Lots Of Water, And All Of It Cold
It started raining late Thursday evening, and poured all night long, while the wind rocked the motorhome. When we woke up Friday morning there were huge puddles all over Elkhart Campground, and it was still coming down hard.
We then discovered that we didn’t have any hot water. There’s nothing like washing up with cold water to get your blood flowing early in the morning! Miss Terry tells me to take a cold shower quite often, but this time she apparently really meant it!
Our Winnebago motorhome has a ten gallon gas/electric Atwood water heater, and since we bought it a few weeks ago, the electric side has not worked. So we’ve been getting by using it with propane, and that was one of the issues we wanted to have an RV tech take a look at.
Unfortunately, the local RV repair shops we have talked to are all booked solid right now with snowbirds preparing their RVs for their winter travels, and we have not been able to make an appointment. Now, without the propane working either, we needed to figure out something pretty quickly.
I went outside and slogged through the puddle that we were parked in, opened the water heater access door and confirmed that yes, it was still there, and had not fallen prey to a wandering band of water heater thieves. So much for the easy solutions!
I’m nothing if not resourceful, so I did the next logical thing. I walked over to Greg White’s motorhome and banged on the door. Greg’s a lot smarter than me, and almost as cute, and while I didn’t know if he could fix a water heater, I figured that if I was going to be standing outside ankle deep in cold rainwater, somebody should keep me company! Greg stared at the contraption for a few minutes, scratched his head and a couple of other things, and said “Yep, you’re right. It’s broke.”
Okay, I already knew that, but as it turns out, Greg is a whole lot smarter than I am, though apparently not smart enough to come in out of the rain. He got out his test meter and fiddled around with it for a while, and then we went inside and drug out the case of owner’s manuals that came with our motorhome.
Greg studied the schematic for the water heater, diagnosed the problem as a bad thermal cut-off, and once I tracked down a replacement at an RV parts shop, it was an easy plug in fix. By then I needed that hot water to be able to take a long shower and warm back up!
While I was outside doing all of that, Bad Nick was no fool. He stayed inside and posted a new Bad Nick Blog titled Where Do We Draw the Line?. Check it out and leave a comment.
Thought For The Day – I’ve always wanted to be somebody, but I guess I should have been more specific.
