Our RV Adventures

Well Kinda . . . Almost.

Well, our cooler weather has finally arrived. It made it up to a blistering 85 degrees today, and sunny with a light breeze. Couldn’t be much better. It’s supposed to stay like this for a few days before the temps creep back up into the low 90’s. Right now at midnight, it’s 60 degrees and I’ve got a long-sleeve shirt on. Nice.

Today’s count was 108, compared to yesterday’s 111, so maybe that’s what it will settle down to. Like I said yesterday, very doable.

I finally had a chance this morning to get back to my water heater problem, and finally got the access panel off so I could get to the electrical connections on the back.

The electrical side of the water heater died a couple of months ago, but with everything going on with the gate, I’m just now getting back on it. We’ve been using the propane side since then, but I didn’t want to have a problem running out.

The first thing I did was to turn off power to the unit using the switch on the side of the box. Well, I tried to, but the switch snapped and then went spongy with no more clicky-clicky. But I don’t think that was the initial problem.

So what I was pull the wires on the switch, and after cutting off the old spade lugs, I stripped the ends and joined them with a wire nut. So now I was finally ready to troubleshoot the real problem. And a couple of minutes with the ohmmeter told me what it was.

I used the ohmmeter to check the two thermostat units here, with one of them being the actual thermostat, and the other being the high-temp cutoff. The one on the left tested good with 0.0 ohms, but the right one showed open, or bad. They’re not marked, and I was hoping the bad one was the ECO cutoff, but after checking my Atwood manual, I found it was the thermostat.

Normally the power comes into the left unit, loops over the right unit, and then feeds power to the heating element.. So what I did was to move the wire going to the heating element over, bypassing the bad thermostat, so I could check the system.

At the lavatory I measured the hot water temp at 96 degrees. Then I turned on the wall switch for the heater, waited 20 minutes, and measured again. This time it was 132 degrees, so I knew the bad thermostat was my problem. But of course the problem won’t really be fixed until I replace the thermostat itself. I probably won’t replace the power switch

Checking, I found one on Amazon (of course) for $12 and it will be here Tuesday. But for right now we’ll just turn it on 20 minutes before our showers, and then turn it off when we’re done.

The other thing I fixed recently was the AC blower in our truck. The air flow just wasn’t what it should be, and it was a struggle to get the cab cool in hotter weather. Back before we left the Houston area, I replaced the blower resistor pak and that helped somewhat, but it just didn’t seem to be as strong as it used to be.

So after doing some checking I decided to go ahead and replace the blower motor itself. The reason I hesitated before is that changing one of these out can be a real pain in the rear. In some cases you almost have to disassemble the dashboard to replace it.

But this one was so easy it was almost ridiculous. Just reach under the dash, unclip the power connector, remove 3 – 8mm bolts, and the blower motor falls out in your hand. Then reverse the procedure and 5 minutes later your done. Easy Peezy.

And boy, did it make a difference. It’s back to cooling like it used to.

________________________________________________________

Thought for the Day:

adfdf

Friday is usually Grocery Day, and today was no different. So I headed out to Wal-Mart a little after 11am making the 8 mile trip into Carthage.

Being this close to town could really get you spoiled. We’ve been at other sites where it was two hours each way, and considered ourselves lucky at others when we only had a two hour round-trip.

Today’s visit was a lot less eventful than Wednesday’s tête-à-tête with the Pharmacy there. The only problem is that this store, being a ‘mini’ SuperCenter, doesn’t always stock some of the brands/items that we normally buy at Wal-Mart. But it all works out. And of course this being Grocery Day means it’s also Whataburger Day, so I made the obligatory stop there before heading home.

After lunch, and after I came on shift at 1pm, Jan decided she was going to go into town to get her haircut, so off she went about 1:30. This is only the second time in the four years we’ve been gate guarding that she’s left by herself. A real milestone. I hope she’ll do it more now that we’re so close to town.

She was back about 2:30, happy with her hair, but very unhappy with the price. Her wash and cut was $45, about twice what she usually pays at a SuperCuts, etc. At those prices, the hair places here better hope they don’t put a TGF or a SmartStyle in at the Wal-Mart.

It looks like the frack is off and running, but it does sound like it’s a little hit or miss so far, at least based on the starting and the stopping of the noise and the smoke/dust cloud that hovers above the pad. But the sand trucks are coming in, albeit, less than the 20 a day we were told. So far it’s been about 10 or so a day, in batches of 3 or 4. So that’s been nice.

Things did settle down to what I imagine will be a more usual pace, now that all the prep/startup stuff is done. Down from yesterday’s 135, we had 111 trucks come through today. A nice, very doable, pace.

Just after I went in at 6pm, we did get another light, dust-settling rain which was nice. Jan said it lasted for about 20 minutes with no wind, so it didn’t blow in under the canopy. Right now there’s a lot of lightning in the clouds to the south of us, but looking at my Rainy Days app, it doesn’t look like it’s heading our way.

So far.

________________________________________________________

Thought for the Day:

If you don’t want to shut your engine off, then don’t get upset when I have to ask you your name four times because I can’t understand you when you’re mumbling with a cigarette in your mouth. Just sayin’.

adfadsf