Insulating

I had my rough electrical inspection on May 13, and all is good. Except I forgot to wire in the smoke detecters, as I just kinda thought I would be using battery operated ones instead, being off grid and all. But I guess they need to be wired in anyway. I need one on each floor and they all need to be wired together so that if one goes off, they all go off. No problem. I started doing some insulating right after the inspection. I did have a little in basement from before. The basement is pretty much done except for all the smaller pieces that go in the floor joists on top of the basement wall. Most of the main floor is done except for one end wall, as I need to have axcess to it for install the deck headers. The Knee walls in the loft are done except that same end wall for the same purpose. The electrical inspector is also the building inspector, and I mentioned to him about my idea of having a sawed off door to enter the deck off the loft bedroom. It is all a go, he kinda liked my idea, although if I were a contractor building this house for someone else it would have been a different story. Monday will probably be a bit of waste as I am going to go to town for some more supplies.

I finally went and picked up a load of water from town the other evening. Before I unhooked the trailer I thought I would fill up the RV, as I was in major need of a shower after insulating all day, and I sure have no intentions to go all the way to Grande Prairie for just a shower. This way I can just gravity feed the water into the RV instead of hooking up a pump and doing it.

The shower in the RV is pretty tiny, but it works. It was busy day.

Things are sure starting to get dry around here lately, which is kinda hard to believe after seeing all that snow we had this winter. It's pretty smoky around here all day. There are some fires burning in the Whitecourt and/or Slave Lake areas.


Disclaimer--IMPORTANT


This is a personal blog, mainly for my own use. I am building a house with my own two hands, but I am learning alot of things as I go. I do not claim to know what I am doing, or if anything I do is even close to being done correctly or safely. So please, if you are planning on using any of my ideas or methods for your own use, please get professional advice before actually following through with your actions. I will not be held responsible for any injuries or damages of any kind caused by information or comments from this blog.

More wiring and other things.

Well it's that time of the year again, where I need to start using some store bought energy to keep the growlies cold. The propane fridge in my RV. I think I finally decided what I will use for refridgeration in the near future. DC powered fridge and freezer combination which I think I will use all summer and then in the winter I will utilize the natural refridgeration as I have done for the last two winters now. But it may come later as I can still use the RV fridge for a year or two. Whats the panick. I believe that I will have power to burn in the summer time, but the winters will be kinda tough. I really see no sense in using energy to heat a home then put a box in there that burns energy to make things cold when it is -30 to -40 celcius outside. Gotta make some use out of that cold weather.

I hav'nt been very busy working at work, but it is that time of the year for work related courses and meetings etc. Then when I thought I got all that out of the way, my old GMC decided to quit on me on my way into town. I caught a ride with a good samaritin who gave me ride to my place so I could get my Dodge and trailer to load the GMC onto. I got it home and trying to figure out what was wrong with it the next day while it was still loaded on the trailer, I managed to rip the door handle off the truck. I wasn'nt having a real good day. I kinda boiled the truck issues down to the fuel pump, but I was'nt positive about it, and I ended up taking it in to town for repair. I just did'nt feel like spending time on it when I have so much building going on. It was the fuel pump and charged me $800.00. I bought a door handle for real close to 100.00. I sure don't feel real frugal lately. lol. I know I could have changed that fuel pump myself and I would have if had nothing better to do. It is inside the fuel tank, and the tank was pretty close full. I would have been a day just trying to find some place to put all that gas.

One evening after supper I decided to install a tv antenna on the shack. I've had one kicking around here and always wanted to get it up. Now I have two whole channels that are alot less fuzzy than the two I had before. You sure don't see many of these around anymore. I wonder if you can even buy a new one of these. I got pissed off at the satelite tv company finally. I don't really feel off grid with it anyway. Internet is enough. Ever since I moved out here, I put my satellite tv on suspension to avoid paying the disconnect fee and the reconnect fee and all the other stupid fees. It was supposed to be $10 a month while on suspension, but they seem to know how still squeeze more larger fees periodically, so bye bye satellite tv people. I don't need ya. Maybe someday, but I'm good for a long time for now.

The creek is running pretty good for the last couple of weeks.

There's the house from down at the creek.

My breaker panel is made for both shore power and generator power as an emergency backup source. Every house should have one of these. It makes it real easy to hook a generator up to the house in case of power failure on the grid or whatever. Normally my off grid power will have the generator hooked into the inverter, but my way of thinking is that if the inverter should blow up on me, there could be a time where I might have to bypass the inverter all together temporarily.

The branch circuits before.

The branch circuits after.

A closeup view of the breaker box. My neutral to ground connection will take place in a different box between the inverter and this breaker panel. I will be adding some more circuits to this panel. About 5 more that I can think of right now. Septic pump, septic alarm, garage, HRV, furnace, but I'm just not ready yet. NOTE, I am not a professional electrician, so if you copy my wiring and your house burns down, or you get injured or worse, please don't blame me. Get the info from the real pros please. Although, I do think things will be ok, ya just never know.



Disclaimer--IMPORTANT


This is a personal blog, mainly for my own use. I am building a house with my own two hands, but I am learning alot of things as I go. I do not claim to know what I am doing, or if anything I do is even close to being done correctly or safely. So please, if you are planning on using any of my ideas or methods for your own use, please get professional advice before actually following through with your actions. I will not be held responsible for any injuries or damages of any kind caused by information or comments from this blog.