Month: August 2013

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Now, Where’s That Bathtub?

Armed with more information than I had this morning, I went out to the water heater panel this afternoon, pulled some leads, cleaned, them, and reconnected everything. I now have HOT water again. YAAAAAY.

But a new thermostat and ECO thingamabob are in my future. They are cheap parts that are obviously about to fail, so I might as well switch them out.

(One of my favourite scenes in the movie Penny Serenade is when Roger and Julie’s friend Applejack arrives in California from New York. Their newspaper printing press is jammed and the bathtub is clogged. Applejack barely greets anyone before giving the printing press a kick, which starts it up, and then says, “Now, where’s that bathtub?” He is hailed as a miracle worker.)

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Getting the Ball Rolling

Today was a town day, so I popped into an insurance company to talk about proper insurance for Miranda so I can get started on transferring residency to Saskatchewan.

Aviva doesn’t have an Elite product for Saskatchewan, so I’m at square one for finding a company willing to insure me for living full-time in the rig. The added difficult is that SK has mandatory basic government insurance, so you have to start there then go to a secondary insurer.

I presented myself as a snowbirder who lives in the motorhome and will be parking it during the summer but wanting to keep it street legal and insured properly in case I need to take it for an emergency.

The gal I spoke with made a few calls and got told that I can’t live in my motorhome if I want to be insured by them. I had brought copies of my insurance policies, so she took copies of them and said she would pass them around and try to find someone willing to cobble together an insurance package for me.

That settled (well, not) she said that I am facing ‘additional difficulty.’ She pulled out the list of documents I will need to provide to prove that I am a resident of Saskatchewan and I laughed. This is the first time THAT’S not going to be an issue!

Once I get confirmation that insurance is a go, I will go talk to Kal-Tire about getting my out of province inspections done. I would rather have had those done closer to departure date, but my Alberta insurance runs out at the end of the month, so it would make sense to get this buttoned up before then. If I can get SK insurance, they will NOT insure Miranda if the OOPI and plate transfer from AB haven’t been done.

If I cannot get SK insurance, then I’m going into stealth mode. But it’s been my experience that with money, absolutely anything is possible. We shall see.

My Albert insurance dropped a whopping $250 between both policies this year. Nice to know I didn’t get penalized for a not at fault accident!

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Water Heater Gremlins Are Back

Well, I have no hot water again tonight. BUT I’m on to something. My water heats to only about 40F and then the water heater refuses to light again until the temperature has cooled several degrees.

I recently joined an RV forum where the folks in the tech section are actually helpful. I’ve narrowed down where I need to troubleshoot and I am likely in the market for a fixed temperature control thermostat or a thermal cut-off.

While I’m irked that things are starting to fall apart around here (tongue firmly in cheek), I am glad that this is coinciding with my having increased technical ability. Having to pay for a replacement part is a lot less daunting than having to pay for a part AND a tech.

I just got a rush work order, so I don’t have time to deal with this tonight, but I’ll get on it tomorrow before I go to town. I doubt I’ll be able to find what I need in Assiniboia, so I’ll likely be out of really hot water for a week. *sighs*

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Gremlins

When I got in the shower last night, I was surprised that the water was just a notch hotter than tepid. It was chilly in the rig, so I didn’t linger long. I checked the water temperature and it was just at 40C, my limit of tolerance for shower water on all but the very hottest days of the year.

I checked the water heater ignition button to make sure the water heater actually was on. I’ve had several incidents in the last few weeks where I’d turn the water heater on in the morning and it would get switched off during the day. I’m pretty sure that’s Neelix’s doing when he gets up on two paws by the kitchen sink.

Anyway, not only was the switch to on, it wasn’t doing anything. It was completely dead. I confirmed that there was 12V power going to it (stabbing myself well and good with a multimetre probe in the process, owwwwww) and that I didn’t have a blown fuse. The manual said that for these circumstances, I possibly had too high voltage, which I most absolutely did not. So I went to bed feeling rather put upon. Augh, I’ve officially reached the stage where living in a ’97 motorhome is WORK.

Even though I have more pressing things to do today, I decided to start with the water heater. I hit the on button just to see if the RV gremlins (or should I call them faery godmothers?) might have effected a repair overnight.

They did.

I’m not looking a gift horse in the mouth, but GAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

Well, at least I can get straight to work. That humongous contract I’ve been dreaming of all summer has finally landed and it’ll be nose to the grindstone for the rest of the month.

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Well, the New Converter Works!

I’m still having DC power issues. I tried to run a few things off the inverter this evening and got a critical voltage drop. Once again, the run of cable from my inverter to the batteries is NOT the issue. I’ve got a short or, more likely, undersized wiring between the batteries and the converter. Dealing with that once and for all is going to be the next project, although I’m not sure it’s one I can do myself since creating lugs for heavy gauge wiring will likely be beyond my ability.

At any rate, I’ve got the genny to turn to instead, so I did. GAH. I hate using that gas consumer when I’ve got all that beautiful sunshine to power stuff!

Anyway, I got the generator started and I had no 120V power at all. All my breakers were on. I went back outside and checked the power cord. It wasn’t sitting perfectly in the outlet.

One of the converter’s many added bonus features beyond smart charging is that it offers protection against brownouts and spikes. I imagine that a cord not being plugged in properly would act like one of those. The new converter caught that error and wouldn’t let me power the rig. Wow!

Other benefits of the new converter:

-reverse battery protection (in case I go crazy and decide to reverse the leads on the batteries)

-electronic current limiting (if I try to run too many amps at once, the converter will shut down rather than trip a breaker)

-the new DC board has red LEDs underneath the fuses. If a fuse blows, the LED will turn on. No more wrestling with the OHM setting on the multimetre to figure out which fuse needs to go!

There is also a button to override the converter’s choice of charging mode, which is not recommended except to test that the converter is working correctly. I used the button and confirmed that my new toy knows what it’s doing.

I’m really annoyed that the inverter only works during the day, when I get the added voltage boost from the sun. Then again, maybe that’s the point? Use the inverter then and run the genny a few hours during the evening? That does feel rather silly since the point of an effective solar charging setup is to start the evening with fully charged batteries so you DON’T need to use the generator. Anyway, I know that the inverter problems have absolutely nothing to do with me or the upgrades I’ve done, so they won’t stop me from getting a good night’s sleep. 🙂