Charla is on a quilting retreat this week, leaving me unsupervised. Trust me, this will be a shorter post! 😎 She was sweet, and made me food for the week. I ate most of it on Monday.
Since she is gone, you get me this week. I am going to talk about HOWE issues we have had recently. Every time you move a trailer, it is a full on earthquake to your “house”! It is no wonder there will be some issues.
Let’s start with the fridge. Since we bought HOWE new, we have been disappointed with the fridge. It was a typical LP gas/electric RV fridge. It has failed several times, forcing us to throw away our food several times. Some time ago, we went to Shipshewana Indiana to JC Referidgeration and they removed all the LP/electric components, and replaced them with 12 volt components with two compressors. Somewhere in this journey somebody thought it would be smart to direct the air flow by closing off the vents using Eternabond tape. This caused the wires to overheat and melt. It quit working AGAIN!
I am very thankful for JC Referidgeration. I called them and told them what happened. They said that there should be no blockages in the vents, and they will send out a new wiring harness. In the meantime, I found that I could cut the burned part of the wiring, add new ends to the existing wire, and make the fridge work until the replacement came.
Now on to the next issue. It is somewhat common for uneven tire wear on trailers. It is possible I have a bent axle – anyway, I decided to do a pseudo rotation of the tires. I moved the front tires to the back and back to front. When I removed the back passenger tire, I found this:
That white box looking thing is our fresh water tank! It has dropped down from where it should ride. You can see the metal support sitting next to it. Alliance, the manufacturer of HOWE had issued a recall on this very issue, and we had it repaired about a year ago. We hardly ever drive with anything in the tank, but at the previous campground we were boondocking and I filled the tank at the campground, and we used it for two weeks. There was probably about 15-20 gallons of water in there. I called Alliance, and as usual they were super helpful – go get it fixed and let us know. Well, the challenges of living and traveling full time – when would we fix it? We looked at the schedule and found we could take it to our dealer, Johnny Walker in Las Vegas to get it repaired when we are back in the area around the first of December.
But what do we do in the meantime? I went to the hardware store and picked up some ratchet straps and some D rings. I screwed the D rings to the frame, and ratched strapped the tank in! Now it is on the checklist every time we move HOWE to check the straps and make sure they are tight.
My conclusion to these two stories is that if you are choosing to full-time RV what a great choice! However, you need some sort of handiness to figure out problems and come up with solutions. I am so grateful for my upbringing and my father’s example of never giving up and keeping on with a project until it is completed. I am also grateful for YouTube on helping me fix things that I cannot figure out initially. If Dad had YouTube, he would have been even more invincible than he was.
Hubbie takeover is concluded. Stay tuned next week as we resume our regularly scheduled program.
And a fine takeover week it was. You have the gift, Kevin. I found that refridgerator mess to be downright scary, but in an amusing kind of way. I hope you left the kitchen clean for Charla’s return!
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