The sniveling continues!

We made Minnesota in record time. Two days of driving, no Check Engine or Stop Engine lights, and no blowouts – yippee!

We nestled into St. Paul East RV Park and immediately got a recommendation on both a shop and a mobile RV technician. The Woman called the gentleman, described our issue, and asked if that would be in his wheelhouse. He said it was and would stop over that afternoon to assess the situation. After looking it over and having a couple of phone conversations with someone at the company who makes the awning cover, he said he could handle this, and provided us with an estimate for repair. As I expected – ouch!

Next morning the Woman informed me that we had no water. I wasn’t really alerted to anything as the RV park has had water issues when we have been here in the past right after opening, and for the water to be shut off for a bit was not rare. However, a bit later, the Woman said she heard water running in the bedroom – I went and listened and heard it as well – it seemed to be either coming from under the bed or under the rear closet. I checked the closet and looked under the bed and saw no water. So I headed out to check the water heater which resides behind both the closet and the bed on Colectiva’s outside wall.

As I got out of the coach, I spotted the lake surrounding the rear wheel well. I also saw water streaming down from under the engine and the rear bays. When I opened the bays, water was streaming from the tops of the compartments – right under the water heater. But when I opened the hatch on the water heater, it was completely dry. I called Fleetwood (Colectiva’s manufacturer) and talked with someone at customer service. Fleetwood is so good at trying to help existing customers when they can – we are so happy that when they filed for bankruptcy during the depression, a private equity group, American Industrial Partners that focuses on US based manufacturing companies, acquired Fleetwood. So, we are still able to get support when we need it, unlike many of the other orphaned coach owners on the road today.

Fleetwood was kind enough to almost instantaneously e:mial me blue prints of the water system in Colectiva. They asked me if I had checked the water heater, and I told them it was completely dry. While they couldn’t diagnose the actual problem on the phone, they tended to agree with me that there was likely a burst pipe somewhere in the system. After reviewing the blue prints, I could see that finding the leak may pose a significant challenge, as the piping generally runs between the exterior and interior walls of the coach – out of sight and not easily accessed.

The Woman called Jason, the mobile RV tech working on our slide-out cover, and asked if he worked on plumbing. He came over in a couple hours, and I handed him the copy of the plumbing blue prints. He had already seen where the lake was, and watched the water pouring out once he turned on the water.  So he politely said he didn’t need them, went to the closet and pulled up the false floor – and the water sprayed out in force!

It turned out that a flexible water hose that connected the water heater to the PVC plumbing system had plastic fittings on both ends, and one of them failed. I really hate when companies put plastic fittings on out of view plumbing fixtures. We had a similar plastic fitting on a 2^nd floor toilet fail in Nick’s condo in Phoenix he lived in while attending ASU. Unfortunately, it happened during the summer when Nick was not occupying the unit – so about $100,000 in damages later the unit was once again habitable! The good news here is that we were in Colectiva to hear the water,

shut off the water to the coach, and minimized the amount of water permeating the woodwork in Colectiva.

Jason ran to Ace Hardware to get a new flexible hose – one with metal fittings instead of plastic ones! Once back, it took him maybe 10 minutes to connect it up, and watched as I turned the water back on – no leaks anywhere – yippee! Now it will just be a matter of getting out the fan to dry the affected woodwork, and later slapping some Rustoleum on the undercarriage.

So, with any luck at all, things will settle down and we can start to focus more on getting with family and checking out some of the interesting sites that the Twin Cities area has to offer.

Talk to you soon!