A special thanks to Helge in assisting me preparing the water pump, checking the drain and a thanks to both Arve and Helge with hogging the trees!

I recently got the keys of our cabin. Since this time I’ve been preparing it so my parents can come and be there for a few weeks during the winter. There are 1001 things I want to do there, but for the first few jobs we prioritized the ones that were most essential. The most essential was the water. During the winter the waterpipe freezes as it lies on the surface, so the cabin only has a pipe with running water from roughly April to October. If somebody wants to be there during the winter they need to bring and store their own water. The cabin has one (very old) sink and drain pipe, but the previous owner said they never used it. This meant we were unsure on the status of the drain, and if water actually leaves the cabin.

In order to make life at the cabin a bit more comfortable we installed a small pump and a waterpipe inside the cabin which allows you to wash your hands. In addition to that we checked the status of the drain, and made it so that water can safely be drained during the coming winter. We plan for this solution to be here only for a few months until spring allows for building something more integrated, but it is now possible to operate it as-is for at least a few years (just in case). Lastly, we decided to cut down some trees to get more light and a better view.

Installing a pump

Beneath the cabin there used to be a well which in the old days was used for supplying water. A handpump was connected to this well, which allowed you to pump up the water and for example wash your hands or fill up a bowl over a small sink. This system is still mounted on the wall, but the pump is disconnected from the well.

In order to get running water in the cabin we bought a small boat-pump, a hose, a switch and a bucket. The bucket will hold (drinking-)water which is filled up with the use of jerrycans. The pump can be lowered into the bucket and will, once powered on, pump the water through the pipe which is mounted with zip-ties to the old water pipe. This system was installed in a few hours, where the biggest challenge was to find a good location for the on/off switch and running the wires/pipes in a neat way.

During installation we found that a small cutting board that was nailed to the wall. It was there to hide a hole in the wall, and turned out to be a perfect holder for our switch.

A few hours of work, and suddenly we had running water!

Checking the drain

Checking the drain turned out to be a more difficult job then we initially expected. The drain is a single pipe running from the sink to a concrete box outside filled with sand and small stones. These filter the water, after which it is released into the nature.

We had hoped that the water would run through this entire pipe and into the box. However, when we tried to pour water through the sink no water appeared inside the box. That meant the pipe had a breach somewhere, and we would have to locate it in order to make sure no water was leaking inside the cabin.

Firstly, we attempted to go underneath the cabin to check if we could find the drain pipe. This we did not, but we did find the old (disconnected) well which in the old days was used for the water supply.

Outside the cabin we found that the drain pipe was overgrown with a tree. Judging by the size of the tree the pipe must have been there for many decades. It looked like this was at least one of the places the pipe was broken.

Ultimately we were able to find a spot outside where the pipe was easy to take apart and where water which was thrown into the sink was running out. At this point we dug a hole in the ground and filled it with gravel and stones. This will act as a filter, and allows us to use the sink during the upcoming winter without a risk of the pipe clogging up.

While we were working outside I installed some Christmas lights to make it a bit more cozy.

Getting that view

The cabin is located at some height, but the view is completely blocked by mainly a big fir tree and many smaller trees. Cutting down trees is a job which can be done in a day and does not need much preparation, so we therefore decided to go to the cabin one day and start cutting down on the trees which were blocking the view.

We started by cutting down the tree which had grown over the drain pipe and the large fir tree.

Cutting down the trees went surprisingly fast. Since we had the entire day we continued cutting down on some rotten trees and in general thinning out the amount of trees which were in the way. To assist we had a 4×4 which was very useful in pulling trees down in the right direction and in moving the cut down trees.

When the day was done there was a much better view and much more daylight! The increased amount of daylight is a welcome addition in the short winter days.

The cabin is now ready to be inhabited for a couple of weeks in a row. We have many jobs left which we hopefully can start on during the spring, but for now there is (some form of) running water, enough wood to heat the cabin and a decent view with sufficient daylight to not get depressed.

Cheers, Jesper

Installing the Dooya awning motor was a bit cumbersome, due to the sheer size of the awning. Our awning is 7 meters long, which means that it requires at least 3 persons to lift the unit off and on the roof. In total we needed 2 installation attempts. During the first attempt we managed to remove the old, manual crank system and slide the motor into the awning. After we slid in the motor we found that the manual crank system was wider than the new motor, which meant the motor could not be slid in completely whilst also being attached to the side plate supporting the awning:

Old crank vs. new motor. The lower picture shows that the motor is not fully slid into the awning.

To allow the motor to be slid in completely there were basically 2 options:

1. Shorten the support beam holding the awning to the roof.
2. Use bolts to offset the motor from the side plate.

Shortening the support beam would be the most elegant solution, although this means that reverting to the manual crank at a later time will not be possible. The quality of the motor is not known, and failure is always an option. Therefore we chose to get some 50mm M6 bolts and a whole bunch of washers to offset the motor from the side plate. Simultaneously, the motor was rotated 180 degrees so that the power cable and antenna would exit on the top instead of the bottom, allowing for neater cable management.

After pairing the remote control to the motor and adjusting the outer limits, it was very satisfying to find out that it working well. It looks like the motor has enough torque to comfortably pull the awning back up, which hopefully means it won’t break in the near future.

Homey and Google Home integration

The remote control uses Z-Wave to steer the up & down movement of the motor. Homey is able to steer Z-Wave devices, and according to the Homey forums the Brel Motors app should be able to be paired to and control the Dooya DM45RM motor that is installed here.

On the left: Pairing the Dooya motor
On the right: The control interface in Homey.

Pairing was very simple. The app asks to push one of the buttons on the remote control that is already paired to the motor. From that signal it can determine the unique communication key to the motor (which ensures that a neighbor won’t accidentally control my motor), as well as the correct up, down & stop signal. A concern I had was that Homey was too far away to reliably control the motor, as it is positioned 3 rooms away from the motor, but the Z-Wave signal seems to have no problem reaching the motor.

My Homey was already integrated into Google Home. After a quick refresh, the Sunshade appeared in the Google Home app. Sweet!

And finally, it was time for a test:

You may notice that I say ‘close the sunshade’ instead of ‘lower the sunshade’. This is because Google recognizes the awning as blinds, which means they can only be ‘closed’ and ‘opened’. Fortunately this is not a problem whatsoever as it is easy to remember, and in the worst case Google doesn’t understand our command and we need to say it twice.

Some more Homey configuration

With Homey being able to control the awning, I could program a couple of ‘flows’. Flows can be compared with IFTTT applets that are managed and run inside Homey.

To the left: 4 flows to automatically steer the awning.
To the right: detailed view of the flow that lowers the awning.

I set up 4 flows for now:

1. The first flow automatically lowers the awning at 11:00 if the weather is good.
2. The second flow retracts the awning at sunset.
3. The third flow retracts the awning when the weather applet shows it’s raining.
4. The fourth flow retracts the awning when the weather applet shows the wind speed is over 39 km/h, which equals to Beaufort 6 or higher.

The flows that retract the awning will always run once they are triggered, regardless if the first flow has been triggered or not. This is because we are able to lower the awning manually with the remote control, and this motor only allows for a one-way communication. Therefore Homey has no way of knowing the current state of the awning. If the awning is already retracted, the motor is blocked by the end-switch and nothing will happen. To avoid spamming the motor with retract-signals a timer set to 1 hour is activated, which blocks new retract signals.

With this project done the balcony refurbishment is (for now) complete. We can now comfortably sit outside, enjoy the view and get ourselves some shadow whenever we want it with very little effort. The last couple of days have been quite sunny as well, so we have been able to enjoy our new setup quite a lot.

It’s Corona-time! Therefore (almost) everybody has a lot of time at home, including me. In order to make the most out of the situation my girlfriend and I decided it was a good idea to invest some time and money into our balcony as we can see this directly from the living room. During the day this is also the part of the house that gets the most sun as it is located at the south side of the apartment. Renovating this part of the house will therefore allow us to enjoy the outdoor weather during the spring/summer and simultaneously improve the view we have from inside the house.

The first step in renovating the balcony was to make a list of things that needed to be done.

The situation before the renovation

• The floor was rotten, so that needed to be removed. Underneath the wooden floor were stone tiles, which we decided to leave in place as they made a relatively flat surface, were pretty heavy, and we wouldn’t know if the concrete below would require a lot of maintenance (what you don’t know can’t hurt you).
• All the grass in the planter needed to be removed to make room for new plants that look better.
• The walls and planter could do with a paintjob.
• To make the balcony safe(r) a wooden fence was placed onto the planter. To allow for painting, the fence has to be disassembled, and can then painted as well.
• There are plans to do a large overhaul on the balconies and planters in this neighborhood in 1-2 years. One option we considered was to build a terrace similar to the one build on the veranda at the other side of the apartment, however this would have to be destroyed if they start the large overhaul. We therefore decided for IKEA RUNNEN decking, which both looked good and is easy to remove again when necessary.
• Lastly we wanted some nice lounge seats so we could sit outside in the sun.

Preparing the balcony

I started with removing the wooden fences. This was easy as they were hanging on the planter with the help of hooks, and they were only fastened by screws in the bottom. After removing the fence it was time for the grass and the floor. First the grass was gathered in waste bags, after which I cut up the floor in pieces of 90cm (so they would fit perpendicular in the trunk of my car).

Before and after the floor and grass removal

I then could drive all the old flooring to the local landfill. With everything removed it was the perfect time to paint the walls. Both the red and the white had to be done, so on a nice (semi) sunny day I set to work.

To determine the color of the fence I made a 3D model of the balcony in Google Sketchup. In our area there are 3 common colors: red, white and brown/black. The 3D model allowed us to quickly change the color to see what looked best:

In the end, we decided white would look the best. Brown/black made it look like a barcode, while red would not really fit onto the white planter and the trees in the background. We therefore choose to paint the fence white.

The rebuild

It was then time to lay the new floor. The RUNNEN floortiles are very easily clicked into place, and give a very nice result for such a short time. I again made a timelapse of the process, which can be found below:

At this point, we bought some plants and planted those in the planter. After replacing the fence and securing it into place the balcony was almost done.

Lounge set

The last thing that was missing was a nice place to sit and enjoy our newly refurbished balcony. After some consideration we again reverted to IKEA, this time to buy an ÄPPLARÖ 4-seat lounge set.

I’m really looking forward to drink a cup of coffee there during the morning, and to enjoy a beer during the evening. The entire family is happy with how it turned out, and hopefully we’ll get a lot of sunny days this year to enjoy the outdoors!