Just to say HELLO!

Viking · 03-07-2015, 07:22 PM

Hi all!
It has been a long time since I popped in here. Good to see some familiar names. Since we moved out to our new place in the country (20 acres) we have been very busy, and there has been no time for camping. Besides, as SWMBO says, we now live in the middle of what we used to camping for. We also had a major disruption in November 2013, when we had a fire. The repairs are now almost complete, and we are in the process of organizing, after having so much of our "stuff" in cardboard boxes, which we had to move from place to place as the carpenters, drywall guys and painters worked on different areas. It has been a stressful 15 months.
Hope you all will have a great Sunline camping season this year!
Roar

Poppy & Nana · 03-08-2015, 09:59 AM

Roar - so sorry to hear of your misfortune.....hopefully everyone got out and no one was hurt!

enjoy your new rebuilt home!

cuffer101 · 03-10-2015, 03:21 PM

Had a fire 35 years ago, still looking for stuff I lost in the fire. Hope everything is working out well for you guys. Chuck and Terry

Viking · 03-10-2015, 06:58 PM

Yeah, fires are no fun! Fortunately for us, material losses were minimal. The good thing was that we were home and called 911 when the smoke alarms went off, so the fire department arrived fairly quickly. However, there were two small holes burnt in the top firestop in the chimney chase, and if that had burned through, the fire would have gotten into the attic with potentially dire results. We lived elsewhere for seven weeks before we braved the smoky smell and moved back in. We lived through the winter with just sheets of plastic covering the torn out wall in the living room and master bedroom. Repairs took a long time, first because the insurance company took a small forever to give us the go ahead. In the meantime our contractor had to go to another job. He had to feed his family, so sitting around waiting for the go ahead, wasn't an option. The chimney chase was structurally damaged, so it had to be torn down and rebuilt. No, it wasn't a chimney fire. the sweep had been there and inspected just the previous month. Another reason it has taken a long time, is that SWMBO decided to remodel the kitchen while we were at it. It was difficult to be without a functioning kitchen for over three months, and that happened when we needed to process the crops from our garden, but I am happy to report that the "new" kitchen is very functional. The whole ordeal set us back a year with all the stuff we have to do around here, so it is going to be a busy summer, where I don't see any opportunity for going anywhere with the Sunline.

**JohnB** · 03-13-2015, 07:05 PM

Hi Roar,

Good to hear from you.

So sorry to hear about the fire situation. Glad Ruth and you made it out OK. Life comes at ya fast.... wow...

Smoke detectors, they are truly a life saver. With the new building codes, ours will be dual powered. AC and DC. And they are all linked together. The whole house will alarm. No question you will know the alarm is going off.

Hope your year goes well.

John and Cindy

Viking · 03-14-2015, 11:24 AM

Hi John!
Our smoke detectors are all hardwired too, with battery back up, and they are interconnected. We had a problem with false alarms, so when they went off, Ruth thought at first it was another one of those. I was working outside, but she called me in, and I could smell smoke when I came inside. Then, when we could see visible smoke emanating between the drywall and stone chimney chase, we immediately called 911. We were very lucky that the fire crews got there as fast as they did, but before they showed up, we could hear crackling fire behind the fireplace. Yes, we were more than a little bit nervous! There are two things that really worry me, cancer and fires, and now I have had a brush with both. Not fun!
In the process of putting everything back together, we replaced all the smoke detectors, I think there were seven. Of course, the kind we had are no longer available, so the little pig tail connectors are different, making the switch out a more tedious job.