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Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Oddball Repairs

The saying: “It’s Always Something” certainly applies to RV ownership.  There is always some maintenance item to be done, interspersed with things that actually go wrong and break.

We came home to a notice on our door from the campground owner that all fresh water hoses now had to be insulated.  This is something we’ve never had to do before because we were either in a warmer climate (very rarely) or the Journey had been winterized and all water lines were drained and refilled with RV antifreeze (the special pink stuff, not automotive green antifreeze).

I guess temperatures do drop below freezing here in South Carolina, but it is hard to imagine that with the temps running in the high sixties during the day and high forties at night.  In fact, last night we had the air conditioner on, it was so warm.

Figuring the campground owners knows best (after all, they live here) we embarked on a trip to Lowe’s and picked up some pipe insulation.  I wrapped the hose bib,

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as well as the hose, binding the insulation around the hose and securing it every couple of feet with electrical tape.  I ran the insulation into the wet bay all around the hose.

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With the compartment door closed, the uninsulated end of the hose will be kept warm by the furnace heat ducts that blow heat into the bay.

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I thought about getting a electrical heat tape system installed on the hose, but the price at Lowe’s was $30 for the system.  If I lived in a colder climate for an entire winter (like Maine, or, heaven forbid… Alaska!) I’d certainly invest in it.  Being here in South Carolina, if we get sub zero temps for a long period of time, I’ll just disconnect the hose, let it drain out and use the onboard water tank that I filled.  We expect to be heading South shortly after New Years.

That maintenance item completed, I turned to fix a real oddball item.

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It’s a corner trim piece that fell off our microwave.  Weird.  Looking closely where it was attached, I see the metal that it clipped into was bent. 

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All I can figure is it was banged and bent when  the microwave was installed and some of the plastic tabs that held the time piece on were broken off, leaving just one or two to hold the trim piece on.  Time and vibration must have caused the remaining tabs to give up the ghost.  You can see where the tabs were, the white marks on the black plastic is where they broke off.

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First thing I did was use a screwdriver and a rubber mallet to bang the bent frame straight.

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Then I got out some Velcro, next to duct tape and WD-40, it is the handiest thing to have in an RV. A few well placed strips and then the trim piece was pressed on.

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“Gooder” than new.  Certainly an oddball repair, but necessary to keep the Journey looking like new.

Thanks for visiting and feel free to leave a comment.

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12 comments:

  1. Rather than going through the aggravation of insulating your fresh water hose, why wouldn't you just fill your fresh water tank every second or third day and use that?

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    1. I'd do that but the campground owner wants hoses insulated. For $3 for the insulation and tape, it was no big deal to do as they asked. Just playing ball and abiding by their rules.

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  2. Thank you RV Doctor Paul for these lessons in upkeep, maintenance and repair. I have a bulging folder of these things but I figure if I keep them, I may never have to use them.

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  3. Some days it's more work than play. Other days it's more play than work. Thank goodness there are more play days then work days.

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  4. oh the small chores around your home seem to get done very easily!

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  5. What would we do without Industrial Strength Velcro? It was one of the best things ever invented for an RV! I wish we could have fixed our microwave/convection oven with it but, alas, it had to be replaced :( No amount of Velcro did any good!

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  6. I wish you'd come to visit us for a week or so...I have lots of things that need fixing.

    When we moved from Tampa to south Georgia (barely over the Florida border) we were shocked at how much colder it was. We nearly froze to death! Good idea to insulate the water hoses.

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  7. Looks good. That piece of trim kept falling off the one in our S&B. I wish I had thought of the velcro.

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  8. Oh yes ... if it's not one thing, it's another ... but we'd have similar chores at the stix & brix too ... at least with the MH we get to do our repairs all over the US ;-)

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  9. We had a slight freeze up Monday night, but as soon as the sun came out, the water ran again. Lesson learned, we now let water drip at night. Soon, no worries....we will be waaay south! Our time in Sioux Falls is finished for five years.

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  10. Hello, A very insightful post. Thanks for the info. Its great that if our default settings are giving us messy or stringy builds, this dialog can probably help.Thanks for the information.

    electrical repair

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