STILL IN MICHIANA

Yup.....that's what they locally call Northern Indiana and Southern Michigan.....Michiana.   Any way, we are still here!!   Northern Indiana is the RV Capital of the World and the place to be if you want to get certain jobs completed on your RV.   Well, our Motorhome has been the beneficiary of quite a lot of such specialized attention these past 10 days....and there is more to come.

Following the installation of X braces to stiffen up our Spartan K2 chassis, Precision Paint of Bremen, Indiana has removed our four old CRT TV's.   Only three of them are being replaced as the location of the 4th TV is being turned into ( much needed) storage space in the living area.   The other 3 TV's have been replaced with LED units, two with blu ray DVD players.   To boost up the movie watching experience we also installed an LG sound bar with a wireless subwoofer for the main living area TV.  Can't wait to watch Star Trek and Avatar now!!   Today we should have our cabinetry work completed so we can say "adios" to the great people at Precision Paint.....until next time.  

Our next big news is on Monday here in Nappanee, Indiana we are having a solar system installed in the motorhome.   While having the work done at Precision Paint we came across a small, Amish owned company named Solar Energy Systems.   It seems that in addition to installing systems for farms, businesses and homes in the area SES has also installed some dozen systems for RV's.  Ours will be next.   Here is a look at a smaller coach with panels installed on its roof......

 

 

Our install will involve 8 (possibly 9) of these 130 watt solar panels on our (much larger) roof.  Because of our three heat pumps and satellite dish and a few fan vents on the roof, the panels will be staggered to fit in available space.   Six will populate the very rear of the coach roof with the remaining being placed "where there is room".   Each panel measures 26 inches wide by 50 inches long.  They  will be wired in Series with the wires running down inside the rear of the motorhome to an internally mounted charge controller that will monitor and control the amount of charge to our 8 AGM house batteries.

 



   Lastly, a monitoring panel will be installed next to our inverter panels so we can see how much energy from the sun is being used to charge the batteries and maintain that charge as we move down the road.   Aside from all the Green benefits of a solar system installation (including a current 30% tax credit from Uncle Sam), use of sun power will keep our batteries from discharging too much and too often, thus adding life to them.   Another benefit when we are not plugged in to "shore power" is that we will use our diesel driven generator far less often to keep our batteries in good charging health!!   SES will also replace 44 of our ceiling lights (yes, there are that many!!) with LED lighting, which is also far more energy efficient.   So early next week will be an exciting time.   We hope to be on the road South by Tuesday or Wednesday next week, weather permitting.