Putting Down Roots for the Winter

 Since October it has been hard to tell that we are full-time RV travelers.  We dropped anchor at our daughter's family home and that's where we've been ever since.  We're starting our sixth month without moving.  But it's all going as planned.  We sought to spend the winter with our grandkids in close proximity and that has been accomplished.  And as luck would have it we had relatively easy access to replacement equipment our rig was in sore need of.  Some of it we knew about, some we didn't.

The first thing to crop up was a bad circuit board on our water heater.  It was the "brains" of the water heater and we could not run on electric or propane, it was totally down for the count.  Most places we have been it wouldn't have been a big deal but in our North Carolina location the well water coming to us was running at about 35 deg F.  That's uncomfortable to wash hands in, let alone take a shower.  I didn't waste any time in getting a replacement board from an RV dealership in the next town to the west and becoming the contortionist that I had to be to get to the board under the sink, in the back, tucked behind the water heater.

Electric power in the part of Buncombe County that we are in is plentiful, maybe a little too plentiful.  Our power management system does more than just act as a surge protector.  It also analyzes the wiring of the power pedestal and continuously monitors voltage and amperage of both lines of the 50amp service.  If anything wanders out of range the power management system will shut off the flow of electricity to the coach, thereby saving electronics and appliances from damage.  We had been seeing a number of these "clipping" events that were initiated by high voltage.  In our 12 years of travel we had seen plenty of clipping events caused by low voltage but this was our first high voltage experience.

But after one of these now familiar high voltage events the power did not come back on.  Again, normally this would not be a big deal.  We go where it is cool in the summer and warm in the winter.  But this time we were definitely not where it is warm in the winter.  During our power problem the overnight lows were dipping into the single digits.  All things being equal this should not have been a problem either.  We built our coach with a large battery bank, 4-6V AGM batteries (rated at 390 Amp Hours each).  That should be plenty of power to run the propane furnace at night to keep from freezing up.  But there is a fly in the ointment.  Those batteries were on our planned list of things to replace.  They were 11 years old and WAY past their life expectancy.  We had to kluge together a generator hook-up directly to the battery bank.  But even then the batteries would give out, they simply couldn't take a charge as fast as they were giving it up to the furnace.  We couldn't run the furnace enough to keep from freezing up.  Luckily PEX piping is pretty forgiving, nothing ruptured.

It took four days to get a replacement power management system.  Luckily the power management system is fairly well located for easy access.  Nothing like the circuit board for the water heater.  All I had to do was completely empty the basement, crawl in on my hands and knees and sit crossed-leg for about an hour.

And there it is.
This little bundle of wires, resistors and e-proms 
dealt some discomfort for four days.
And for those of you that look at it closely, no, the 
picture is not upside-down.  This is actually the way it is mounted.

And wouldn't you know it.  As soon as we got our power problem fixed it warmed up to staying just barely above freezing at night and mild during the day.  But with that improved weather came rain, lots of rain.  Cyndee is pretty eagle-eyed, she spots deer by the road at night way before I do and she can see a speck of dirt on the carpet in the next room with the lights off.  So when she said that there was a dark area on the ceiling in the bedroom all I could do was say uh-oh.  I couldn't see it, my eyes just can't discern that small of a shade difference but I had no doubt it was there and I had a pretty good idea what was causing it.

So, first dry day I climbed on the roof and went straight to the forward air conditioner.  I took off the cowling and got my ear down on the roof so I could see under the A/C and get a look at the hold-down bolts that go through the roof.  Sure enough, years of bouncing, twisting, jolts and bumps had caused the bolt holes to become wallowed out.  They were allowing water to wick down the bolt and "moisturize" our bedroom ceiling.  That diagnosis resulted in a more involved removal of the A/C so that I could get to the bolt holes and squirt them full of a super-duper caulk.

Our fifth-wheel coach is equipped with a stackable washer/dryer.  These appliances are built specific to marine/RV needs and are compact and not inexpensive.

Big loads are not their forte but they do a great job for two people doing frequent light loads.  That is until they don't.  Our washing machine had started having problems spin-drying loads a few years ago.  Recently we had to start doing even lighter loads but it was manageable.  But then the transmission in the washer became even more dysfunctional and we budgeted for a replacement machine.  Evidently they are more expensive to repair than replace.  

You can't just walk in any appliance store and get one of these things.  Luckily for us we are about a 40 minute drive to a very large Camping World and we simply drove over and picked one up.  The rest wasn't so simple.  Cabinet doors had to be removed, the threshold of the cabinet had to be removed and the interior cabinet lighting had to be removed, all to get the size-to-size fit washer out of the cabinet.  

Then came the trick of getting the 90lb washer down four very narrow steps to the living area and then a 90 degree change in direction of travel and another four, steep, steps out the door.  In coming out we could let gravity do its thing and help us go down.  Coming in with the new one was a whole different ballgame.  Lots of sound effects and a copious amount of sweat.

With this planned replacement done we could now focus on the research for our next planned projects - batteries and entry steps.  Both of these projects are going to take some doing.  We are not going back with the same kind of batteries, instead we are updating the technology to the LiFePO4 batteries.  We'll have nearly twice the run-time at a 86lbs per battery instead of 125lbs per battery.  But to do that I will also have to replace my twelve year old converter/inverter/charger.  My existing system just can't be programmed to the charge profile required by the lithium batteries.  This is going to be a big job.

Programmable battery charger, just not for LiFePO4

Giant batteries.
6V AGMs weighing 125lbs a piece.

Converter/Inverter/Charger (white box)

Nothing in the above pictures is salvageable, everything will have to be replaced.  I'm contemplating professional help for this one.

And then before I could start work on the entry steps, another unplanned replacement happened.  This time it was the clothes dryer.  Our luck with clothes dryers has been pretty good.  We have never had one go belly-up on us in less than 15 years, but this one went at 12.  So it's off to Camping World again and a repeat of cabinet doors removal and so on.  But this time we're dealing with only a little more than half the weight of the washing machine.  An easier job all around.

Okay, back to the steps.  The way to go would be to replace with the exact same steps.  Same size, same bolt holes, same dimensions, easy-peasy.  But my usual luck ran out.  Our steps, originally made in 2012, are no longer manufactured.  The people that built them don't even make steps anymore.  So I'll be retrofitting something as close I can get to the original.  Which I found is not very close at all.  I've ordered the steps and started the process of making some home-made adapters to get them to fit.  It's a work in progress, I'll update when I finish welding and drilling the adapters.