Come full circle.

We've been stationary going on 2 years now. Originally we were living in our 5th wheel in the driveway and then after receiving anonymous complaints about lowering the property values in the neighborhood, we moved to a local American Legion campground. Now we are back in the house since the kids decided they really needed a bigger house and yard and are currently in a 4bdrm with a nice yard. We're in the process of making upgrades and repairs since we will probably stay here for a at least the next 2 years until the grand kids are in pre-school. We already said we weren't babysitting another baby so if another one comes along they are on their own.

Meanwhile, we've been painting inside, replaced the two toilets with low flush units that we got $100 rebates for each one so the total cost to us was $70. What we thought was a leaking roof around the brick fireplace turned out to be 'brick saturation'. Who knew? In heavy rainfall, which we had in abundance here in the NW last year, the rain striking the edge of the bricks where the mortar is is absorbed by the bricks, plus the cracks in the cement cap didn't help. The water then wicks down through the bricks until the warmer temperature inside the house causes it to evaporate leaving behind a chalky white residue, which I thought was from the drywall in the ceiling. The fix is to grind out the mortar to about 1" deep and re-mortar. It's called 'tuck pointing'. About $1200 later it is done and then in the spring/summer when it's warmer/dryer a sealant will be applied. Hopefully this is the end of it. Already had the ceiling repaired and repainted once and don't want to have to do it a third time. (Haven't done the second time yet.)

Next on the list is upgrading the electric to 200 amp service. Estimates so far put that in the $2300 - $2500 range. Whoopee!! Started off getting quotes for fixing a couple of dead outlets and escalated from there. In today's electronic lifestyle I'm surprised I've gotten by so far.

Next will be the kitchen. Mostly new counter tops and re-doing the cupboards, plus upgrading the appliances so I'll probably be lucky to get through that for less than $10K. We'll see.

That's probably enough to keep me busy for now and it's finally warmed up enough that I should get outside and finish washing the 5th wheel so I can get the cover on before it decides to snow.

Merry Christmas to those who celebrate and Happy Holidays to those so inclined and if you don't you can just disregard this part.

So far, So good.

We've had a bought of cold weather lately with overnight temps in the high teens and daytime temps in the mid thirties, and lately, snow. The good news is that things have held up well and the only thing I wish I had done was to heat tape and insulate the 3/4" hose from the mascerator pump to the sewer cleanout at the house. Normally I leave the gray water valves open and let them drain continuously but with the cold weather it freezes up. Not a big problem since I have a back up hose I temporarily connect to drain the tanks then remove it and make sure it is drained of all fluids, but the gray water tanks need to be emptied every other day and if the freezing weather last more than a few days, which it hasn't so far this winter, then it does become a pain in the butt.

As for heat, with the furnace and one 1500W electric heater we are keeping warm enough. We both like it a bit on the cool side so we keep the thermostat set to 66 degrees and have comforters to snuggle under while watching TV at night.

Fortunately the weather is warming and things are melting which we are glad to see since it's our grandson's first birthday and we are looking forward to our guests being able to attend.

Next time you hear from me I'll probably be complaing about it being too warm. Sigh...

Life After Grandkids

So much for the RVing life. Our first grandkids, both boys, came in February and April and we, with sappy grins, volunteered to babysit for the first year. Now don't get me wrong, I would'nt trade the time spent with them for anything and am actually wondering how well I will handle being separated if/when we leave. Right now we are pretty well ensconced in our son-in-law and daughter's driveway.

We had 30 amp service installed, plumbed in a sewer connection, applied heat tape and insulation on the fresh water line and installed skirting around the trailer to help keep it warmer this winter without the propane furnace running all the time.

The skirting is 3/4" R-Tech foam board found at most big box hardware outlets. It's screwed to a simple wood frame at the bottom. We're sitting on concrete or I would have dug a trench and just buried the bottoms. The tops are taped to the trailer with foil backed tape. The vertical seams are done with white duct tape. I hung two 150W lights on the leaf springs near the holding tanks for the extra warmth. The trailer bottom is enclosed and the furnace is ducted to provide heat to the tank and storage areas, but, what the heck, more is better. Right? The furnace is set for 64 deg and we have a 1500 W electric heater we run at night. So far, with the night time temps in the low 30's the furnace has only run once or twice so that will save me extra trips to get the propane bottles filled.

I bought 2 extra 30#ers and go fill them when 3 are empty. I looked into renting a bigger tank from the distributor, which at $99/year and a one time installtion fee of $120 sounded pretty good, but one of the contract stipulations was that you purchased at least two tanks full. That was a total of about 240 gallons at about $2.39/gal and was a bit more propane than I thought we would use.

Next project is to put that shrink to fit plastic sheeting on the windows. I'll leave a couple of the openable windows uncovered for ventilation.

And last, but not least, I ordered a dehumidifier. The windows have been damp in the mornings and the cheap bucket of white pellets just isn't enough.

Enough for now and I'll try to post more often but two babies are really kicking my butt...also giving me a good work-out. My back is getting stronger everyday and not hurting as much as it used to. Kind of like going in for physical therapy.

RV Refrigerator Revisited

It's been 2 weeks now since I installed the new cooling unit for our refrigerator. I wanted to give it some time before I reported on how well the job went. So far, so good. It's been running on 120 VAC and holding around 0 degrees in the freezer and in the low 40's in the refer section, which is about where it should be.

Going back a couple of weeks to the ordering of the cooling unit. I had trouble with the shopping cart website of the company I wanted to buy from so I opted to go with another supplier that let me order online. Their website stated that the cooling units normally shipped within 24-72 hours of receiving the order. I received an order confirmation email right away but after a week I still hadn't received a shipping confirmation so I called them. The guy who answered the phone was a bit surly and said he'd go check with the shop. He came back to the phone and said it MIGHT ship in 2 or 3 days. MIGHT??? I went back to the first company, who was highly recommended by rver's on various rv forums I'd visited while researching my refer problem. I called them on the phone and after confirming that they had my cooling unit in stock and could ship it right away I placed the order with them and called back the first company and cancelled that order. I followed up with an email to confirm the cancellation and received an acknowledgement email reply and the message that the original order had been packaged and was sitting on the shop floor, ready to ship. I replied back that if I had gotten a better answer from the guy on the phone I wouldn't have cancelled the order. They did promptly reverse the charges to my credit card so all I had lost was another week without our refer.

The new unit arrived 3 days later with only minimal damage due to UPS's careful handling. Had to straighten out one of the angle iron mounting frames and some of the cooling fins.

Now for the fun part. I had been studying the instructions that the second company had sent me via email and already had the 120 VAC and 12 VDC disconnected and several components that would be reused on the new unit removed. I chose to unbolt the propane supply valve from the refer and leave the propane supply pipe attached rather than just disconnecting the pipe. It's a flare fitting and probably would have resealed but I chose to do it my way instead. I did check for propane leaks just to be safe. Since I was by myself I also removed the two refer doors to make it as light as possible.

In our trailer the refer is mounted in the wall about 24 inches above the floor. My ice chest is a couple inches shorter than that so, with a couple of towels on top for padding, it was just the right height. I had to lift the refer up just a little bit to clear the wood cabinet in front and then work it side to side to work it out of the framework. It is a snug fit.

Once the refer was out I used a milk crate (because I had one) and some more towels and carefully laid the refer on it's face. I removed the rest of the components that would be reused on the new cooling unit and, following the instructions, used a 6ft by 3/4 inch pipe (or a 2X4) to pry the old unit off. It is sealed to the back of the refer with a special compound that helps to transfer the cooling and won't work very well if it's not resealed again correctly. Again following the instructions, I test fit the new cooling unit to make sure it fit properly and then applied the sealing compound and set it back in place. I replaced all the components I had removed from the old unit and stood the refer back up and slid it back into it's place.

It took about 5 - 6 hours and cost $520 compared to a new refer at about $1200 or more than $2000 to have it done at the dealer.

The only thing I would do differently is to take pictures of everything. I had one piece of tin flashing that went around the propane burner that I couldn't remember where it went. I ended up going to the rv dealer and looking at one of their used trailers with the same refer to finally figure it out.

We now have ice cream and cold beer again. Life is good.

Who Knew Dry Ice Was So Expensive?

Well, not as expensive as a new refrigerator, but it also does not last as long.  The remanufactored unit has not yet arrived, so we are keeping things in the refrigerator and freezer cool using dry ice.  It works very well actually, and saves us from having to run into our daughter's house multiple times a day for food.  We are a snacking bunch.  Unfortunately, ice cream does not keep well.  Why is it that one always wants ice cream just before bed?  Perhaps I shall lose a few pounds this way?  Come on Fed Ex - I want my refrigerator to work again!

As President Barlett says on West Wing, 'What's Next?'

The next lesson in owning a RV is upon me. This morning I noticed the thermometer in the refrigerator was going up. I checked all the usual things, ie: fuses, breakers, voltages where there is supposed to be voltages.

Phase 2, check online. Where would we be these days without the world wide web?

After about 15 minutes of searching I confirmed my problem. A cracked weld in the cooling unit piping has let all the ammonia escape. Dometic, the manufacturer, has a recall for several models, including mine. Unfortunately, their 'fix' only addresses the possible fire hazard the leaking ammonia can cause and nothing to actually fix cracked pipe.

So, back to the internet and more searching. A new refrigerator is about $1200 plus shipping and you have to go pick it up at the freight company's warehouse, or a remanufactured cooling unit for about $550 with shipping to your door, and from all I learned online, pretty easy to install.

New/remanufactured cooling unit ordered and on it's way.

Stay tuned for the follow-up blog on how the actual replacement job turns out.

NECCESSITY: The Mother of Invention

As we sit, parked in our daughter's driveway, awaiting the arrival of our first grandkid, several things become apparent about urban camping. First, 15 amp electric power doesn't run much. We have to be very aware of what we have running before turning on any other appliances. We found out the hard way that the circuit we are plugged into is also shared by our daughter's bedroom and if the breaker trips in the middle of the night their alarm clocks don't go off in the morning. Ooops!

The second problem is what to do with full waste water tanks. It is a big hassle to get the trailer ready for the road and drive 15 miles to the nearest dump station and back again ever two weeks so I was really looking for a simpler option.

Ideally one would just tap into the houses sewer system through the clean-out plug but it hasn't been opened in decades and the previous owners built a wall that partially encloses the drain making it almost impossible to get a wrench on the plug. I've got some ideas on how to go about getting the plug out but for now I needed a sure way to get my tanks emptied.

I searched on the internet and found "blue buddies". The name belongs to one manufacturer but is used generically to describe any small tank with wheels, a handle and sewer hose connection. They are called "blue buddies" because the originals are made out of blue plastic. They are made to be either pulled by hand or the handle is designed so that it can be hooked over a hitch ball and then pulled to the dump station. The problem with this is that the wheels are cheap plastic ones like on a kiddie car and the handle just loops over the hitch ball. I have to go 15 miles on the freeway to the nearest dump station plus the largest "blue buddy", at 45 gallons, is over $250.

Since I already have a Flomax mascerator pump that liquifies everything so it can be pumped through a regular garden hose I decided I could put a tank in the back of the truck. Tanks of any kind are still not particulary cheap so I ended up with a used white plastic barrel I got for $20. I built a cradle out of a 3 ft by 3 ft piece of 3/4" plywood I had laying around with 4 plastic wheel chocks screwed to it and two ratcheting tie-down straps to hold the barrel in place. I used two more tie-down straps to secure the whole thing in the back of the truck.

The barrel has two 2" bungs in the top. One is standard pipe thread and I bought the necessary PVC fittings at the local big box store to fit on a 2" PVC ball valve and reduce to 10 ft of 1 1/2" spa/pool hose. The barrel was placed in the cradle so this would be on the bottom.

The top bung was coarse thread but had been pre-cast with an option to use a 3/4" fitting. I just had to remove the molded in plug. I used a pipe thread to female hose adapter and added one of those in-line garden hose shut-offs.

Just above and to the left of the top bung I drilled a 3/16" hole to let the air out when pumping liquids in and used a 1/4" sheet metal screw to plug it when not in use.

The Flomax mascerator pump is designed to twist on to the rv's sewer outlet and has an outlet to attach a garden hose. The garden hose connects to the top fitting on the barrel, open the shut-off valve, make sure the 2" ball valve is closed and take the screw out of the air bleed hole and we're ready to try it out.

After the fact, it all worked as planned. The waste water tank pumped into the barrel in about five minutes with no problems and emptied in less than 3 minutes at the dump station at the I-5 rest stop. It took about 10 minutes to rinse out the barrel because they have some funky fitting on the ends of the hose at the dump station. I have a new gizmo to try next time called a "water thief". It's kind of like a piece of hose about 4" long with a male garden hose fitting on one end and the other fits over any kind of outlet with or without threads and has a hose clamp to keep the connection tight. That will free up my hands to tilt the barrel around while the water is running to rinse it out.

Not including the mascerator pump I have less than $100 invested. One advantage of the "blue buddy" is that it doesn't take up as much room to stow it if you are taking it with you.