We are back at it again, hopefully full force now…if the weather holds up. The weather this weekend was sunny and close to 70 degrees, just great…although it dropped to about freezing at night. The wood stove worked great, and having a nice big fire outside didn’t hurt either. We brought along our new weekend warrior to help out. It was sunny, and warm, so that made life much better and bearable.
We finally had our second container delivered last week, “Crusty”. Just amazing to see, and to see the future with our big plans. We couldn’t wait to get started.
While the ladies started unpacking Rusty, moving all of our tools/materials to Crusty, I started to drain the water tank. We wanted to empty the tank and give it a cleaning on the inside before adding the new plumbing.
I soon realized I didn’t want all of that water there, so I put a hose in the tank and using our mobile pump, pumped the water out into the ‘yard’. That took a little while…but we eventually got it all drained. Sheralee and Baylee suited up to head inside and give it a good scrub down.
Turns out, the inside was really pretty clean. We kinda had this thought that maybe there would be some ‘slime’ or ‘algae’, but nothing like that at all. It was really clean, and UV protection, nothing should ever grow in there. Once the tank was clean, we focused on the new floor in Rusty.
We purchased some 6mil plastic, 3/4″ foam board insulation, and 1/2 inch plywood. This would be our flooring. We cut all of the 4×8 sheets into 24″ planks. While Sheralee and Baylee started the sanding and staining process, and ugly process to be sure, I started laying down the plastic underlay, then installing the foam board insulation.
Before the sanding and staining began, we did a quick layout of the floor to see what paces would go where.
While the wood work continued, I had to once again go back to the solar well, so to speak. We are now on our 3rd solar charge controller, and again upon arriving at the ranch the batteries were not being charged. We have dipped well below the 50% level of the batteries (again) and this is causing some stability issues. The charge controller had been shorted again and I had a feeling that seriously deteriorated any charging ability.
On this display, the solar indicator showed that there was not solar input, and the inputs themselves were compromised to a solid connection. So, took the plunge and installed a new controller, added a circuit breaker between the batteries and controller (should have done that long ago), and re-routed our DC distribution again.
Right now we are on a much more solid footing, but we have determined that by the end of the year we need to add two more batteries and two more panels. The sun in the winter time isn’t strong enough throughout the day to fully charge us. Two more panels will help with that. By the time we left yesterday, we were at 90% on the batteries, and so looking forward to seeing the status next weekend.
Back to the flooring.
Once the plastic/foam board was installed and the staining was finished, we decided to call it quits for the day. We were ready to nail the floor down in the morning and add the first coat of the polyurethane.
Sunday morning was breezy, but still the sun was out and it was nice.
We had to get the floor installed, and then get the first poly coat on.
So far, it looked wonderful. Sheralee set out to apply the first coat, while I worked on the tank plumbing, but unfortunately, Timmy made another mistake. I forgot the PEX crimp tool at home. doh! So, the only thing I could really accomplish on this trip was digging where the irrigation boxes will go, and layout the future plan.
I think the plan will work out great, and well insulated, on the pipe as well as inside the box. I think the key is moving to PEX, brass valves, and insulating everything. keeping everything out of the wind is huge! Of course we don’t know the results until next year. ha.
Sheralee applied the first coat, and we had to wait, wait, and wait…and then finally, time to apply the second coat of the day. I took this picture through the door screen, as it was all closed up, so the quality isn’t great, but you get a sense of what it ‘will’ look like.
This coming weekend, we will do a light sanding, and apply two more coats Sunday…which should be the end of the flooring install. So far, so good. We saved a lot of money doing the floor this way, and will be rugged and able to replace individual planks. We are excited for sure.