A Fanny Story

Rockport, Tex

The thermostat for the Castle is stuck back in a corner by an outside wall surrounded by a cabinet above, a dinette seat below and the television on the remaining side. It has trouble getting a decent chance to determine what to do. My current solution is to have a small fan sitting on the dinette seat blowing air across the thermostat. It works very well.

A few days ago it was getting very cold in the Castle. The thermometer in the kitchen showed 68. What in the world now???? The search for truth led to the little fan. The fan blades were not turning. Fool was my thought, turn it on. A flip of the switch caused nothing to happen. The outlet was checked and had power. HMMMMMMM

Ok time for a fan tear apart and testing. The disassembly was going well when this picture was taken.

As the fan came apart the circuits were being tested. This is good and that is good and ok over here went on for a while. Finally it got down to the fan armature wiring. It was there that an open circuit was finally detected. Ratzzz.

A $10 fan motor is not worth trying to rewire an armature. Therefore the fan hit the dumpster.

A trip was made to obtain a replacement. Since an armature winding going out is likely a very random happening, a duplicate fan was purchased. When it was put into service it was nice again. However the next day it developed a very noise rattle like worn bushings. A couple of days later (today) the rattle was getting very obnoxious. So today the new fan was taken apart to check the bearings. The bushings are loose on the shaft. Ratzzzzz. So some oil was put on the bushings. The fan was reassembled and ran a lot quieter. Now several hours later it is rattling again. My guess is that the next fan should not be one of these.

Of course that is not enough nonsense. The plan is to use my 2” thick foam mattress over a 2 ½”self inflating camping mattress for my bed. That will give me a portable mattress for use in camping from the back of the Truck. The new mattress came in and was put to use Friday night. It was inflated to my preference of firmness and had a wonderful feeling when my body assumed the horizontal that night. In the morning it was flat. Fool shut the valve better was my thought.

Saturday night was a repeat of Friday night. Now in my life has been two of these type mattresses by Thermorest and they performed flawlessly for over ten years before they were given to new owners. Today the new mattress was checked for leaks and a seam is leaking. Another RATZZZZZ! The mattress was packed up and mailed back to Campmor for replacement. This is the reason my preference is to purchase things locally when possible.

For a finish on the day some unfruitful fishing was done, and then a wonderful Tex-Mex supper jumped in front of me and failed to escape. That made a good ending to a day of trying to have tooooo much fun. TheOFM.