Got Back To Work

You might have heard this before. RVers are telling the story of owning an RV. And often, from the new RVs, we are hearing the most grotesque stories. "Grotesque", mainly because you won't expect a whole lot of repairs on something you have spent a fortune for. But whether "new or old, you can be sure of once you own an RV, you will have to deal with pressing repairs.

Someone else having a good time in the south

Our motorhome is 20yrs. old. So while essential functions seem to be in good order, there is a 20yr. old "wear and tear" in wait to be dealt with. And if previous owners haven't maintained the rig then, yes, you got to deal with it.

And such is the case with our rig.

Last week we noticed that one of the two furnaces wasn't kicking in when ordered to. So I had tried to tap on the thing with a big screw driver, but the service was intermittent - until recently it stoppped entirely.

So YouTube videos had to be consulted, and I learned that the electrode, also called "igniter" would be at fault. So I ordered the part, which came quickly yesterday. Today, I started to take that furnace apart. Following the YouTube advice, I quickly got the screws out of the way, removed the exhaust, then the entire gas valve, (yes, I shut off the gas supply) and the state of that assembly left me speechless. The RV burner Head had pretty much disintegrated. Of course, I hadn't ordered THAT part, but then I was able to locate the thing on AMAZON. 

But hey, now I had an open gasline, which would prevent us from using any propane. Not good!

I needed a plug for the open gas line. But aren't we lucky? only 8 miles from here we have a well-eqipped ACE Hardware Store. And there I also met extremely competent staff, who immediately knew in which aisle and in which drawer the plug would be. I also got some gas-tape (for the threads) and was back in camp in no time.

The gas line got plugged and we were back in business again. Just have to wait a few days for the new part to get here.

Of course, as an RV-owner you can't (or shouldn't) be afraid to take on problems on your own. I just imagine that we would have been without the 2. furnace for 3-4 months, had I contacted an RV-dealership in Yuma. And $250/hr. plus double price for all parts would have to be expected.

And while fixing the furnace, the next issue is already waiting. The other day we found out that we have 3 receptacles, all in the bedroom and all without AC-power.

We already checked GFCI-breakers and every possible avenue - so far without success. So this will be on my mind the next coming weeks. Naturally, one must assume that the previous owner knew about some of these issues and would have informed the selling dealership, but sadly, that was not the case.

Having said this, I realized I am far from being the only Class-A owner with similar issues. A camp neighbour with a Winnebago is telling similar stories, and listening to him, I realize we can still consider us lucky.

WOW!

What else is going on?

While I have been getting my hands dirty, Bea has taken to a much more pleasant occupation as she has restarted her artistry again. A good friend had gifted her a huge amount of acrylic paint and she has been producing the most lovely paintings. Some of them turned into Christmas cards. Are you still pursue this old-fashioned custom? Sending Cristmas Cards can still be very rewarding, especially if those cards are hand-made paintings from the sender to dear friends.

One morning we were sitting around when a BLM-truck with 3 men showed up. They began to redo the BLM NO-Camping signs which mark the border for the Long-Term-Visitor Area (LTVA) One guy began unscrewing the metal sign plates, another one cleaned them and the third guy glued new printed vinyls onto the plates, then the first guy proceeded to remount the plates to the poles. If that isn't a good example of government planning...I don't know what would be.

Then today another BLM truck showed up, driving from one camper to the next. His mission was checking on whether everybody had a permit for the LTVA. And from what I heard later, a few campers without permit got chucked out. He also controlled some rigs whether they were "selv-contained", as required in the rules. We think this was very much needed and we hope they will continue to do this.

So life goes on in camp. And next week we are gonna have a Christmas Dinner with our neighbours OUTSIDE!

This is something we have done several times in past years.

The Job Is Done!

Weeks have passed by and you must have been wondering whether we have fallen off the face of the earth.

But nope, we are still here, just having been busy with ongoing improvements of our motorhome. And of course, the big project we started weeks ago is now finished.

Let me recap what we did:

12 100W solar panels were to be mounted on our roof. That would make 4 groups of 3panels.

The mounting materials consisted of 2 rolls of Eternabond tape, used to fasten 8 10ft long strut channels to the metal roof.  48 strut nuts and ditto 1/4" bolts are holding the 48 slotted crossbars, each 2ft. long, to the strut channels. Further it took 250ft of solar wiring, 72 quarter inch bolts with stop nuts and 2 washers each. The last hardware I needed were 12 flat alluminum supports for tilting up the panels, each had to be drilled 1/4" holes at the end for the 24 1/4" bolts, which were secured by 24 wing nuts. (for easy and quick removal.

For connecting the panels with eachother I had 20 branch connectors, and a bunch of single connectors.

But before being finished, I also had to secure the open wiring to the roof. For that I used small pieces of Eternabond. I also used SIKAFLEX 252 along the edges of the strut channel and in between.

I have only drilled 2 holes through the roof to feed the wires down into a rear hollow, where our washer/dryer is located. From there another hole gets the wires below the floor into a compartment next to the battery compartment. They then run through another drilled hole over to the battery compartment where they are connected to our 100amp charge controller.

If this confused you, I wouldn't be surprised. It's just a lot of stuff and procedure, and if I had known all this, I might have reduced the size of the project, BUT........

BUT, we are harvesting power. And we get a lot of charge into our 4  225amp/h Trojan batteries. This morning around 11am the controller showed 60amps. A little later our battery voltage topped out at 14.5V, which is the point when the controller does its job and reduces the charge amount. If it wouldn't do it, the batteries would be "cooked"

Our 2000W gas-driven generator has been retired for the rest of the season.

And today we took the whole show on the road. The reason for that was that after 17 days we needed to get to the dump station. Our waste water holding tanks were getting to their max capacity.

Dixie and Bea went along for the ride of the 8 miles to town. Dixie has gotten a lot more relaxed when I drive the bus down the road. It looks like these short trips are good training for her.

It has also gotten a bit "Christmasy" here. Two cardboard Christmas trees, one outside, one inside, have been illuminated with solar lights. I cut these tree shapes out of the cardboard boxes the solar panels came in.

Another lightchain runs on the dash along the big windshield. 

Meanwhile, we have also gotten to know our neighbours. Here we found a couple from Washington State and the other one from Montana. Another single guy came yesterday from Maryland. Tonight we have all been sitting at the camp fire and chatting across the board.

Life can hardly get any better!

Cloudy Day Makes For A Good Work Day

 We could have named it "GREY FRIDAY" as the clouds didn't let sunshine though, so our 3 connected Solar panels couldn't deliver much power. But the weather enticed me for another work day on the roof.

But first I had to drive to Holtville and the ACE-store. I had been running out of washers and the screws for the strut channel were just a tad too long, so I had to get 3/4" screws to continue the mounting work. The first three panels got mounted until noon. After lunch I brought the remaining 4 strut channels onto the roof, and Bea helped reaching them up to me!

Left: The line

Both strut channels glued on

The attached photos are showing the steps to install strut channels. First, a line along the edge of the roof, then the Eterna Bond and as the last step the strut channel. It is important to put pressure on the channel to make sure it really connects to the Eterna Bond.

I did all 4 channels today and I am ready to mounting 6 more solar panels.

The latest 3 panels - not yet connected and flat on the roof.

Tomorrow, I will mount the last 6 panels to the strut channels.

I Was On The Roof Again

 While Bea was walking Dixie this morning, I readied myself for another job on the roof.

Challenge #1 was to get the panels onto the roof without damaging them - or the rig. Climbing the ladder with them was not an option as I had to use both hands to keep me from falling off it. So I borrowed an extendable ladder from a neighbour and placed it behind the coach. Then I took a solar panel, covered the solar side with some of the cardboard they came in and put 2 slings of rope around it all. This "package" was then placed against the leaning ladder. With the end of the rope I climbed onto the roof and was no able to pull the wrapped solar panel along the ladder until I could grab it from above. This procedure was done three times.

I mounted the crossbars onto the mounting rails (strut channels) then bolted the solar panels to the cross irons.

By specially tightening the nuts on the outside, I was able to tilt the panels towards the sun. They will get a support for that position later.

Then it was to connect wires and run the main connecting wires down the side of the motorhome, where I temporarely connected them to the charge controller. 

The panels down on the trailer had already been disconnected, so now the roof aray could take over. The whole operation today took about 6hrs. I clambered up and down the rear ladder many times and tonight I can feel it in my knees.

Today's achievement is only one quarter of all work I still have to do.