Monday, January 11, 2016

Tank Replacement and Settling In

 

Ready to go to RV Source 01052016

Ready to roll to the shop

We spent Tuesday of last week preparing to take our home to RV Source for installation of our new bath gray tank.  RV Source is an RV dealer located conveniently about 10.5 miles north on Hwy 6.  Dave unloaded our basement storage area and put those items in a locked storage shed here at the park.  We certainly appreciate being allowed to do this.  Dave did get in a much-deserved bike ride in the morning.

Although I set my alarm for 6:15 the following morning, I either didn’t set it properly or turned it off without realizing it, because I slept a while past that time.  Yikes!  This meant we got a late start, and ended up arriving at the dealer a bit after 10 AM.  Oh well. 

After getting the process started, we headed back down Hwy 6 to the IHOP for brunch.  Our past experiences with various IHOP locations have been favorable; however, this time and the previous one at a location in South Carolina have caused us to say we will not be returning to IHOP in the future. 

Electric campfire at RV Source 01062016

A “portable campfire” on display in the dealer showroom which is really just a fan with lights and two pieces of cloth to simulate flames.  I didn’t detect any heat from it, so I’m not really sure what the point of this is.  Ambiance?

We did kill some waiting time by looking through new 5th wheels of different brands, with the same end result as always.  We like ours, thank you.  One model caught my eye with regard to its floorplan and being really “nice” inside.  You know what, though?  When I opened a cabinet door in the bedroom . . . well, the door sort of “shimmied” or wobbled, and I thought, “Ours don’t do that.  They’re solid.  No shake and not flimsy like this one.”  So, there ya go.  Our cabinet doors are solid wood and sturdy.  I’ll keep my home.  It’s well made and we “know where it’s been,” being the original owners.  Don’t think I’d want to go through that breaking-in process again.

Long day short, we left RV Source a bit after 4:30 in a miserable drizzle and brought our home back here to Aggieland RV Park.  RV Source had two of their guys meet us here to back in our rig for us.  Cheers for that.

I did a bit of shopping while at the dealer and came home with more LED lights (they had the type we like), replacement furnace register vents, etc.  Some gals get a kick shopping for shoes.  Me?  I get mine shopping at an RV store!

I was slammed with work Wednesday, so Thursday and Friday I played catch-up.  That’s not a bad thing, actually.  Having had a productive two days and things being slower, I spent some parts of Saturday and Sunday finally unpacking glassware and other items that had been stowed for travel since April.  I also took the opportunity to purge some unused/outdated items and to reorganize some of the kitchen cabinets to fit with our new lifestyle/work schedules.

The weather had been rainy and/or windy since Wednesday, but finally improved enough for Dave to return our stored items from the shed to our basement Sunday morning.

We did not use the shower/lavatory until Friday night, allowing ample time for the adhesives to cure.  Blissful showers were had by both of us Friday and Saturday nights and then . . . I went to dump tanks yesterday (Sunday), discovering we had a leak with the new tank and the valve handle was not operating properly. 

Absolutely could not believe it.  I was verging on being physically ill at the prospect of having to take the rig back to the shop, not to mention being unable to use our shower again, imagining all sorts of things that had gone wrong with the tank installation and dreading the ordeal I might have to go through with the dealer to have things made right.

This morning I called the dealer and spoke with the service manager.  He promptly offered to have a tech come out and take a look.  This afternoon, the tech who did the installation arrived and within an hour had the problem resolved.  I mean he was done and was rolling away from our site within an hour.  Turns out a gasket had failed.  He replaced it, we did a leak test and bingo!  Not a drop of water to be seen and the valve handle was working just fine.

What a relief.  Seriously.  Big relief.  If you own an RV and have experienced repair work done by a dealer, you know what I mean.

Dave did unload about half of the basement this morning (remember he just put everything back in yesterday) for the techs to have access if needed, so that will need to be reversed.  We bought new tire covers last Spring which we have not used (never were in one place long enough last year) and those need to go on the tires. 

Perhaps now we can actually have our two days off each week and be truly off with no major errands to run and can get back into a groove of just living a simple and comfortable life.  I’ll take a boring, simple and comfortable life at this point, thanks.

Well, it’s a bit after 10 PM and . . . about time for my shower!  Whoohoo! 

Thanks for stopping by!

2 comments:

  1. I do feel your pain. We went through FOUR grey tanks in our fifth wheel. They would never hold water, we had to leave it open all the time. Our dealer was not nice, and at one point told us "they were supposed to leak a little.' We eventually gave up, got a class A with better tanks. We like to look at new RVs, and we notice that build quality is terrible, even in the $600,000 range (not that we can afford it.) It seems to be the case across towables and class As. So, we're keeping ours, too.

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  2. If you are like us, we love our on-board shower. Only when absolutely necessary will the campground shower do. Glad things worked out well.

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