So I belong to a number of FB groups hat talk about full-time RV living. A lot of the questions seem to revolve around is it a lot cheaper to RV full time than own a house. I am also amazed at how many people live in a small pull trailer or fifth wheel with multiple kids.
Anyway, I keep very good track of our expenses. So far for the 2 one-month trips we have done, our expenses are around $5000/month. This assumes no payment on the RV, some traveling, so fuel expenses, meals, entertainment including alcohol and activities.
Well, we enjoyed our 7 days in Grand Oak RV park and visiting friends in The Villages. So here are few items that went wrong while sitting.
- We noticed the slide sheath was flapping and disconnected toward the back. We have ducted taped it for now. Hopefully, it just slides back in. I think we have to have the slide partway out (not fully extended) so it isn’t tight and perhaps we can put it back in. Meanwhile duct tape to the rescue.
- We had a new TV antenna installed so I wanted to try it out. It worked great, many channels. However, when I went to lower it, it wouldn’t lower. Finally got it lowered but the whole handle apparatus fell off. I need to work on that, watched a YouTube Video hopefully I can get it to work. Well after we parked I think I fixed it, only time will tell. I had the spring on the wrong side, good thing for videos.
- A couple of days ago I noticed we were dripping water from a low water valve below the RV. So I put in the off position, which turns out to be correct, but more on this in item 4.
- So I filled the freshwater tank on the first day to about 1/4 tank as we are primarily connected and use city water and why carry the extra weight. Yesterday, I noticed our sink was gurgling and our freshwater tank was now 3/4 full. Checked with my handy dandy FB group and they thought it was a faulty check valve. This is the valve that switches from fresh to city water. It was in the city water position and I turned it to fresh and back. We will see if this does anything. I am hoping it was just not completely in the city water position. Now my other theory was the low water valve being in the wrong position (#3), as it happens they are unrelated. I think I discovered another way to fill my freshwater tank. I think that is what the valve is for as opposed to another fill option. You know maybe I should go to RV school and learn some of this stuff.
- There is a rubber seal on the inside of the galley slide that has come completely loose. We can’t tell if it fits in a ridge or needs to be glued. The next stop will need to look at that again. Yup, looked at it again, still loose. Need to fix.
- This morning while hooking up the jeep the lights for the right turn signal didn’t work again. We connected, reconnected and connected again and yet to no avail. that happened when we left Michigan and then it all worked again. I will try to clean the contacts and see if that helps. Cleaned contacts once we stopped nope doesn’t work, so great I get to worry all the way home until someone looks at it.
- We are staying at a Harvest Host site, which means we are parked in a large parking/grass lot of a museum. The Tallahassee automotive collectible museum is really cool. Okay, so after decided I was going to work on our living room blinds and shades they don’t retract properly. So after swearing for an hour as I took it apart and by the way you need to be a contortionist to dismantle it and I am not. Got it all apart and yup it is broke, so spent another hour putting back up. Meanwhile, John is saying is there anything I can do, yeah, fix it. He said, I mean like hold the flashlight or something. Anyway, it is back together and still doesn’t work.
- Finally, giving up for the night on working on stuff as it is pouring rain out. Ran the generator for a while. Wonder how long everything stays running on invertors? So I set the system up (I think) so that the generator goes on automatically if the battery level drops to low. I guess we will find out in the morning if it works or we have a dead battery and stranded in mud from all the rain.