We
flew out to the Cloudhaus with a long list of honeydo upgrades we
wanted to do. At the top of the list was upgrading lightswitches and
plugs before the architect had a photographer come and shoot the place.
Also on the list was putting in keycode access to the front door and
upgrading screws to the hooks in the laundry room.
The first surprise was how much snow was in the driveway. Like three feet worth in places. Paid a guy to mini-doze the drive, but he didn't get down to the base because there was about three inches of ice at the bottom (thank you freeze-thaw!). So we had to park at the top, hugging the approach so as not to block in the neighbors. May try to put in a street-level parking spot topside.
The second surprise was the lack of water. I'd been keeping the place at 50 during our absence in hopes that would be enough to keep the pipes from freezing. After letting the place warm up a bit with no luck, I texted the builder to see if he had any ideas. "Oh geez!" he said, and he rushed over. Turned out he had turned the water off! That was good news!
The third surprise was the pooperpumper alarm going off. Turned out that the sewer line had frozen! Normally that would not happen because normally sewer lines are gravity fed. In our case, because we have a pooperpumper, the poop line goes uphill to the sewer line. And a valve at the house activates once the flow reverses when the pump stops pumping dat poo. Anywho, without a steady supply of warm steamers, the poopjuice done froze. The line is only about 28 inches down at the street at our house and less deep as it heads down the road (it's sometimes exposed [!!!] during high-runoff events, so the sewer can get cold). It's fixed now with a valve to drain the pooppumper pipe when we're not there during the cold season.
The fourth (good) surprise was meeting someone to watch, take care of, and clean the cabin.
As we learn about mountain living, several take-aways were (1) we need a real four-wheel-drive and (2) we need to leave the place winterized during the winters and not have any guests. It's too complicated and challenging unless someone really knows what they are doing.
I was able to replace all of the plugs topside during the trip, and they look sharp. The biggest-best change was on the island: black plugs for the black background.
Based on a recommendation from wirecutter, we installed the Ultraloq's smartlock. So far, so good! Allows us to set up different codes, and to set them up remotely via wifi.
Minor detail, but upgraded the screws for the hooks in the laundry room (which is acting as the coat closet). (cough, cough) please disregard the shadows...
We did get to spend a few moments having some fun while we were there. We enjoyed the snow and the wacky weather (one day we saw rain, sleet, freezing rain, grapel, snow, and high winds). We saw deer out back and wild horses out and about on the road. Black Bear coffee and Cloudcroft Brewing Company were also fun.
