RSS Piece break off go boom
Filed in MaintenanceYesterday we noticed a little pool of water underneath the rig. It had bits of bird poo in it. House sparrows had found the pool and were using it as a sippy cup and porta-potty. No table manners, those little birds. ;)
We thought it was just a leak from around the faucet in the bathroom. We were wrong.
Sometime this afternoon Don left the rig at a run. The valve fitting between the two hot water pipes in the bathroom cabinet had cracked. Basically, the two pipes are not flush (oh dear, pun attack) with one another: one was about an inch below the other. Seventeen years of bouncing around had stressed this already tormented fitting to the limits, and water was gushing inside our closet like a baby Niagara Falls.
He turned off the water, and now we’re drying it out with a little heater and fighting off the cats who, if allowed in there, might well never come out again.
There is a system of black holes and wormholes in the base of the rig that lets cats in but won’t let them out again until they’re good and ready. Who knows what dimensions said cats explore when they go into the bowels of the RV?
(I caught Silver in there already, taking full advantage of the heater. She hadn’t yet figured out that she could get up to real mischief.)
Don handed me various esoteric plastic parts and asked me to go down to Lowe’s while he dug out the broken bit of valve from inside the pipe. It was dark by now, so I layered up and went down there. Lowe’s yielded a flashlight and one of the parts, plus an apologetic “We don’t stock this item, try Geweke” (Geweke is an RV dealership in town). So I hopped on my bike and swung by Geweke, but it was closed already. I tried OSH, but they didn’t have the items either. I gave up, got slightly lost in a dark, uneasy-feeling part of town (the kind where you a) don’t feel welcome on the gut level and b) the stores have bars on them) and eventually went to Safeway for food.
So, mission not accomplished. We will not be showering tonight, but Don has rigged things up so that we have cold water, at least. Flushing the toilet is possible.
Tomorrow, we’ll be going in search of parts. I wonder if we’ll end up at Camping World again? Danger, Will Robinson!
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6 Comments, Comment or Ping
pussreboots (85 comments.)
Unfortunately it seems to be the nature of RVs to drop things. Every memory I have of RVing with my family is of something being dropped or broken. There was the fuel pump and alternator in New Mexico, the window hatch in Oregon…
Dec 16th, 2007
celeste (4 comments.)
I remember our camper when a pipe busted it was horrible! LOL We ended up with a real flush toilet in our bathroom. It felt nice.
Dec 17th, 2007
Linda R. Moore
* grin * And add to that mix the 17 years of this vehicle, and I think I will never run out of fix-it style blog posts. ;)
Dec 22nd, 2007
Linda R. Moore
Celeste…ewwww! :: lol ::
Dec 22nd, 2007
pussreboots (85 comments.)
Ours was of similar age when we got it. It was a late 1970s model (with an 8 track tape deck!) and we were driving around in it in the late 1980s - early 1990s.
Dec 22nd, 2007
Linda R. Moore
Cool! Especially the 8-track part. I was really happy when I found my CDs in the storage shed. :)
Jan 3rd, 2008
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