A little too cold, even for us

 

If you're following our blog from someplace other than New England, you should know that this is how our driveway looked this past Thursday after we used the snow blower to take off another 6 inches of snow that fell upon 2 feet from earlier in the week, not to mention the other snowfall in early January which was a 10" accumulation!  Our four-lane driveway is down to two lanes now and it has been cold (20 degrees today and 7 tonight). It will be June before all the accumulated snow melts, but by then we will be boating.

This weekend our goal was to finish the last of the toilet project by replacing the waste deck-fill.  That is a two-person job, but after looking at the predicted temperatures for Saturday, we decided to move on to something we could accomplish at home.  We did visit the boat and plugged her in to charge the batteries at least overnight. The thermometer inside the boat showed just 12 degrees.

Back home, we began the next major project; installing an inverter to power the new refrigerator and other small 110-volt AC appliances while underway or at anchor.

A few weeks ago, we bought a 2,200-watt inverter with a built-in transfer switch and battery charger.  It's made in China (like virtually everything , it seems) and is marine approved.  We paid almost $400 for it and although we had studied the specs carefully, when it arrived it was bigger and heavier that we expected.  No problem.  Big and heavy is good for an inverter .

Our plan is to mount the inverter and the two Group 29 batteries that will power it while underway in the large space under part of the salon floor. We access this area by picking up a carpeted hatch that is just aft of the lower steering station. This area really is big, running across underneath the cabin to the area just behind the galley. It's separated from the rest of the area under the salon by a fiberglass-over-plywood wall that runs athwartships.  Don't you love nautical terminology?

Rather than use valuable floor space in this storage area, we decided to mount the inverter on that plywood wall.  That would require designing some kind of wood fixture that would hold the inverter against that vertical surface, but knowing what it's like down there in somewhat restricted space, we wanted a mounting fixture that we could mount on the wall and then slip the inverter onto it.

Between trips outside to clear snow, we designed a 3/4-inch plywood base for the inverter that would allow air circulation underneath it and permit us to screw the mount into the fiberglass-plywood wall and then slip the inverter over the ten bolts that stuck out of the mount.

(If you are still reading at this point, you are a dedicated boater!)

Here is what this inverter mount made of scrap 3/4-inch plywood ended up looking like on Saturday evening:

Those strips of 1x1-inch molding that hold the inverter up over plywood base need to be through-bolted to the plywood base but the alignment has to be perfect or we won't be able to slip the inverter over those ten bolts once we are laying in the storage space during the installation.

Our solution was to mount the inverter, tighten down the mounting nuts and then apply good quality wood glue between the 1x1 strips and the base.  If everything works as planned, tomorrow morning we should be able to remove the he mounting nuts, pull the inverter off and then through-bolt those 1x1 spacers to the base.

Sunday dawned cold and after reading the Sunday New York Times (all sections but sports) and enjoying a great omelet prepared by Frances, we went downstairs and removed the inverter from the mounting fixture. Nothing moved; the glue held perfectly. Next, we drilled holes in the spacers, bolted them down, recessing the bolt heads so we would be able to mount this thing flush to the wall.

Looks like this will work.  Of course, we had to paint it and once dried, it looked OK for installation, perhaps next weekend.

While we were at the marina on Saturday, we were given two nice battery boxes, brand new, with all the mounting hardware, by a sailboat owner who wanted bigger batteries than would fit in these boxes. Thanks to whomever you are.  That saved us a few bucks.

On Sunday, we had to visit PRM again to unplug the boat.  While there, Frances took some photos.

Our boat is in the shed behind that ancient Ford truck

The Connecticut River is frozen solid...

Back at home on Sunday evening, the view from our bathroom window showing the roof icicles merging with the snow on the roof slope was definitely photo worthy.

Back to work next weekend, if the weather cooperates.