Monday 26 April 2010

Inside Now Outside

I made the box to cover the high pressure gas fittings and lines.  The inside of the box was sealed with mastic and on the bottom the bottom rim I used a closed cell foam tape to form the seal to the floor.  So now the high pressure side is on the outside of the MH which makes me much happier.

4 angle brackets hold it down and make for easy removal.

The remaining hole is for the fridge ventilation.

Saturday 24 April 2010

Gas System Installed

The gas system on my MH is supplied by an external tank that I fitted in the previous post.  I want to do it this way for the following reasons.  I didn't want to have bottles that needed changing as this takes up valuable room, if using it abroad the bottles are a bit different and the regs definitely are, filling from a petrol station is considerably cheaper.
I looked at different systems but in the end after discussing my needs with a LPG conversion supplier I decided that a tank and take of for an LPG conversion would do the job with a bit of modification.

On a LPG conversion the LPG is delivered as a liquid to the engine where it is dealt with to burn in the cylinders.  In a normal Calor bottle in a domestic situation the LPG is taken off the top of the tank as a vapor.

The take off in the car system has a tube which goes into the bottom of the tank to get liquid.  The modification was simply to cut this tube seal it of and drill a small hole at the top of the tube so the vapor is taken off not liquid.  I was also advised to bend the float stem down a bit so the cut of for the fill is less than 80%.


Next came the plumbing.  At the moment it is all inside the MH which is great for access but of course if the was a leak this has the potential to get in to the MH, although it is heavier than air and their is plenty of ventilation for it to drop out.  At this point there is about 6 bar (90psi) I am told.

You can see some bubbles from the only small leak I had
on the whole gas system.  This was because I had been
mindful of not over tightening the fitting. 
A quick nip up sorted that out

I will make a removable cover to make all this external, separating it from the living space.  At the top of the picture you can see the back of the filler.

The outside and behind the two screws is an external regulator.
That delivers the gas at 30mb to the appliances

The last appliance to be fitted was the Carver heater.


With the small fan I fitted behind this is really kicking out some serious heat.

Please note.  This is not intended to be a tutorial to on how to do what I have done.  I do not encourage you to mess with gas!


Thursday 22 April 2010

Spent The Day On My Back

The one thing I hate more than working on my back is working on my back under a vehicle.  So today has not been my favorite especially as cutting with a 9" angle grinder was involved.  Always a treat under a vehicle!

The task was the fitting of the external domestic gas tank.

The bit of gas pipe is for test purpose only!
The legal third strap will be fitted later

The manifold is accessed through the floor inside the MH. 

This will be enclosed from the inside when I have done all the connections and tested it, this will make it external as it should be.

Wednesday 21 April 2010

It's Been A Busy Few Days Again.

I wanted a float to better show the water level in my tanks.  After a post on a forum a member came up with an ear plug.  Its perfect and I have plenty of them.  

I decided on unused!

I finished the wiring and tidied it all up and labeled it ready for connection to the fuse panel.

Yesterday I glued the support battens in ready to take the roof panel today.  This is what it looked like this morning.

 Tidy!  NOT

At the end of the day things looked considerably different.

  
While the adhesive was going off I wired up the fuse panel.

Last job of the day was putting in the lights for the main area.

The light on the right is door entry operated

On a side note the windows for the boat project  arrived today.

 

There will be 8 of these and 3 x 18" portholes. 


Sunday 18 April 2010

All Systems GO

Well today was the day!  I finally made a cup of tea using the on board systems.  Well to be precise it was my wife.

First though I had to put the work surface down with the sink glued in and connect the gas, water and waste.  That didn't take long then it was test time.  I powered up the pump and heard bubbles, I had put the pump in the wrong way round! Oh well that was soon remedied.

With the pump in the right way round I opened the sink taps.

Water :-)

I didn't have a kettle so a saucepan it had to be

The gas ring boiled it pretty quick

Our first cup of tea made aboard :-)


Everything else worked as well 

I could had had a shower

 I could have had a ????

I had problems getting the fridge to light, it turned out to be a broken wire on the auto igniter.

The water heater worked a treat





Thursday 15 April 2010

Dry Wet Test

I connected the water inlet up today and did a test.  I am pleased to say no leaks and the air transfer as the tanks filled worked fine.


You can see the water level, but it would be handy to a small red ball floating in the tube.  I am open to suggestions on this as I can't think of anything that fits the bill.  It needs to be about the size of a pea or slightly bigger.  The tube ID is 16mm so I would say 10-12 mm would be ideal.

I also made the flue connection for the fridge, wired up and tested it on 12v.  It works, so I know its good on 240v and 12v, just the gas to go.  Fingers crossed.

I have also done a few other small jobs.  I had to buy 2 x extensions to get the Turbo vent to open and shut, Link this meant I could put the fly screen on and this finished the installation, I put the lock barrel in the toilet door, cut the worktop for the cupboard on the N/S of the MH, put the backs in the 2 base cupboards. Its now making it feel like things are moving on.

Monday 12 April 2010

Its All Bits And Bobs

Today has been a day of doing odds and sods.  There is currently a lot of parts not finished but can't be finished as the will be in  the way, or something else need to be done before etc.etc.

So today this what I have done.

1. Finished plumbing in the Morco.  I could had done it the easy way and had all the pipes vertical and through the work top but I wanted all the pipework hidden which meant bringing it through a hole from inside the wardrobe.  The cold in was easy as this already had a 90 elbow, the hot came with a straight.  To get a 90 elbow I had to cobble together bits of an odd size that the heater came with.  It is 13mm OD and I had no fittings so in the end I swaged some pipe and made joints that way.  The gas was a bit tricky but with the use of elbows this was eventually achieved.


2. The heater I am using is a Carver flued through the floor.  I have put a small fan in the bottom of the cupboard to give some boost as require.



3.  Wired up and tested the shower room fan.
4.  Wired up and tested the shower room lights.
5.  Wired up the toilet but not tested.
6.  Ran the main power cable and earth for the living quarters power supply.


All the domestic wiring will be served from a switched fuse panel in a service cavity wall which is a wall part of the shower room.  I was concerned about designing the wiring, but in reality it has designed its self with just a little forethought as to where power will be needed. All the wires are tagged.

7.  Cut the hole for the water filler.
8.  Made the door panel for the toilet cassette.


9.  Final fixed the cupboard near the heater which houses the fan.

So a lot of jobs done bringing it all a bit closer to completion.  It was good to power up some lights and fan.  It feels a bit like its coming to life.


Wednesday 7 April 2010

Water System

Today I put the water supply system in.   Yesterday I filled the water storage tanks up to test the plumbing for leaks prior to final installation.  Pleased to say all was OK.

 Behind the kitchen sink

I have put all the joints here as I can get to them easily again if needed.  They will be behind the panel the 2 ends will connect up to the kitchen sink.


This is the pump and accumulator, with the feed to the bathroom.  This will all be under the bed.  The pipes going to the left will be under a cupboard.

I decided to have reverse sensors instead of a camera.  I fitted these today as once the main water storage tanks are in I won't be able to get access without removing them.






Sunday 4 April 2010

Roof Flue Ring & Laminate Floor

This is the spacer ring I have made to facilitate the fitting of the water heater flue.  In the earlier blog I made the disks.  Then I cut the hole out shaped them to up, and dressed the edge with a thin off cut of GRP sheet.


I didn't want to get into a session today, just have a potter so I laid the laminate flooring to the storage area floor under what will be the bed.

 £9.98 well spent

I also had a good tidy up which required a trip to the dump.  In the end I took a car load of stuff.  Where does it all come from?

Thursday 1 April 2010

Big Difference Today

I am using a very thin vinyl floor covering for the wall.  It has a light texture and pattern, is warm the the touch, wide enough to fit without joins, relatively cheep at £7.99 sq/m and looks great. The only problem with it for me is I am useless at fitting this type of material.  So a quick call to Robert the Carpet last week set him up for fitting this morning.  This is the result.  Robert is happy to consider more of this type of work.  07983 429182.


While Robert was fitting the wall covering I was busy plumbing up the water storage containers.


That done I got on with making some spacing rings for the water heater flue.  The ambulance body on to is over 2 levels and of course where the hole needed to go staggered the 2 which means some packing is needed.  This will be seen when I fit them so I wont try to describe the problem.

First thing needed was some round disks.  I saw on Youtube how to use a circular saw to cut a disk.


The plain wood part I made to cut 90 degrees.  It slides in a grove on the table. I am sure it has a proper name. You can so the one on the left of the table.  Once the blank is cut with a jigsaw its simply a case of screwing through the center and spinning it against the blade.  Only thin slices can be taken at a time, but by moving the slide forward it can be trimmed until the right size is made.  Here's how.



Finally today I finished the trimming the small window in the bedroom area that I started a few posts back.  Here is the finished result.  I didn't bother until now as I needed to remove the cover for the vinyl fitting.

I am pleased with the result

It feels like things are really coming along now.