EEEEK! EEEEK! It's a Roof Leak!

It's day 16 of being hunkered down together. We are both feeling fine, and thankful that we have a safe spot to be quarantined in.  So far our northeastern county in Wisconsin hasn't had any cases with any confirmed tests. Things on TV aren't looking good for the rest of the country and world....  I can only keep watching the news for so long. While it's good to be informed, after a while I have to turn it off and put on some soothing soft music in it's place.

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We are having our own

 little crisis here in our 

National Folk Farmhouse, 

oh my~ A LEAK!!!

Last night with all the rain, a little leaky spot developed in the dining room. During the pouring rain, it started really leaking a lot! We had to put down plastic garbage bags to protect the hardwood floor, and then three or four bath towels to absorb the dripping water.  We tucked a few smaller ones along on the windowsill so it had somewhere to drip without ruining our hardwood floors.

Steve wanted to get up on the roof and see where the leak was coming from but I said that he had to wait until daylight. He tossed and turned all night, just thinking about it.  There is a section of our dining room that extends out under the older roof over the porch, not the new roof on the main parts of the house.

He got up there once it stopped raining this morning. He can see where he thinks it's going in but he needed to get that BlackJack fibered cement roofing compound in a caulk tube. It is the type that you can put on in moist conditions and still have it seal. The only problem is that we don't have any on hand!!

So we went online through the ACE hardware website and ordered two tubes. They offer curbside pickup right here at the little local ACE Hardware in Oconto!

We went ahead with the order and it said we could pick it up curbside TODAY in Oconto as soon as they email us to come and get it. We waited 3 hours. Nothing. No email.

(It's a very small store with one clerk...)

We finally called the store. He said the regular guy that takes those orders is home sick. He's just filling in! So we would have been waiting all day or maybe days for our order to get filled? 

Steve told him we want curbside pickup and if we pull up with our car, could we still pick it up?  The guy said he don't know, he has never done that before.  Steve offered that he will put our paid receipt (that I printed out already) on our car windshield under the wiper blade on the passenger side. And then Steve will pop the lid for the trunk and the clerk can put the two tubes right into the car trunk. 

The clerk agreed.....  so Steve said he will be there in 5 minutes.  And sure enough, the clerk was standing in the foyer vestibule of the store waiting for Steve. 

The clerk grabbed the slip off the wiper blade, double-checked the products, and put them both into our trunk in the bucket Steve had waiting. Slam the trunk and off he went. Done! 

When Steve got home, while wearing gloves, he sprayed down both tubes liberally with Lysol and let it sit while he got out the ladder.  Toot sweet he was scurrying up on the roof and checking out the situation.

Quick as a wink, he figured it out and put liberal amounts of the BlackJack roofing caulk into the little hole that he found rusted in the metal roof. The rest of our house has all new roof, but the actual front porch is metal and that is where he found a hole. That's where he thinks it's leaking in to the exterior wall of the house and oozing through and coming out on the inside on our dining room ceiling.

He found another area that was questionable as well.  This will hold for now, and we will order a big bucket of the proper roof sealant and give a good coating for the entire metal porch roof once the weather warms up.  We are due for more rain on Saturday, so we will see if that patch job holds.  Keep your fingers crossed?

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We took a nice walk this afternoon. The sun poked its head out about 2 p.m. and the temperatures went up to 45 degrees. As we ambled along, we came across this big slice of wood sitting at the parking lot to the museum.

It's over 50 inches across! 

The dogs thought that it would make a perfect little platform to sit on if we could wheel it home into our yard?  Can you just imagine seeing Steve do that?

They are going to use it on a display. It's most likely the oldest tree on our entire street, if not the whole city. We tried counting the rings and got up to around 150 years old. Here is the base where it was cut down from just down the street from our house.

Speaking of trees-----

A few years ago, before we bought this house, there had been two large trees right in the front yard of our house. The previous owner had to have them cut down. One was rotted through and a portion of that fell up against the porch. The other one was also rotted and ready to fall. It's a shame they had to come down. I would have loved to have been able to sit on the front porch in the dappled sunshine and shade of these big beautiful trees.

(this is an old pic from 2015 with the trees)

We are thinking of putting in a couple clumps of white birch in front of the house on each side where the trees would have been. That might be nice, but of course it will take a lot of years for them to grow up and give us any substantial shade.  But birch are quick growing trees and would really look nice in front I think.


Just dreaming ahead to Spring and getting some ideas of what we'd like to get accomplished this summer.  In the meantime, we are just watching the snow melt and the water is going down slowly in the back yard.

Spring is on it's way! 

Supper is almost done now-  I made up some stir fry chicken and steamed jasmine rice and some steamed fresh veggies.  Time to eat!

MOTORHOME MODIFICATION - Toilet Riser and Extra Electrical Outlet

You might wonder what a toilet riser has to do with an electrical outlet?  Well, nothing.  But I just happened to put them both in the same blog post title!  LOL


As most of you know, RV toilets leave a lot to be desired compared to household toilets.  Some RV toilets are all plastic, and some are ceramic.  Many are too short!  We have Sealand Ceramic Bowl toilet made by Thetford.   It's pretty short.  With Steve's long legs, plus I am 5'7" myself, a taller toilet would be preferable.

But not to our two 2 year old grandsons who are just toilet training... to them this height is "just right"  hahahaha ....

I digress.  

Back to the toilet height situation.  

See what I mean? 

Pretty short.  Squatty.  Kinda "knees to the chin" situation, according to Steveio.  

Well, the RV suppliers do make a "toilet riser" which is a large sturdy plastic deck unit designed to add a couple inches in height to the toilet without too much modification.  They are costly.. in the $40-50 range plus shipping.  Oh my.

So we kinda figured someday we would get one.  Perhaps.

Well, a few weeks ago, we were walking in a thrift shop in the next town over... and what does Steveio see?  An RV Toilet Riser!   Brand new, in the box, unused, etc.  And it just so happens to be the right one for our model of ceramic Sealand toilet by Thetford!   For......  (drum roll please)  a mere EIGHT dollars!

The directions seem pretty straightforward.  The only drawback, it is white.  Our toilet and sink and tub are ivory.  Oh well, we picked up a can of Krylon spray paint for plastic called Fusion.  We have had good luck with painting plastic things and it clings well and doesn't flake off like regular spray paint does.  I did my spraying while Steve started gathering supplies.

First step... dump and rinse your holding tank very well.  We had done that on Thursday because we knew we were going to do this job sometime on the weekend.  Add a big dollop of toilet chemical like the porta-potty units use to help mask any odors while the toilet is off the mounting bracket.

Next: unhook the water line and remove the plastic shroud around the base of the toilet. 

Also remove the cover on the foot lever on the left side....

We had changed over the flooring about 5 or 6 years ago, and had removed the toilet in the process. The flange nuts were easy to remove and not rusted up on an 18 year old toilet.  Easy peasy they came loose and the toilet was lifted up and off the opening. 

No smells, but we had the windows open just in case.

Quick cleanup with some disinfectant and we were ready for the next step of adding the bolts.

This kit comes with extra long bolts to replace the four original ones.  Slide them into the flange.

This kit came with two rubber gaskets to put below and on top of the riser.  We decided to reuse the original gasket on the top end because it fit better than the universal one in the kit.  Now on the bottom portion, we decided to use a traditional household type wax ring instead of the gasket.  Remember I said we had added a new floor a few years ago?  We needed to make up that 1/4" difference in height, and the wax ring would do that very well.

Add the wax ring (or the rubber gasket if you choose) to the bottom of the riser opening.  

Now carefully line up the heads of the four bolts into the four holes
and drop the riser straight down over the opening. 

Squish it down a bit to set the wax ring onto place.

We carefully placed the toilet over the riser, with the four bolts lining up with the four holes on the base of the toilet.  Once it was in place, we added the four nuts and started to tighten them down.

We evenly turned down each nut all around the base, making it tighten up with equal pressure all around.  Bit by bit, it was securely tightened up and exerting equal pressure all around the gasket seals. A deep socket was needed to do this, and even then we ran a bit short and had to use an open end box wrench for the last few twists.

Once it was stable and sturdy, we attached the extension to the water line we had to adapt, and then the lever cover and finally the plastic shroud around the base.  Done!

And yes, we both gave it a "test drive" and it meets our expectations.
I bet our grandsons are going to be mad at us though.

The other job I wanted to post on this blog was a small one, but one that I have been asking for about a year or so now.  Since we took out the couch, and added the loveseat, we often sit side by side on the loveseat, each with our own laptops.  Ain't that sweet?      

But what isn't sweet is that my laptop cord has to stretch across the aisle from an outlet up by the passenger seat dash!  When it is fully stretched out to it's farthest length, the cord gets yanked out by accident so often that my plug end is kinda wobbly in my laptop port now.   Steve's laptop cord is stretched across the aisle in the other direction and  plugged in by the kitchen table.  We trip over it if either of us walks to the kitchen or the bathroom.  Our batteries don't seem to last too long, so want to keep our laptops plugged in while using them.

Time for a change.  I wanted another electrical outlet added to the wall alongside the loveseat.  You can't run wiring inside of the exterior motorhome walls, they are solid styrofoam and no way to run additional wiring once they are closed up at the factory.  But you can run along inside of cabinetry and to the side walls. See the arrow??? I want an outlet right down in the corner there! 

Steve examined the existing motorcoach wiring.  We wanted a power source that operated when our inverter was on, (from our batteries and solar power that inverts it from DC to AC current) ... The nearest power source was on the other side of the fridge and one outlet in the upper cabinet. No luck, those are both only operational if on shore power. (plugged in to a campground post or household power in the yard) 

But wayyyy back in the other corner of the kitchen cabinet IS a power source that operates from the inverter circuits.  It's actually an outlet inside of the cabinet next to the stove that operates the igniter for our propane cooktop.  One of the two outlets is unused.  Hmmmmmmm  Steveio started thinking. 

By plugging in a heavy duty extension cord (12/3) into this outlet, and running it along behind the cabinets, through the partition under the fridge, he could run the heavy cord to a box down alongside the fridge and make an outlet!   We had a wooden panel there already with a furnace vent in it.  

Steve removed the wooden panel and cut a rectangle into the wood. Behind it he mounted an electrical box and wired into it the grounded three prong outlet for our laptops. It's like a big heavy extension cord running over to our loveseat behind the cabinet drawers. How cool is that? 

Now we can plug our two laptop cords alongside the loveseat to the little coffee table and not trip over the cords!  Good job, Steveio!  You made life even MORE comfortable in our motorhome.

Well, the Packer Game is done.
We lost.

Since the rain earlier today had ended...
we took a nice walk with the dogs around the neighborhood
while the sun was shining.


Duke walks the first few blocks,
but then we load him into the red wagon
so we can finish the longer walk
with Finney trotting alongside.

LOOK WHO GETS TO RIDE.....   AND WHO DOESN'T!

Nanny Nanny Boo Boo!