Final coat!

Doesn't it look lovely? That's the final coat of paint on my dinette countertop. After this, its touch up only.

Of the major construction, things remaining to be done:
1. Erect the closet chain.
2. Add the shower base mount.

After this, its plumbing and electrics.

Speaking of electrics, last night when I couldn't sleep, I looked up Peltier coolers. It's a very neat technology that can cool up to 20c below ambient temperature. It's horribly inefficient but holds promise. For a small, 1.5 cubic foot fridge, its twice as inefficient as a dorm model. The Peltier units are neat though because they can be installed into just about anything.

Again, last night, I looked up energy usage of common appliances. Now I know why with Eric's massive 1600 watts of solar and wind power, running a 1200 watt coffee maker is such an achievement.

A lifestyle change toward low power usage is in order unless I want to haul out a generator every time I run the microwave! Clearly I need to be thinking more in terms of non intensively cooked foods. For example, fresh fruit, hot drinks, bread and canned meats. Things that don't have to be kept really cold nor cooked much.

This morning, before work, I looked at my breaker box. Again, it looks as though it will be a better option to put it closer to the point of use. Under the kitchenette countertop there appears to be sufficient space to house it. There's a handy body rib it can be screwed to and its close to the hole the hillbillies made for their power input.

The downside is that situated under the countertop, the breaker box will be behind my fridge or cooler. The upside is that my 50A cable can be really short as can my 15A cables. In fact I'm wondering whether I could get away with 30A. I suspect I probably can but for the purposes of the box, I'll aim for 50, put a 30A main fuse and see what happens.

I'll probably rebuild the hillbilly door to their underbody compartment and rebuild the compartment to take a couple of 105Ah batteries. The socket for the 50a input will be accessible underneath the bus, out of sight. The water input and waste water will be concealed also. I want my bus to look like a bus from the outside.

Thinking about plumbing, I'm not sure whether to have piped water to go into my holding tanks to be pumped manually to the point of use or whether to have a separate tap. Both options have merit though the former requires less components.

It's all getting quite exciting! Once the electrics are done, I can get on with changing the registration.