As a Contractor in the field of aviation, my job has taken me all over the west, up & down the Left Coast and even as far east as Delaware. At each job, we needed to take an apartment. Most have been pretty nice places to live, but to be honest, it got to be stressful wondering which would run out first- the job contract or the apartment lease. A couple of summers ago, I landed a high paying contract building fuselage skins for the 747 with plenty of overtime. I was able to stay at a relative's place and packed as much money as I could fit into my savings account to buy an RV. That November, we bought a 1998 32' Southwind by Fleetwood with a slideout and promptly moved in. My wife christened her Serenity. It was at the beginning of one of the coldest winters Utah had seen in awhile, one in which I got a hard education.
Since it took every dime we saved, there was little left over for luxuries, like heated water hoses. I had just started a new job with a helicopter tour & flight school. It didn't pay much, but it was a good opportunity to expand my knowledge & experience as an Aviation Technician. Turns out, heated hoses are pretty expensive and we barely had enough money to pay our space rent & fill the propane tank.
Let me explain something. I've been camping all my life but I've never had an RV of any kind. Most times, I'd pull into a remote spot with my Jeep, build a campfire and roll out a sleeping bag. If it got cold, I slept in the back of the Jeep. When the kids came around, a dome tent was added to the routine. When we got Serenity, I knew I didn't know a thing about RVs but I'm a fast study and I can make broken airplanes fly again. Should be easy, right? Right. That first night, I could not even figure out how to turn the propane on. Snow was falling, we were cold and hungry but no propane. Who knew you had to reset the little propane detector thingy, then turn it to the ON position before the propane would flow?
Once we got the propane flowing, we were nice and snug and warm. We could now cook our food. But propane was expensive and we kept having to go tank up every week or so. We couldn't afford an auxiliary tank, so I got the brilliant idea to use some small electric heaters to save money. (More on that later!)
As we didn't have a heated water hose, we simply kept the fresh water tank full. Whenever it ran low, we'd simply hook up our hose and fill it back up. A bit of a nuisance, especially when the temperatures dropped to single digits and lower, but we didn't have to worry about the hose freezing up. Following the advice read on the forums about prepping the RV for living during winter, we installed a drop light in the utility room where the pump and all the pipes were.
"We're good to go now" I assured my wife. "Snug inside and out." That very night, the temperatures plummeted, the bulb flickered and died and the pump froze solid and cracked. As a long time mechanic, I've had experiences with drop lights. Just look at them wrong and poof! that little filament breaks. I should have known better.
I put on my heaviest jacket and ventured out into the aching cold. I removed the control panel in the utility room to get to the pump and pipes and was greeted by the most fascinating Rube Goldberg contraption I'd ever set eyes on- and I've seen some impressive ones, being a devoted fan of Warner Brothers cartoons growing up.
Little did I know, the plumbing was all PVC pipe dating all the way back the Roman aquaducts and had grown very brittle. It being so cold didn't help matters either. I set the PVC cutters to the first section so I could remove the busticated pump and the whole Rube Goldberg of pipes, fittings, valves and who knows what else shattered. I don't mean it broke, I mean it shattered into a thousand little itty bitty pieces. The good news was it made getting the pump out easier. The bad news is, I knew nothing of plumbing. I had no idea what all those pipes did or where they were supposed to go. I didn't even know what I didn't know! None of the stores had the the right fittings so I had to fix up my own contraption, with fittings from one plumbing section and flex tubes from another, to get the pump running again and prayed it would hold up till spring when it would be warm enough to fix it proper. This time, I placed a small space heater with a thermostat to keep the new pump warm. A small victory, but a victory nonetheless.
I went back inside where my little space heaters we used to save on propane were keeping us snug and warm. I was about to learn why not using the propane heater was a Really Bad Idea
Next: Old Man Winter Teaches Me About Pipes
Comments, questions & snide remarks are welcome
Since it took every dime we saved, there was little left over for luxuries, like heated water hoses. I had just started a new job with a helicopter tour & flight school. It didn't pay much, but it was a good opportunity to expand my knowledge & experience as an Aviation Technician. Turns out, heated hoses are pretty expensive and we barely had enough money to pay our space rent & fill the propane tank.
Let me explain something. I've been camping all my life but I've never had an RV of any kind. Most times, I'd pull into a remote spot with my Jeep, build a campfire and roll out a sleeping bag. If it got cold, I slept in the back of the Jeep. When the kids came around, a dome tent was added to the routine. When we got Serenity, I knew I didn't know a thing about RVs but I'm a fast study and I can make broken airplanes fly again. Should be easy, right? Right. That first night, I could not even figure out how to turn the propane on. Snow was falling, we were cold and hungry but no propane. Who knew you had to reset the little propane detector thingy, then turn it to the ON position before the propane would flow?
Once we got the propane flowing, we were nice and snug and warm. We could now cook our food. But propane was expensive and we kept having to go tank up every week or so. We couldn't afford an auxiliary tank, so I got the brilliant idea to use some small electric heaters to save money. (More on that later!)
As we didn't have a heated water hose, we simply kept the fresh water tank full. Whenever it ran low, we'd simply hook up our hose and fill it back up. A bit of a nuisance, especially when the temperatures dropped to single digits and lower, but we didn't have to worry about the hose freezing up. Following the advice read on the forums about prepping the RV for living during winter, we installed a drop light in the utility room where the pump and all the pipes were.
"We're good to go now" I assured my wife. "Snug inside and out." That very night, the temperatures plummeted, the bulb flickered and died and the pump froze solid and cracked. As a long time mechanic, I've had experiences with drop lights. Just look at them wrong and poof! that little filament breaks. I should have known better.
I put on my heaviest jacket and ventured out into the aching cold. I removed the control panel in the utility room to get to the pump and pipes and was greeted by the most fascinating Rube Goldberg contraption I'd ever set eyes on- and I've seen some impressive ones, being a devoted fan of Warner Brothers cartoons growing up.
Little did I know, the plumbing was all PVC pipe dating all the way back the Roman aquaducts and had grown very brittle. It being so cold didn't help matters either. I set the PVC cutters to the first section so I could remove the busticated pump and the whole Rube Goldberg of pipes, fittings, valves and who knows what else shattered. I don't mean it broke, I mean it shattered into a thousand little itty bitty pieces. The good news was it made getting the pump out easier. The bad news is, I knew nothing of plumbing. I had no idea what all those pipes did or where they were supposed to go. I didn't even know what I didn't know! None of the stores had the the right fittings so I had to fix up my own contraption, with fittings from one plumbing section and flex tubes from another, to get the pump running again and prayed it would hold up till spring when it would be warm enough to fix it proper. This time, I placed a small space heater with a thermostat to keep the new pump warm. A small victory, but a victory nonetheless.
I went back inside where my little space heaters we used to save on propane were keeping us snug and warm. I was about to learn why not using the propane heater was a Really Bad Idea
Next: Old Man Winter Teaches Me About Pipes
Comments, questions & snide remarks are welcome