they are “standard trailer – small” and some bulbs, attach it properly to the rear of the caravan, and there you are.
I checked and adjusted the brakes on the caravan too and during the course of the evening I learnt that
1) The caravan is over 40 years old
2) Pascal has never towed a trailer (or indeed anything, for that matter) before.
All I can say is “good luck” to him, taking that over the “Cote de Maille” between Puy-en-Velay and Montelimar at night.
…(wince!)…. Tis not the age/condition of the caravan, though it’s a concern, so much as the inexperience of the driver. I think he needs some serious practice! Well god bless him anyway.
From what I’ve heard about Claude, he would crack a nut with a demolition ball and ignore the fact that it took 59 hours and he pulverised everything else within 100 miles. I suspect the journey could well be exciting.
And the Cote de Maille is a mountain pass over the Massif Centrale – it’s hairpins all the way up followed by hairpins all the way down.
And it’s Claude’s son who’s taking it – not Claude. And with all due respect to Pascal, he’s not out of the same mould as his father.
He has his wife and 2 kids with him as well and his car has seen better days too. I’m with you in thinking that this journey could be exciting.
I have made the suggestion that at least he goes and gets two brand-new tyres on the caravan instead of whatever it is that’s on there right now. That’ll give him a bit more of a chance but this is a case of “stony ground”.
But there is one more thing to say – and that is although he’s been given this caravan for free, he’s going to end up spending so much money on it that he could have bought a moremodern one for 500 quid, ended up in pocket, and have had a much more relaxing journey than the one he’s going to have. Some times these freebees are a poisoned chalice.
Lol. Yup – just like the money-saving kits. Many of them are so crappy (not the construction – the components) that you then have to buy ready-made anyway and then you’re out the cost of the kit on top of what you’d have bought anyway plus the frustration and wasted time!
Yeah, but you have the fun of doing it and the satisfaction at the end of it. I think Eric may agree with me that you can’t really put a price tag on that. It’s looking at something and saying “I did that!” and knowing it’s a good job, well done. I know that the caravan I did was not only as good as new (possibly better!), it’s still giving someone happy holidays up in Scotland because she sends me postcards and photo’s. That gives me a lot of pride!
Oh I thoroughly agree with that. But Pascal’s aim isn’t personal satisfaction (not when he’s getting others to do all the work for him) but to do it as cheaply as possible when he’s on a very limited budget. And there are some corners (like dodgy perished tyres that haven’t moved for 20 years and you are about to pull them for 500 miles at high speed at night) that you just can’t cut.
At the end of the day, if you are working on something to improve it and there are likely to be some very tangible results then I’d go for it every time, but when you are chucking good money after bad and you are still no nearer to getting home then there has to be a moment when you have to think that the game isn’t worth the candle.
I tried doing this place on the cheap – bargain basement materials with cheap throwaway tools and I soon learned that I’d wasted my money. I’ve spent a lot of money on decent materials and tools and it’s been well worth the effort and you can certainly see the difference.
Oh I definitely agree, especially about tools. A good set of tools, well looked after, will last you a lifetime. Not I hasten to add that you need the most expensive out there, but good ones are a must.
I just hope Pascal doesn’t live to regret cutting those corners. I think that if I was his wife I’d be seriously considering refusing to go!
Good tools are worth the money. Cheap tools are a waste of money. Those cheap tools I see in bargain shops are utterly useless – screwdrivers that bend when used, garden tools that bend etc. Better to spend double on something that actually works.
I agree, but some are like fashion accessories, where you are paying for the name and not just the quality. The trick is knowing good quality when you see it and not just going for the most expensive and hoping that it’s the best because you paid the most.
True. It can be hard to separate the wheat from the chaff. Secondhand shops are usually a good indication of the good brands – the good stuff usually ends up there while the junk gets tossed before it ever ends up there.
Car boot sales are pretty good, with eBay every now and again turning up a few gems. Terry swears by Screwfix special offers and I have to say that some of the stuff he’s recommended (Ryobi plusOne and the Hitachi battery-powered SDS drill) are magnificent. Some LIDL stuff is pretty good too.
But I will buy cheap throwaway stuff if it’s for a one-off job or for stuff thats not worth keeping (paintbrushes for creosoting, work gloves, that kind of thing). It’s a pleasant bonus if it lasts the pace.
They have foam paintbrushes here – dirt cheap and throw away when finished. No bristles in the paint either.
We’ve got those here too. They are reusable if it’s a water based paint. Most of my tools are either from Car Boots or Screwfix too. You just have to be careful at a car boot with the electrical stuff. But there’s usually someone with a generator who is making an extra bob by testing stuff for buyers.
I can test electrical stuff in Caliburn 😉