Thursday, June 28, 2012

More on the Mesa weather, new AC...

As it became dusk last night here in Mesa, a big wind storm blew in with a cool front that crossed the desert..  I rolled in the outside awning in the very nick of time as the temperature outside was 109.

I could see off in the distance as I looked South and West, that there was an awful haze over the ground... Dust!!

Suddenly the gust front went over us as we were over in the new sub division driving by the neighborhood to see the changes and just generally to scope out the house.  Of course it is locked up and we can't even enter with one of their associates.

But as the winds blew thru, it was 40+ mph and the dirt just flew....  I could not even make out the superstition mountains that are so predominate to our East.  They were just gone from view..

When we got the motorhome out of storage, we had to leave the pickup on its spot while we registered for the campsite here in Valle del Oro, so we were on the mission to retrieve it, but the dust made driving mostly tenuous.

We pulled into the front gate of the storage lot and just sat the wind out for a good while.  Eventually I unlocked the big gate and we went after the truck.  But during that time the temperature went back to the low 90s all at once, with a few big blotches of rain.  Like big splats, but not enough to wet the ground much.

OK, the weather around here is totally unpredictable and we have now seen how quickly things can change in the monsoon season starting around the first of July...  We've heard the stories from the folks that live here full time but there is nothing like first hand experience..

So since hot will be the forecast for the next several days that we will be cooped  with the motorhome at over 110 degrees, we decided to go get a portable air conditioner to assist the roof airs on the coach. I had learned to do this from Kit and Jerry down in the oil fields of Texas.  She wrote a post about it which she said was just for me....  LOL

Anyway the mostly tall box is on wheels and was purchased over at Costco about 8 PM last night.  It weighs over 100 pounds but they helped me get it into the trailer I was pulling.  Once home we just left it there for overnight.



Of course our internal clocks are still back on Central time, so we were up at 5:30 this morning and ready to work on the ac...  We backed the trailer over against the door on the coach and slid the new ac from the trailer ramp door which was laying on the steps of the coach up into the rig.  It took both of us..

After fashioning the air port to go into the driver's door, the unit has run here all day..  Its about 110 outside now, and we are in the low 80s inside with all three running...  When it gets to 115 this weekend, we may still not have enough ac power, but we will see...

The unit that Costco sells is a 10,500 btu single hose made by Sharp.  It is quite quiet but does not have the condensation hose separate from the exhaust.    It evaporates the moisture with the hot air and blows it out the window vent.

If it fills up beyond this evaporation, we might have to drain its tank, but that will never be a problem here in the desert.  In the motorhome, we can roll it over by the door and put a short piece of hose on it and drain it outside, so we are not worried by that..  But we have often found that only two roof airs on this rig are not up to the summer task of cooling this thing.  But we are probably stretching the 50 amp connection fairly hard right now.

We have spent most of the day calling different utilities companies trying to get things changed into our name for the new place.. This has been an experience, to say the least...  The power company just looked up our credit on Equifax and that was that....  No problem, but the local water place had to have a big security deposit.... Trust no one and verify!!

The gas company also had to have a deposit but it was smaller, so we just sent them a payment.  Of course with the holiday, who knows when the actual transition will occur?  What if we didn't have a place to stay, while all of this took place?  I guess we would be working from a motel room..........

This is too long, so more later....

Retired Rod

5 comments:

  1. I take it you don't ever plan to live in Arizona year around. That's just too hot for me to even imagine!

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  2. It's been so hot everywhere this year that Phoenix isn't even looking all that unusual. Saw the dust warning on the phone for that area. If Montana doesn't get some rain pretty soon, we're going to end up looking like AZ. Hope you get all the utilities straightened out. What would happen if you didn't pass the credit check? Do they make you pay a larger deposit?

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    1. I doubt if they can refuse service to anyone in such hot weather, but they will demand a large security deposit on folks that have sketchy credit. They made us pay over $200 for water and trash security. And I hope our credit isn't sketchy...... LOL

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  3. You did basically what I did, Rod. Except when we bought our coach, we had the dealer install a third roof air, a 13,500 btu model. No trouble so far and we stay nice and cool. The cost installed? $1400 and well worth it.

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  4. Rod, during the heat of the day pull your slide outs IN.....it cuts down on the square feet to cool, plus sometimes the slides are not well insulated......May help a little.Wet your shirt good and set in front of a fan.....you will need a blanket...lol

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