7:23 am - Thursday - March 12th - TWW - 35° F, humidity 21%, cloud cover ZERO %, wind 11 mph out of the north by northwest.....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 71° F. The view this morning.....
....and on this date in 2012 TLE and I had just arrived at Galveston Island, TX....
....snagged the last spot at Bayside RV Park during Spring Break....soooo humid there!
Late last summer we had a big windstorm here at TWW, and two of the 16 solar panels on the roof of the CONEX blew over causing damage to one of them....
The damaged panel
....the two panels were attached to the roof via a wood structure composed of 2 x 6's and 2 x 4's, which had rotted over the years, and gave way during the windstorm out of the north. The panels are tilted to face south, so the north wind caught the back of them, and ripped them off the roof. Charles' handyman, Matt, came up to the property and turned them over shortly thereafter so at least they would be facing the sun, but they had not been set back in place until Wednesday.
At dinner Tuesday night TLE asked Charles what he wanted to do Wednesday to which he answered "Fix the solar panels on the CONEX", so that is what we did Wednesday morning....
In this picture we had already removed the damaged panel, and dragged the remaining one, and its metal support structure to the side so we could remove all the damaged wood
Where the 2 x 6 blocks of wood were fastened to the roof....there were 6 in all
In this picture we have replaced the 2 x 6's, and attached to them two 8 foot 2 x 4's (redwood)
The aluminum framework is reassembled and ready to be attached to the 2 x 4's
The aluminum framework is reattached to the wood platform, awaiting a replacement 175 watt solar panel
....from beginning to end it took us about 3 hours to demo the old wood platform (what was left of it), install the new one, and then reattach the aluminum frame with the remaining solar panel. Charles will order a new 175 watt panel to replace the damaged one. As you can see in the last picture, the wooden platform for the two solar panels to the left needs replacement also, and we will do that Thursday. Thankfully, the rear portion of the wooden platform is still intact, and not rotten.
While Charles and I were on the roof the girls moved three more piles of rocks to our rock pile on the eastern edge of the property, and also moved a large pile of branches we cut off the juniper trees by the diesel fuel tank we will soon be installing....
The pile of cut branches (from last winter) was so large you could not see the gravity diesel fuel tank sitting there
Right through there is where the 3 piles of rocks were...now we can walk through there without tripping over rocks
.....Charles bought the diesel fuel tank last winter, but we haven't had time to set it up, however, we will be doing so in the near future. I think it is about 180-200 gallons.
By the time we cleaned up, and put away our tools it was around 12:30 pm, and time for a lunch snack, which we took inside the house as the afternoon winds had arrived (15 mph +). After our snack I headed home to take a nap...the wind, and sun took a toll on moi. Charles, on the other hand, still had lots of energy, and wanted something to do so he headed out to the garage to assemble the new shelving unit he and Phyllis had delivered to us on Tuesday.....
....I didn't know he was doing that, so when I went out to the garage around 3 pm he was almost done.....what a nice surprise! Now all we have to do is move it into position, and begin moving things onto the shelves!
We had a nice dinner of corned beef, cabbage with carrots and potatoes, and its not even St. Patty's day yet! Around 6 pm we convened out at the 'sunset fire deck' to watch the sun heading downhill to the western horizon....
....this is the afterglow around 7 pm (sun sets at 6:38 pm now). We were out there until almost 7:30 pm watching the stars make another appearance, and all of our security lights responding to the impending darkness.
Thanks for stopping by!
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