The Kitchen Fix(es)

I previously mentioned that a couple of screws in the hinge for the kitchen top unit had pulled loose. I initially thought that it was because there was no support for the front edge of the kitchen when it was flipped over for travel, and that may still be the case in part.

However, the real culprit was a small block of wood, we think intended to keep the fridge door from swinging open too far. That block of wood was resting against one of the cabinet doors, and putting outward pressure on the entire unit.

As planned, I proceeded to replace the two pulled out wood screws (they actually used sheet metal screws) with T-nuts and bolts.

My first activity was to drill a couple of exploratory holes to see if the existing holes would be  usable. I found that, in the case of the outermost hole, the exit would have been too
close to a vertical brace to get the T-nut installed, and the second screw had been put in at an angle that brought the exit at the very front edge of the cabinet frame. So, no bueno.

I drilled a new hole in the hinge for the first, and re-angled the hole for the second, installed the T-nuts, and tightened everything up. The tightening actually took a couple of repeats, as I was working with the T-nuts upside down, and if I went in too fast, gravity would remove the T-nut from the hole.

Notice that the screws I had were a little too long. To avoid snags and getting cuts when getting things out of the cabinet, I trimmed them off with a hacksaw blade in my saber saw.

All done. Nice and tight.

Future Kitchen Updates

I talked to my friend Kevin yesterday about how he'd go about adding a tankless, on-demand water heater (the thought was to add an electric on-demand unit). He had a couple of interesting comments. First, he suggested that I may not need as many check-valves as I thought -- the one in the 12V pump may be sufficient to keep city water from back-flowing through the pump into the freshwater tank. But, more importantly, he mentioned that on-demand water heaters are very susceptible to less-than-lovely water. In addition to various particles, water that's too hard, or to acidic will cause premature failure. The Camco TastePURE filter we're using gets all the contaminants, it does nothing to affect pH or hardness. 

Kevin did mention that it's now possible to get roughly 3-gallon water heaters, though, which are less susceptible to imperfect water. The downside to a "traditional" water heater is size and weight, but they often cost less than the on-demand units.

We've been discussing a deeper sink. The one supplied is about 4" deep -- fine for washing hands or rinsing cups or small dishes, but that's about it. Also, we're thinking of removing the stove, and making it an outside stove. Should be relatively easy to remove and fill the gaping hole in the counter. The challenge part will be adding the gas line to the outside of the trailer (it's not setup for an outdoor kitchen at this point).

Update on the Fridge

It's about 95° (that's 35° for those of you who use the funny numbers) outside here today. A peek in the fridge puts the temperature at about 35°F or 1.7°C inside the fridge. This was with no air conditioning running -- just the fan modification. And, as Karen mentioned in her comments, the fridge will be easier to get and keep cool when is filled with cold stuff. So, as the kids say, "Aces!"

The fridge fan mod does need a little refinement -- one of the fans is rubbing a little bit on something, so it makes a little "ticking" noise. Also, I want to reverse the door on the fridge, so one night this week, I'll take all that apart...