A Beginner's Guide to Opening Up the Orcas Family Farm at 1782 Mt Baker Rd

A number of things (for example heat, hot water heater(s), etc.) are shut off or turned down when the house is unoccupied in order to save money. When first arriving, these all need to be turned on (or checked to make sure they're already on). Follow the steps below to open up the house. If you're following this on your phone, you may need to zoom in on some of the pics to see the detail.

Open the main house front door via the electronic deadbolt

If you turn the deadbolt you'll notice that it just spins freely, i.e. it doesn't unlock the door. To get the deadbolt to work, do the following:

• Push the "Schlage" button (above the number buttons); all the buttons should light up blue.
• Enter your 4 digit code. The Schlage button starts blinking (for about 10 secs)
• While the Schlage button is blinking, turn the deadbolt counter-clockwise. You should now be able to open the door.

If you can't get the deadbolt to work, call for help.

Adjust the temperature of the main house

A heat pump supplies the primary heating/cooling for the main house. The heat pump thermostat is on the wall inside the front door as shown in the above left-hand pic circled in red. (Enlarge it to see)

On the thermostat, push the Up Arrow to turn on the backlit green. There are two temp readings on the top of the screen. The left one is the current actual house temp; the right one is the temp you want the house to be.

If you want the house warmer:

• Make sure the "System" setting displays Heat. If it doesn't, push the unlabeled button directly below it repeatedly until it displays Heat.
• You should see the word "Hold" displayed to the left of the right-hand temp. If you don't see the word "Hold" displayed, push the button labeled Hold.
• The "Fan" setting should display Auto. If it doesn't, push the unlabeled button directly below it repeatedly until it displays Auto.
• Push the Up Arrow until the right-hand temperature (desired temp) displays the temperature you want the house to be. I usually set it at 67 or 68. The left-hand temperature shows the current house temperature. It takes a while for the house to heat up (sometimes overnight).

• To speed things up, there are a number of built in electric wall heaters around the house that are controlled by wall thermostats. For example, the pic to the right shows the one in the dining area circled in red.
• Walk around the house to the rooms you're going to be using and turn these heaters on by turning the circular knobs clockwise to 70 or so. Once the house is warmed up, please go around turning them off again - they're inefficient and much more expensive than the heat pump (which you can just leave on all the time). It's ok to use these electric wall heaters as needed, for example, you're freezing or going to take a shower.

If you want the house cooler:

• Set the "System" to Cool.
• As above, make sure "Hold" is displayed, and the Fan is set to Auto.
• Push the Up or Down Arrow until the right-hand temperature (desired temp) shows the temperature you want the house to be.

Turn on power to the main house hot water heater

The main house breaker box is just outside the back door. The breaker box is hard to open, so I've hung a bottle opener above the top right corner of the box. You can use this to pry open the right side of the cover. (Please put the bottle opener back on the hook.)

• Open the box door (using the bottle opener if needed).
• Find breaker number 34 (it's towards the bottom of the right hand column, marked with a black arrow on white tape). Turn it ON (push the breaker toggle to the left towards the center of the box). The above pic shows it ON.
• Close the box cover.

Adjust the Living Room Wall Clock as needed

The wall clock in the livingroom loses 1 or 2 minutes every day (it's "island time"). When you arrive, reset it to the correct time. Normally it doesn't matter, but if you're using it to decide when to leave to catch the ferry ... then it might matter.

You may be done ...

That's it for the main house. If you don't need to get into the garage, and don't plan to use the guest house, then you're done - and can skip the rest of this doc.

If you do need to get into the garage, and/or you plan on using the guest house, then continue on to the next sections.

Get the keys to the garage and the guesthouse

All the various keys (out buildings, guest house, riding mower, etc.) are hung on the side of the hutch. Grab the garage key (#1) and guesthouse key (#2) and go out the back door (with flashlight if it's dark).

Open the garage side door

The garage is straight ahead outside the back door of the main house. The red door is the side door of the garage. Open that door with the garage key (#1).

Again, you may be done ...

You've now opened the garage. If you're not going to use the guesthouse you can skip the rest of this doc. (But be sure to put both keys back on the hanger where you got them.)

If you do plan on using the guest house, then continue on to the next section.

Open up the guesthouse for use

To open up the guesthouse you begin in the garage. Just inside the garage side door is another breaker box that controls power to the garage and other various outbuildings. At the garage breaker box:

• Open up the breaker box by pushing the indented "catch" hard to the right and pulling the door open.
• The guest house hot water breaker is marked with a black arrow on white tape.
• If it's not already "on", turn it on by pushing its little handle to the right (towards the center of the box). This turns on the guesthouse hot water heater. (In the above pic the breaker is flipped to the left, i.e., it's off.)
• Close the breaker box cover by slamming it shut fairly hard.

With keys in hand, walk around to the guesthouse and unlock the door.

• Stepping inside the guest bedroom and looking to the right, you'll see a white wall heater. If you want to warm the room up turn the Mode thumbwheel to "sunshine" (i.e., heater on). (The lit mode values are snowflake, moon, sunshine, off.) Set the thermostat thumbwheel to 4 or 5 - that will heat up the room.



• Stepping inside the guesthouse bathroom, you'll see another white wall heater. Verify that it's ON (toggle switch), and the temp is pointing to snowflake. If you want to warm the bathroom up, turn the temp control to 2 or 3. This will heat up the bathroom.

Since someone's going to be using the guest bedroom, you can turn on the outside porch light as you exit. Leave the guest bedroom door unlocked.

You've now opened up the main house and possibly the garage and guesthouse.

You're now done with the garage side door and the guest bedroom keys, so it's a good time to return them to the key hanger. (I've put them in my pocket and taken them back to Seattle by mistake several times.)