Camper Mods - Day One

The day finally arrived when we start the big mod project to Alphie (our Alpenlite).  It seems so strange to see Alphie inside a building.  The plan is two-fold; decor and electrical enhancements.  I am ripping out the old blue gray carpet which will be replaced with a nicely textured earthtone carpet and new padding.  Tim at A & T Service will be installing the new carpet.  That is a task much beyond my skill sets. I started ripping out carpet with the enthusiasm of a 37 year old and soon discovered I wasn't 37 any more.  It is amazing how much stamina and muscle strength diminishes in 30 years.

Here is what the back of the coach looked like when I began (left) and when I gave it up for the day (right).  I hope to be able to get the rest of the carpet and pad out tomorrow.  The fun part is pulling all of the little tiny staples that were used in abundance to secure the pad and the carpet.  They really went wild with the staples on the front edge and corners of the slide.  Hundreds of the little buggers; and they all gotta come up or they will poke through the new pad and carpet.

While I am sweating away on the carpet removal, Tim is evaluating the electrical system and determining where to place our new inverters.  We figured that out after checking which circuit breakers control which outlets.  We were fortunate to find that one circuit breaker controlled all the outlets in the Audio/Visual area of the living room and the second circuit breaker controlled the outlets in the bedroom TV cabinet and the sink area.  When we are finished each of these areas will have full time 110 volt power from one of two 600 watt inverters.  In plain English,that means we can watch TV, recharge laptops and cell phones, and run my office printer without being hooked up to shore power or running the generator.  To keep my batteries charged up, we are installing 160 watts of solar power in two panels on the roof.  The solar panel system included a solar charge controller that is an LED display of the various power levels in the system.  Here is a picture of the electrical stuff waiting to be installed.