2025 Outdoor Projects at KnarrowHaus

A quick update on the Summer projects.

New bed rack by Thumperfab

The rack arrived last Fall. I assembled all the pieces shortly after it arrived, then stored them in the garage until Summer when we had time and fair weather to install them on the bed. (Of course, there were a few specialized mounting bolts missing I didn't detect until a few weeks ago. Amazon to the rescue.) 

Thumperfab bedrack with the rear door swung open.

The only problem with the bed rack is that it has a tray on top with sidewalls. When we cover it with a tarp, the rain and the snow press down on the tarp turning it into a swimming pool and making it impossible to remove the tarp without ripping on the rack's sharp corners. I came up with a solution using a sheet of HDPE plastics and some supports. (See further below.)

Oil changes for the snow machines

The side-by-side ("Schneewagen") and the quad ("Schneezeug") both got Amsoil powered oil changes along with new oil filters. 

(Those Amsoil kits are pretty slick: Exactly the right amount of synthetic oil, the correct oil filter, a new washer for the oil drain plug, and even a disposable funnel.) 

The engineers who design these offroad utility vehicles design them to be anti-DIY! Both units' oil filters are buried in, underneath and between the most difficult-to-reach locations. Clearly designed to discourage the average DIYer and foment paying exorbitant shop fees from your friendly neighborhood dealer's service department. 

I am undettered by their Rub-Goldberg-esque shenanigans.

Mackenley's slender fingers and narrow bones managed to reach the oil filter on the side-by-side avoiding having to take out the back seats, the battery cover and engine bay wall. I was solo on the oil change for the quad. Three hours for a "simple" oil change.

New synthetic winch lines

Removing the existing steel cables from the winch spool was difficult, mostly because it's tight quarters reaching in from the front to the winch spool. Had to remove both vehicles' rollers fairlead and replace them with fairleads designed for synthetic winch lines.  Removing the cable necessitated the use of a dremel with a variety of attachments to cut off and smooth over the frayed steel linces. Tedious and frustrating.

Tensioning the synthetic winch line on Schneewagen

Mackenley and I got the new synthetic lines installed and tentioned last week. We tensioned the winch lines by pointing the side-by-side and the quad on the road facing each other about 75 feet apart. Then we successively put each vehicle in neutral and winched in to the other vehicle. One person drives the machine and runs the winch; the other guides the line so it tensions evenly across the spool. 

Rear rack lights

I had so much trouble placing the initial order for the Thumperfab bed rack, that the owner had pity on me and threw in a set of lights for the rack. These should help us see at night when we're trying to back in up the driveway. 

The installation instructions were sparse, to be kind. I spent an evening on Youtube looking for guidance from others who have installed similar lighting systems in Can Am Defenders. Mackenley mounted the lights in their designated positions on the back of the rack, four in all. 2 that point to each side, and 2 pointing back. 

Mackenley installing the rack lights

The wiring was plug-and-play, but I had to figure out where and how to route everything from the back of a tilting dump bed up through the floorboards in to the dash in order to mount the switch and tie in to keyed-power. Thanks, Youtube.

I count the day's effort as completely victorious, as evidence by these pictures.

The new rear lighting switch mounted between the stock lighting switch and the winch switch.

The rack lights are near the top of the rack pointing to the sides and to the back.

The lights are switched "on" in the picture above.

Bed Rack Tray Cover

The cover over the bed rack's top tray is my own design. I bought a piece of HDPE from a local Tap Plastics shop, along with some scraps of 1"x1" offcuts to use as supports. Last week, Katie sanded  the ednges of the HDPE sheet, rounding them prevent tearing the tarp. Then she drilled 10 evenly-spaced holes on the sheet for mounting the 5" inch pieces of 1"x1" supports to keep the sheet flat when it's under snow load. I secured the sheet at the corners and sides with zip ties. 

Now we should be able to pull the tarp off in the winter time when snow is piled on top without destroying it.

Stay tuned for two indoor projects... 

...that need to be done before Winter sets in:

• Finish the live edge slab for our kitchen table. Need to sand this outside.

• Replace noise/buzzing relay for the heat on the third floor with a quiet, solid-state relay. 

When the fan hits the poop...

It's early Sunday morning, and Katie and I are still drifting in and out of sleep cycles in bed. Our son-in-law is showering down the hall in the upstairs shower. Our daughter bursts into our room, "Mom, Dad, the toilet is overflowing into the basement shower."

"Did you try to unplug it with the plunger?!"

"I can't get it to work!"

I run downstairs and attempt to unplug the toilet with a plunger myself. Nope.

Poopy water slowly flowing out of the basement shower and leaking on to the bathroom floor and basement EVERYWHERE. Katie and Eliza scramble for every towel in the house. "Grayson, get out of the shower!" We all spend the next 1/2 hour cleaning and mopping, and I focus on unplugging.

Clearly the plumbing must be plugged downstream of the toilet.

I call a 24-hour plumbing service, and they show they can send someone out between 1:00 PM and 4:00 PM. Ok. Cool. 

"Nobody flush the toilets or use the shower or the sinks until we get this figured out!"

I drop everyone off at church in Leavenworth, and continue on to Home Depot in Wenatchee to purchase a 25' drain snake. And a fan to dry out the floor.

After arriving home with drain snake and fan and my churchy occupants, even the 25 foot snake won't clear the clog. We wait for the on-call plumber to show up. I get a text at 4:00 pm telling me he's on his way.

...plumber never shows. 

(Turns out, when you call the afterhours/weekend emergency plumbing service, their number and the actual technician's number aren't connected.  Texts were going through, but no calls to my phone. Apparently, he attempted to call before coming (because we're a long ways "out") but I never got the call, so he just didn't come.)

No text. Nothing. 

For the next day, we make use of the construction port-o-potty up the street and a very kind neighbor's cabin a few doors down; our garden hose and a 5 gallon bucket became the dish washing sink.

My son-in-law and I have to leave Sunday evening to return home because we both have to work on Monday. 

Monday morning, my wife talks with the plumber, and he's up there early afternoon, and quickly determines that somehow the septic controller box (that controls the pump and the alarm) has come unplugged.

So, there was never anything to unclog. We just needed to "plug in" the septic system. 

(My strong hunch is that at some point in time earlier, our septic alarm may have been going off, and "someone" heard it, couldn't figure out what to do, and just unplugged it. We'll never know. There's no security camera over on that side of the house.

However, the original contractor who wired up the septic a few years ago also NEVER should have wired it with a plug on a GFCI. It should have been hardwired in to our panel.  ...grumble.)

The plumber service call was a cool $150.00. Katie immediately got on the phone with a septic pumping service, and they had a truck up the next morning.

$433 later, our septic system is pumped out. 

Knowing Summer is the time to get issues like this resolved--before snow renders the road impassable--I feel a compelling need to restore full confidence in "the system." 

So I schedule an electrician who specializes in these kinds of things the next morning to make sure the pump switches and electrical are in good working order. I drive back up to the cabin after dropping my son-in-law at the airport Tuesday evening to meet the electrician the next morning. (Katie and the kids are now gone boat camping to Lake Chelan.)

He didn't find any problem with the float switches or the pump. Thankfully the electrical box IN the float tank had not gotten flooded. 

Be he did find a few problems: In addition to the whole system being connect with an easily removable plug: Both circuit breakers in the septic controller box -- a 10 amp and a 20 amp -- were connected to a single 15 amp breaker. Anyone see a problem there...?!! They were cross wired, and the wires between them were getting overloaded and corroded...

The electrician installed an additional circuit so that the pump and the controller are now on separate, 20 amp circuits. And he took out the GFCI outlet and hardwired the controller box in to the panel. 

He also found that the controller breaker in the septic controller box was going bad. It's a bit special, and he didn't have one, so I ordered a new replacement by mail and replaced the funky one a week later. 

$1,954 later and I have now restored confidence that our septic system will function properly in to the coming Winter season.

For those of you keeping track, that's a cool $2,537 of unplanned expense to restore confidence that we can flush our toilets. But I'm grateful we actually found a few sleeping problems and got everything properly installed now, albeit a few years late.

A vigorous bleach mopping followed by an aggressive floor fan appear to have abated the smell in the basement.