My Ice House/Fish House adventure begins

[AMGS3]

Here's the hole cover pics. They are 'catch cover' brand.

Obviously those last two are what they look like with road gunk and cobwebs on them.

See what I mean about being all pie slice shaped underneath?

The reason I was going to spray insulate them is because that's what the guy at Catch Cover suggested a lot of their customers do, since they don't make insulated ones themselves.

I'd be open to using foam board but it kind of looks like it'd be impossible to get it to fit tight without using foam anyways. And I'm not worried about foam interfering with the intended usefulness of the icehouse later, you'd have to really pretty much foam the hole closed from the bottom in order to ruin it.

Thanks in advance for your input.

~angie

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[bullfrog]

I have used plastic bags to help contain and form spray foam. Maybe you could spray foam into a bag and lay the bag in the pie shape and lay a board on top to make it push the foam into the space without making a mess of your cover, or maybe tape a plastic bag around the outside edge and fill the whole thing letting it expand upward. Just a word of caution most spray foam uses propane as propellent so no open flame anywhere and ventilate, definately no heaters even Buddy heaters don't ask me how I know but it is kinda neat to actually see a flash fire and live.

 

[AMGS3]

Thanks for the warning bullfrog. I didn't know that propane was the propellant for that foam.

I did have a pretty scary incident with a gas stove once. It wasn't my stove, and it didn't work right, which I didn't know. I had turned it on and went to check on it after a bit to see if it was preheated. I opened the stove door a crack and had my head bent down at an angle so I could see the oven thermometer. There was a huge fireball that knocked me backward and singed all the hair off of my left forearm. The tips of the hair on my head was burnt too, but it was 99% untouched because I had it in a bun and my head was bent down to see inside the oven so my face was below the fireball not in the fireball. What happened was that the electric ignitor wasn't working right and the oven filled with gas. There was a pot on a burner on the front of the stove, do when I opened the oven door the flame lit the gas and that made a fireball half the size of the kitchen.

It was freakin scary. My very short life flashed before my eyes. I don't mess around with faulty flammable s**t now. No way.

~angie

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[John61CT]

Ah, did'nt realize you had removable covers already.

Then get a 4" strip of slippery plastic well duct taped to make a mold, leave an escape path and go to town. Need warm temps, not just air but all materials.

In order of quality, 2-part liquid pour fill, next the Dow 2-part spray kit, both expensive.

Or just do Great Stuff and treat it fragile.

 

[AMGS3]

So I bought a Costway portable washing machine for $100 off of Amazon, and I used it for the first time today. Man that thing works great! The one I bought has the washer on one side and a spinner (they call it a dryer) on the other side. It is not a dryer. It is a super powered spinner, and you will still need to dry your clothes when they are done spinning. It has a sixteen lb load capacity. I already had a wooden drying rack that I've been using for years, since I couldn't justify the expense of drying clothes when I was in 'deep budget cut' mode while waiting for my disability to be processed. So now my whole house smells like clean laundry. The washer is gravity drain and dropping the hose down one of the fish holes worked well. I even saved the rinse water from the first load to wash the second load. That worked out nice.

Another thing I got off Amazon is an EvaDry electrical dehumidifier. It is tiny. The thing has about a half teaspoon capacity water tank. Lol just kidding. I think it's 8 ounces. But I'm going to modify it with my trusty dremmel tool and attach a fitting and hose so it will drip into a bucket.

So, I'm planning on the hole cover insulation project for possibly next weekend. It's supposed to warm up to 60! That's crazy. Ive gotta take advantage of those temps while they are here, cuz they sure won't last long. Anyway... This washer works great. I was like a kid with a new toy. That's all for now.

~angie

 

[AMGS3]

So my initial reaction is that dehumidifier is not efficient at all. I had 3 pairs of pants, 2 t-shirts, 2 long sleeved flannels, 1sweater, 1 bath towel, a set of thermal longjohns, and various socks/undergarments/washcloths hanging up to dry overnight. The clothes themselves were still slightly damp when I hung them up, enough that (once they were hanging for about half an hour) I could feel the difference in the humidity in the air when I came in from outside.

Overnight the clothes dried to bone dry. My dehumidifier caught less than a quarter of a cup of water in the tank.

Maybe the furnace in the icehouse is just that good. It doesn't ever feel damp in here. Maybe it dries the air out well enough??

The dehumidifier I got is the EvaDry1100. It's supposed to be good for 1100 cubic feet of space. All things considered, I have maybe a little more than half of that.

One of my friends suggested testing it out somehow when I know it is really humid conditions, like leaving it outside under the awning when it's foggy out to see if it works better. Maybe my furnace takes care of humidity just fine without it? I got the thing in the first place to prevent moisture/condensation problems. Maybe I didn't need it. In the winter here, often people need to run humidifiers to prevent dry air health problems (cracked lips, bloody noses, dry mouths at night, etc). Winter air outside is very dry and then add to that heating it usually makes it even drier. And I know that the difference between moisture problems and no moisture problems can be my personal habits. For instance, how I cook, how I clean.

Yeah, I'm going to have to test it somehow.

~angie

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[John61CT]

Yes it takes a large humidifier to make an impact.

If ambient air is dry in cold weather you just need heat. A franklin stove, pellet stove etc can put out high btu.

So then can ventilate when the room's full of wet clothes.

With propane maybe a Buddy, even Jr in a small space.

 

[AMGS3]

Hey John.

My icehouse furnace is 40,000 BTU. I'm beginning to think that I was unnecessarily worried about condensation in the winter.

~angie

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[John61CT]

In PNW other places with high humidity even in the cold, it's a bigger problem.

I think smaller batches of clothes at once will save propane and be more comfortable. Maybe even every other day.

Those style furnaces are not that efficient, in your situation I bet an HS2211 would pay for itself pretty quickly? Can also be mounted outside to cut down on noise.

 

[B and C]

That Propex HS2211 is less than 7,000 BTU's. Sounds like you have a pretty large furnace already (40,000 BTU's). Furnaces do not introduce humidity unlike propane heaters.

If your dehumidifier is not capturing much water, it sounds like your interior humidity level is pretty low already.

Short of buying a hydrometer, an easy test to see if there is enough moisture in your space is to put 2-3 ice cubes in a glass and wait 3 minutes. Is there condensation on the glass? If not you may need a humidifier. Digital hydrometer's are relatively cheap though.

 

[John61CT]

Hygrometer.

 

[ssminnow]

Nice Shack Angie, I wish I lived in MN. I would love to go fishing out of the Taj Mahal once!!
Oh, wait a minute hmm. Did I tell you how much I love Panfish! LMAO. You're going to have a FUN winter!!

 

[AMGS3]

So, here's several updates.

As far as insulating the hole covers goes, I've decided that I'm not going to do that this year. I have the foam spray I'm going to try to use, but the weather and my health aren't cooperating so far. Though it is supposed to be in the 40s by the end of the week, so who knows. For now my plan involves wool slippers.

In about a week I'm having a local propane co install a 120gal tank. For comparison purposes, a 30# tank holds 7.1 gal. A 120gal tank holds 96gal. Not having to wrestle with (or find someone to do it for me) propane tanks every week will be SWEET! Having them deliver and then refill the tank when it gets low will be very nice.

So I've been hooked up to shore power. A few days ago the power got unplugged. This has happened before for about a day, but everything still worked fine running on the battery. When the icehouse is not plugged in my fridge automatically switches over to propane. It's made to be able to use it for the weekend in thevwinter without the necessity of having it plugged in to an electric source, as long as you battery's fully charged at the beginning. Anyways, this time it'd been off for over a day and my furnace fan started acting strange. Like it'd cycle on for about 30 secs, blowing cool air, then go off again. Then a few min later it'd try again. During this time (cycling on and off) the meter to the batteries (that usually reads 13.6) read 9.8.

I plugged it back in again, and everything's working great. Within 2 min the furnace was blowing hot air again. This makes me think that there's something wrong with my batteries. So I'm going to have to figure that out. Ugh. They've made the battery compartment odd in this thing. Def not easy to get to. It's on the passenger side in the very back in a box that I need a special screwdriver adapter to get into. Not that I'd even know what the hell I was doing when I got into it, lol. I'm going to have to see if my cousin will have a look at it.

Stay warm everybody,

~angie

 

[RoamerRV428]

This was just a wonderful thread to read! I am so impressed by your smarts to make life work for you and an 'Ice Cave' toyhauler rv is something I never knew about and I own a toyhauler rv, but your great insulation etc for it being an 'icehouse' is super cool.

remember also to call your dealer where you bought it from. just talking to the service dept about 'what if' problems and more can steer you easily in the right way to help fix up some things easily. Pick everyone's brain for free over the phone, so many love to tell ya what to do and handle a problem and at no cost.


wonderful thread and great read and enjoyable you are so capable!!

 

[highdesertranger]

Angie the problem is not really with the batteries but with not charging them for so long but still drawing power out of them. a couple more of those 9.6 reading will ruin your batteries if you haven't already. even if you install new batteries but continue the same practice, in short order you will ruin your new batteries. highdesertranger

 

[AMGS3]

^^^Roamer, thanks. I'm glad you're enjoying it. That's good to hear cuz honestly sometimes I feel a little like I'm flying by the seat of my pants. Lol. Good advice about calling the dealership. I've had to do that a few times so far.

^^^highdesertranger - please explain further. I thought that having it plugged in **was** charging it. That when I was actively using power (from the furnace blower,etc) it wouldn't be charging, but when things were off it would be charging the battery. Im thinking that likely I was wrong about that. I did talk to my cousin, who hasn't looked at it yet, but he reminded me that this spring/early summer when we first moved the trailer over to where it is now he suspected that something was going on with the batteries and how they took a charge. At that point the only "charging" that had been done was the trailer had been connected to the tow vehicle to bring it up here from the dealership (about 4hrs drive), and then another tow vehicle to bring it over to the place it is parked (1.5hrs). The rep from the dealership had said that lots of folks charge their house batteries off of the tow vehicle on the way up to the lake (meaning on the 4-6hr drive up from the twin cities).

I stayed in it the first couple nights and used one led for less than 10 min. At that point it was parked and unhitched from the tow vehicle and I didn't have any of the systems in use. The furnace, fridge, h2O heater, all that was off. The only thing that I'd used was the interior led light (which I turned off after several min[emoji3526]). About a week later, at night, I came in to get something and the lights wouldn't work.

So at the time my cousin had said that maybe there was an issue with the batteries and how they were taking a charge. We plugged it in to the shore power, and that was that. I completely forgot about this (chalk it up to a TBI).

This next part is 100% me really asking for help and not being snarky in the least.

So, HDR, I'm genuinely hoping you can shed some light on how to properly charge a battery. What exactly am I doing wrong? I assume from your statement that I need to charge it sometimes when I'm not drawing power off of it, but I really don't know how to do that. Because I don't think it'd be practical to shut off the furnace for large blocks of time. At least not this time of year. Maybe my assumption about that is incorrect? You know what they say about assumptions... they're misleading, lol. So, I don't really know that I'm understanding what you mean.

And to anyone out there who's thinking about commenting on this subject, I realize that there two parts (at least) to my inquiry.
The first part is - how is this ideally supposed to work? This is where I need to probably go research icehouse batteries. Are cold weather systems any different than a regular RV battery?
The second part is - what to do going forward? How to prevent making the same mistakes again.

~angie

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[highdesertranger]

ok we need some more info,

what type of batteries?
what type of converter, make and model? the converter is what charges the batteries when you plug in.

are you sure nothing is running off the batteries like the refrigerator board that regulates the temp, or a CO detector and/or smoke alarm, or is anything in an idle mode where you just flip a switch and it comes on?

batteries do go dead all on their own. but in your situation they are going dead to fast. at this point my guess is there is a constant drain on them and/or they were never fully charged. have your cousin start with checking the batteries for being fully charged and if there is a drain on the system.

those salesmen that told you driving for a few hours would charge the batteries fully were either lying or smoking crack. highdesertranger

I want to add this is only going to get worse as the temp falls. batteries do not like the cold.

 

[B and C]

My take on this is your ice house doesn't have a built in battery charger/converter or the charger part is not working. It could also mean that you have "wet" cell batteries (ie flooded or FLA) and the water level is low. Only use distilled water to add to the cells. Hopefully the batteries are not too damaged.

Two things. First, find out of you house has a charger/converter either by calling the dealership or reading the manuals that came with it. If it has a charger/converter, the batteries sure need to be checked. I would check the batteries anyway to see what kind they are you can find out how to care for them properly. If it does not have a charger/converter and is normally charged by the tow vehicle (through a 7 pin trailer plug) you will need to install one.

Charger/converters will charge the battery while you are plugged into shore power whether you are using any electricity or not. Not sure about anything ice house specific. The systems you describe sound like regular RV stuff. Consult the manual or ask the dealership.

Almost all RV systems have manuals online that can be downloaded. All you need is the manufacturer and model number of the heater, charger/converter and water heater, etc.

 

[AMGS3]

^^^^ ok, thanks for that. I have some homework to do. Will update when I know more.

~angie

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[John61CT]

Never ever let a battery you care about, go below 11-11.5V in normal usage. The goal for longevity should be, only rarely hit 50% SoC.

Even when a professional cycles down to 0% SoC at 10.5V, for a maintenance or testing procedure,

she never lets it sit there for more than a few seconds, starts recharging immediately, and

such procedures are run maybe a half dozen times over a say 5-10 year 1200+ cycles lifetime.

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