Monthly Archives: December 2014

Way too long since last post

Every time I thought about posting, something else seemed to come up. So, now that I’m back at the keyboard we’ll see if I can catch up.

I managed to survive the summer somehow. At one point I discovered that the corner of my large slide floor had rotted out. That was not a pleasant day. I had to tear out almost 2 sq ft of flooring. Then I had to buy a sheet of 1″ thick marine plywood and cut a piece as close to fitting as I could. Since the rotted area didn’t follow straight lines, it was a very poor fit. On the brighter side, it was in a corner so I was able to screw those edges into the frame, then use wood scraps and epoxy filler to complete the ragged edges. I can highly recommend the sealer and filler products from http://www.rotdoctor.com/index.html To finish the project I used that spray on waterproofing material (the stuff in the commercials that they spray on a screen door in the bottom of a boat) on the underside of the repaired area to prevent further water damage. As of now, it all seems to be holding well.

The next project involved moving the RV for the first time in a year. As you may recall, I arrived with a broken ankle and very tired after 3 days of non-stop towing. When I set up, it wasn’t quite as good as it should have been. There were 2 concrete strips to back on to but I didn’t get the tires centered well on those strips. As a result, the RV was slightly off level. In October I decided to remedy that situation. It’s just amazing how much has to be done inside and outside the RV even though it wouldn’t be moved more than 20 ft forward or back. It would also be great if someone invented a device that would move a heavy RV sideways just a few inches. The actual movement took less than 30 minutes but it was a 4 or 5 hour total effort. I’m very glad that all the landing gear and slides worked as advertised even though they’d been immobile so long.

Since the weather was cooling off and I didn’t need the AC anymore, I decided to put the water heater back on electric to see if that would be cheaper than propane. Well, it turned out to be very cheap because the electric was no longer heating. After checking a few things on my Suburban water heater, I narrowed it down to an on/off rocker switch at the water heater. This is an additional safety feature to make sure you don’t accidentally burn out a heating element with an empty tank. I found a replacement switch at a local RV repair shop for under $12 and got it swapped out without trouble.

On the job front, I decided to take a tax preparation course with Liberty Tax Service which I just finished. I’ll start working for them in January. Boy will it feel good to have a paycheck again. I’m not expecting anything more than seasonal this year but as long as it works out well for both sides, it should be reliable future work regardless of my location.