Hi all,

Progress has been fairly continuous, but not spectacular.  The RV garage is totally defined by a block wall about 5 feet high.  When the floor is filled and concreted, this will be about 3 1/2 feet high.  It is just above the surrounding grade, with a 13 foot 3 inch opening in the front for the roll-up door, and a 3 foot wide notch where the steps from the garage will lead down to the RV garage floor.  Steve is letting the concrete fill of the blocks harden for several days (at least 'till Monday as he is out of town till then) before back-filling them with dirt.  Once that is done, the garage footings will be dug and poured.

Steve and I discussed the RV garage utilities a bit more, and decided that the best way to do the utilities is to place the sewer dump and the fresh water in cement frames (like around the water meters) set flush in the concrete floor.  When the plates are on, they are protected against damage, and are always well below grade for freeze protection.  The electric will be in the framed section over the block foundation.

Thursday 12/12
Ralph has been busy on the drywall work inside the house.  He has pretty well finished repairing the marriage line areas, and has cut the left hand wall between the dining room and the living room down to the 36 inch height that was supposed to have been done at the factory.  They made these two walls extend to the ceiling.  As of this morning he has rough cut the right hand wall, but has done no finishing of it yet.  Cutting these walls down really opens up the area between the dining room and the living room.

I have made arrangements with Gene Wilkison (Gene and his wife Betty are our good friends who have lived in Prescott for about 11 years) to help me at the house tomorrow while I pull wires.  When we ordered the house, I specified locations where I wanted either a phone jack or a cable TV jack.  There were 9 of these total.  I was somewhat disappointed to see what I got.  Each jack was a plastic electrical box in the wall covered by a blank plate.  From the box extended a piece of plastic water pipe down through the floor to underneath the house.  OK so far.  The problem is that the inside diameter of the pipe is less than 1/2 inch and will not readily hold 1 TV and 1 phone cable.  I decided that I wanted to run multiple TV, phone, and network cables to most of the jacks. 

I removed the boxes from 7 of the locations (the other 2 have only 1 phone and 1 network jack and will fit both the pipe and the box) and installed surface mounting rings.  This leaves the entire wall inside to hold any excess cable and still mounts the wall jacks.  I then went under the house and one by one, I pulled out the existing plastic pipe, dug up through the floor insulation, and using an extension with a wood bit and a homemade pilot, I drilled the holes out to fit 3/4 in. PVC pipe.  I installed the new pipe and verified that all went into the correct locations.

I bought a new pair of coveralls and a set of gel-filled knee pads.  Using these I had no problems crawling around under the house.  The knee pads are wonderfull!  With my poor, worn out knees I need all the help I can get.  I also discovered that if I wear my leather gloves, my knuckles don't get all scarfed up while crawling on the rocks, dirt, and concrete

Yesterday I ordered all the jacks, distribution devices, and tools I need to wire all this up.  I am going to have a service panel on the outside house wall which will be inside the garage.  Here I will have a standard phone connection block where all the lines will terminate.  This will allow easy changes if any are needed in the future.  Then I will have a strip with 24 network connectors where all the cables throughout the house will connect.  I can then plug anything into anything depending upon how I want to utilize the wiring.  I plan to have two complete cable / satellite TV systems routed throughout the house.  I did this in our last house and it worked very well for us. I will have much more wiring in place than I will ever use at once, but as we re-arrange furniture or add items, the capability will be there.  The most congested jack in the house will be in my computer room.  Here I will have one standard size plate containing 3 TV jacks (I do NEED a cable modem, don't I?), 1 phone jack, and 2 network jacks.

Tomorrow's job is just to pull the wires.  I am estimating over 700 feet of cat5 network wire, which is being used for both the computer networks and the phones, and almost 600 feet of RG6 TV coax cable.

Friday, 12/13
Mother would have been 94 today.

Gene showed up just as promised and we headed over to the house.  After rigging up a reel holder with a couple of concrete blocks and a piece of rebar, I got all decked out in my coveralls and knee pads and headed under.  Pulling 2 coax and 2 network cables with me I headed clear to the back of the house where the master bedroom corner jack is.  I routed the wire over all braces and plumbing, so it is almost held in place sufficiently without needing many zip-ties.  Once at the back of the house, I shoved the group of cables up through the conduit and Gene pulled it out the wall opening and made sure I had enough length showing.  I then headed back to the area under where my panel will be, and measured an additional 10+ feet of cable.  Each run was easier as it was closer and required less crawling than the last one.  After finishing, I had quite a bundle of wires waiting to be connected.  That will be a while!  As I did a certain amount of "routing" of the wires, I used a little more than I had originally estimated.  I think I ran over 1500 feet of cable!

Upon getting back home to the motorhome I had a pleasant surprise!  My package of jacks, cables, and tools was there!  I can now finish connecting the inside ends of all the wires.

Saturday, 12/14
I headed over to the house and started wiring some of the inside plates.  After wiring the first jack or two, I started getting the hang of it and things went much faster.  My new punch-down tool made quick work of connecting the telephone and network jacks, while the stripper and crimp tool made the TV jacks quite easy to install.  In all, I finished 2 four place jack plates and 1 two place one today.

I met Gene at noon and we looked at some RC aircraft equipment.  Betty and I went out later in the day, ending with the Saturday evening church service.

Sunday, 12/15
I went over to the house around mid-morning.  I put on my coveralls and knee pads and headed back under the house.  I used many zip-ties fastening the wire runs in place.  After a couple of hours, the wiring looked fairly good, with no sections sagging into the crawl area, and all wires were bundled near the exit location.

I then went in and wired my CPU room (6 place jack), and the two 4 place ones in the master bedroom.  There are only 3 more to do.

After returning to the motorhome, I made a bracket I designed a few days ago, and mounted my new color back-up camera on the rear of the motorhome.  I now should have a better field of coverage, as well as a color display.  I'll get to test it this Friday as we head to Escondido to celebrate Christmas.

Monday, 12/16
I headed back to the house.  Ralph was there working on the drywall again.  I started to wire the three remaining jack plates.  After a while, Ralph asked me if I was ready for my lesson on texturing the drywall.  He showed me the way he does small repair areas, such as cracks.  Using as scrub brush with about a 3 by 3 head, he dips it in somewhat thinned drywall mud.  After tapping the excess off by banging the brush against the side of his bucket several times, he holds the brush, bristles up, about a foot from the wall.  He then drags his fingers across the bristles, spraying many small blobs of mud on the wall (remember splatter painting with a toothbrush in kindergarten?).  It's critical to keep the brush moving all the time you do this, so there is a well distributed pattern of blobs.  When the blobs are pretty well totally covering the surface, you are done for now.  After letting the surface dry for a day, you lightly sand the surface to flatten out the tops of the blobs.  You cannot tell where the original texture ends and the repair begins!  Of course for larger areas, he uses his compressed air driven power texture gun.

I finished wiring the last 3 data/telephone/TV jack plates.  I guess I cannot do much else on these cables until the garage is built and I can mount my patch panel. 

Tuesday, 12/17
Happy Birthday, Betty!

I went out to see Steve, who was supposed to return last night.  He had gotten caught in the bad weather on his way home from Utah, and was now expected back this afternoon.  I did notice that the garage side of the RV garage wall had been back-filled with dirt.

I headed back to the motorhome and completed the wiring of my new color back-up camera.  Betty and I then ran several errands, ending up at the Dry Gulch Steak House where we met the Wilkisons to help Betty celebrate her birthday.  Of course it helps that they give the birthday girl a free 11.75 steak dinner (or comparable credit off another dish).  It was very good!

Wednesday, 12/18
We woke up this morning with a strange white stuff all around us!  I was told it is snew - (or snow, or something like that).  Do any of you know what that is?

Seriously, we had about an inch of the white stuff.  It is really pretty, but cold!

Due to forecasts of "wintery conditions" here on Friday, we have decided to leave for California tomorrow, taking two days for the trip.  This should get us out of snow country during bright sunshine conditions.

I headed over to the house and tracked down Steve.  We reviewed a number of things.  The footings for the garage and shop have been dug, and should be inspected and poured tomorrow.

When we return in a week, we should be ready for some "real" construction!

I have posted some more photos on-line at:

http://members.isp01.net/rmason/statusreports.html

Have a wonderful Christmas time!

Dick