Warming the Pipes

 You may have remembered a couple of post ago, I was trying to figure a simple way to keep the pluming warm during some of these cold winter nights. The 5ver does have a heating vent going to the area, but that requires running the furnace all night, something we would rather not do. So instead I found this alternate heat source. A work lamp with a 60 watt bulb should do the trick. I also chose a plastic work lamp instead of the metal kind, to prevent the metal housing from getting to hot and presenting a fire hazard. I remember my dad used to tell me, they would put these lamps under car hoods to help keep the engine from freezing when he lived in Michigan.

 As luck would have it, our 5ver has all the water connections for the rig in one central location next to the water heater and in enclosed area. There also just happens to be a small hole in the floor where the washer pipes are routed up into the closet above. I hung the work lamp off of one of the pipes and ran the cord up thru the hole.

Of course being a washer/dryer closet, there are two elec outlets inside and I was able to plug the lamp in there. Another thing I found was an on/off switch that plugs into the outlet, then the lamp plugs into the switch. This allows us to turn the lamp on from the closet at will, without going outside to the compartment. Total cost for the project $8.00 and resulting in a little peace of mind.

While we were out yesterday, we also wanted to see a movie, specifically "War Horse", figured we'd hit an early matinee and be home to do dinner. Well early matinees don't seem to exist here in Alamogordo, as the first showing was at 3:00pm. Since it was 12:00 we decided on an alternate plan, see what was playing at the Space Museum's IMAX Theater.  The IMAX had Mount Everest showing at 1:00pm, so that it was. This is our second IMAX movie experience, and it's just amazing, we love how your are just immersed in the film. "War Horse" will have to wait for another day.

That's it for the big project of the day and the day out around town. So we'll see you next time, with warm pipes and a happy heart.