The Name Of This Beast

... is still unknown, but I'm electing "LoadsAWork" for one.  When I bought the motorhome I saw a few things that I figured I might perhaps want to change, nothing major.  Then I lived in it for a few weeks, and some things are becoming obvious.  There are heaps of little (and not so little) things that need to be done.  Once you start, the things pile up.

For a start, the front bunk.  Fair enough between it and the back bunk this sleeps two.  But there is also a just as comfortable double bed to be had.  You just have to convert the dining/living space.  Let me say this - they are damn clever bunks that roll up to the ceiling, but they are narrow and the high edges really hurt when you whack your elbow on them.  And you still have to raise and lower them daily as they take up space you need for living.

Plus, they are raised and lowered by thin wire ropes that inevitably fray - and you ain't lived until you've stabbed your pinky toe with a length of stainless steel wire.   So I don't use the bunks because it's just as easy to convert the seating area, truth be told.  And it has more room, and less spiky frayed wires...

Seeing that much space wasted got me thinking some more - the front bunk used to occupy space that is now a very much more practical hanging wardrobe and a freezer alcove.  I say that because I removed the front bunk, and the space I've recouped is more than worth it.  But it's been work to make the wardrobe and the alcove. 

Meanwhile, one of the 24V lights stopped working, and the 12V lighting sometimes gets weird flickering happening.  Tracing the 24V wiring for that light led me to something scary - when the builders had reworked the cavity for the front bunk, they'd fed existing wires through a roughly cut hole in a bulkhead - and it had been sawing its way through for a long time, and finally severed itself when I disturbed the area to remove the bunk.  Scary was that the cutting had been going on long enough to leave green copper stains, and there was a bright blue arc every time it touched... 

And that makes me worry about the rest of the wiring.  The three 240V outlets had to be fitted by a qualified electrician and certtified - the 12V power can be done by anyone, yet the consequences are likely to be every bit as lethal, if the wiring set the bus alight... So I've bought appropriate 50A low voltage wire and am in the process of rewiring all that too. 

Oh yeah - the annex.  It used to use this heavy truck canvas with a rope track along the gutter line, but not now...  I bought a wind-out annex awning and am in the process of installing that.  You see, rope track awnings need two people (or a clever system of pulleys and a trained octopus) to set up without damaging the rope edge of the canvas, one person has to feed the canvas the other has to pull it through.  Two things wrong with that are A) as Trish is working I'll be doing this solo more often than not, and B) I have emphysema and hoisting that amount of canvas at every stop is well nigh impossible.  Yet another gotcha.

Lastly, the hot water system - there wasn't one.  Is that really considered civilised?  Not this little brown duck, anyway.  I have a decent hot water system now, but before that it was all the old solar shower bags, and tough (and very stiff) tits if it was wet cold and windy - which is when, lets; face it, you NEED hot water...

So yeah - the last few weeks have been kinda busy...