February 12 - 15

I was going to wait on this entry until tomorrow. I had no camera with me during the time last week listed above so I was hoping to get out to Anza tomorrow and catch up on the photos but that's not to be. Due to family obligations and the predicted rainy weather over the next five days, I won't be out there until the middle of next week. So, here's a recap of last weekend but minus the pictures. I promise to include them on the next post.

We had almost five inches of rain at Anza since my last post. Prior to last weekend we were told by other club members that there was damage to the five mile dirt road to the site and water in the observatory. When we got there it was worse than we expected.

First of all, the road was almost impassable with my Honda Accord. The road is dirt and what is typically called a washboard road. It has many parallel small ridges (an inch or two high) across the road. In my case, driving at 35 mph cancels out the vibration from the washboard. More than 5 mph below or above 35 causes severe vibrations. This time the problem wasn't the washboard road - it was the gullies eroded across the road in random fashion. They were typically about 5 or 6 inches across and up to 2 feet deep. I had to thread my way through a maze of them for most of the way - this part of the drive normally takes 10 minutes; this time it was almost 35 minutes. Slow driving as well as a lot of vibration because of the very slow speed.

Once we got to the observatory we knew that the weekend's work of rewiring the building was out. The outside of the building was a disappointment. Last fall I power washed the outside walls to get rid of the white calcium salts that bled through the cinder block; with the rain, the stains are back and I will have to power wash it again before we paint it when the weather gets warmer.

There were a couple of good things. The wall section replacement for the warm room window that I installed before the rains did not leak and held up well. Also, I did some excavating over the last few months on the top of the slope on the north side of the observatory. I built a berm with the soil removed from the post holes and also dug a trench behind it to draw rain water off to the west around the observatory. That worked very well also.

Remember that the observing area roof is not there yet. Not having a roof can cause problems with rain getting in - duh! What happened was that the rain that fell in the observing area ran down the stairs, through the old warped wooden door and into the warm room. Once the water got into the warm room, it drained only slowly out beneath the outside door. When we got there the floor was wet but not flooded. Fortunately, we had anticipated the possibility of flooding so everything was up on blocks but we still lost some bags of Quikrete - the water must have maxed out at about 5 inches deep. However, the place was like a hothouse - it must have been 100% humidity. The walls were dripping wet and the hanging ceiling panels were soggy and drooping. We always wondered why the ceiling tiles drooped because the roof above the warm room has never leaked. Now we know.

We set a fan blowing on exhaust in the door to clear out the humidity while John and I sat down and strategized about what to do. Obviously, the rewiring work we had planned was down the drain for the time being. The issue was that the new roll-off observing room roof was not going to be on for another several months at least and our rainy season still has a couple of months to go. We needed to find a way to keep the warm room from flooding because that's where most of our immediate work is planned. We were also limited in our choices by whatever materials we currently had on site.

We decided to prevent the warm room from flooding again. First of all we drilled some weep holes in the observing area at the slab level so much of the rain water would go through the walls instead of down the stairs. Then we drilled some additional weep holes at the bottom of the stairs so that whatever water did come down the stairs would drain out that way. The water barrier between the stairs and the warm room is what we spent the rest of the day working on - a brand new external door to replace the warped fiber board inside door that had been there for twenty years.

We needed to rip out the entire frame around the door because the wood was warped and rotten and the door would not close. We built a new door way and fitted the new frame in. We made a perfect fit and the door opened and closed perfectly. We caulked around the door frame especially on the floor and under the new sill. To test the barrier, we poured a couple of buckets of water down the stairs and it flowed out the weep holes and nothing came in under the door. As long as the water by the stairs doesn't top the sill at about an inch we should be okay. I spent some time ripping down all of the old ceiling tiles so John had easy access to the overhead wiring for Sunday. He also set up a temporary telescope pier where his permanent one will be so he can start using the observatory. I'll be setting up within the next month or two.

By the end of the next day, the warm room was pretty dry and John was able to complete about 75% of the rewiring job. He actually had a rough time at Anza those three days. The site well pump died on Thursday and we were without water the entire time.

Next week I will be building a wall with a pocket door across the warm room. One room will be for sleeping and have a desk; the other will have my control area and room for a flat screen TV and coffee nook. John will begin the construction of his personal warm room in the observing area. The only major construction remaining at after that is pouring our two permanent telescope pier footings and building the roll-off roof - probably the two biggest projects.