First Long Distance Trip
Posted 01-30-2011 at 06:02 AM by RVNeophytes2
Good morning from pre-dawn Clovis, NM.
The wind outside is howling, it was painfully obvious at 4AM that the little ceramic heater left on the countertop in the kitchen was not going to keep the bus at a temperature to sustain life.
There are times when husbands and wives revert to the children they were; under the warmth of the quilt, we argued who would brave icy floors and a 58 degree room temperature to dash 39 feet to the thermostat.
Of course, the outcome was known in advance: [I]death, taxes, Custer's Arrow shirt, and the husband always gets the dirty work[/I] are constants in life.
One problem: the thermostat was frozen. No, I don't mean litereally. Electronically. No button push would suffice to ressurect the seemingly normal but unalterable display. Recalling the previous owner's trick (learned after he had the dealership replace his thermostat) was to reboot the electronics by removing its cover, pulling the fuse, waiting several minutes and then replacing the fuse. 'Problem was, nothing changed. I waited five minutes with the fuse lying on the dashboard, giving Momma a taste of icy feet, back in the bedroom. Still no good. Finally, I did a brief series of pulling the fuse, waiting a few seconds, and reinstalling. On Try Number Five the unit stirred, giving me the Zone 2 presentation with zeroes in the spot shared by the target and ambient temperature displays. My intuition told me not to touch the controls, like when the Honeywell navigation display goes blank in my Boeing 777. In the Boeing, making any input during this phase is the kiss of death: it sets off a chain of failures that culminates in a system failure. But, if one is patient, everything restores itself to normal in 25 seconds. I followed this logic with the thermostat, and in about the same period of time was rewarded with the sound of Zone 2 coming to life, along with cheers from the bedroom.
Sure enough, the thermostat display alternated between different presentations, as if it were going through some kind of startup routine. I wisely deferred attempting Zone 1 heating until there was several minutes of calm. Then, I made a single input and waited before doing anything else, like modifying the target temperature.
This seemed to work, and we had heat flowing to front and back in no time, including the precious foot-of-the-toilet heat Fleetwood so thoughtfully included in their design.
Like virtually every other stumbling block we've encountered in our coach, there was a simple and effective way of dealing with the hitch, short of throwing in the towel and taking the unit to the shop. In the words of Mr. T, [I]I pity da po' fool[/I] who stumbles into this RV business without the support of forums and experienced friends.
Now, its time to enjoy the fruit of another fine example of engineering, the Hamilton Beach [I]Brew Station[/I], Columbia's medium-roasted finest, and some Meiji almonds brought back from Tokyo, 'day before last.
Today: onward to Santa Fe and snow!
The wind outside is howling, it was painfully obvious at 4AM that the little ceramic heater left on the countertop in the kitchen was not going to keep the bus at a temperature to sustain life.
There are times when husbands and wives revert to the children they were; under the warmth of the quilt, we argued who would brave icy floors and a 58 degree room temperature to dash 39 feet to the thermostat.
Of course, the outcome was known in advance: [I]death, taxes, Custer's Arrow shirt, and the husband always gets the dirty work[/I] are constants in life.
One problem: the thermostat was frozen. No, I don't mean litereally. Electronically. No button push would suffice to ressurect the seemingly normal but unalterable display. Recalling the previous owner's trick (learned after he had the dealership replace his thermostat) was to reboot the electronics by removing its cover, pulling the fuse, waiting several minutes and then replacing the fuse. 'Problem was, nothing changed. I waited five minutes with the fuse lying on the dashboard, giving Momma a taste of icy feet, back in the bedroom. Still no good. Finally, I did a brief series of pulling the fuse, waiting a few seconds, and reinstalling. On Try Number Five the unit stirred, giving me the Zone 2 presentation with zeroes in the spot shared by the target and ambient temperature displays. My intuition told me not to touch the controls, like when the Honeywell navigation display goes blank in my Boeing 777. In the Boeing, making any input during this phase is the kiss of death: it sets off a chain of failures that culminates in a system failure. But, if one is patient, everything restores itself to normal in 25 seconds. I followed this logic with the thermostat, and in about the same period of time was rewarded with the sound of Zone 2 coming to life, along with cheers from the bedroom.
Sure enough, the thermostat display alternated between different presentations, as if it were going through some kind of startup routine. I wisely deferred attempting Zone 1 heating until there was several minutes of calm. Then, I made a single input and waited before doing anything else, like modifying the target temperature.
This seemed to work, and we had heat flowing to front and back in no time, including the precious foot-of-the-toilet heat Fleetwood so thoughtfully included in their design.
Like virtually every other stumbling block we've encountered in our coach, there was a simple and effective way of dealing with the hitch, short of throwing in the towel and taking the unit to the shop. In the words of Mr. T, [I]I pity da po' fool[/I] who stumbles into this RV business without the support of forums and experienced friends.
Now, its time to enjoy the fruit of another fine example of engineering, the Hamilton Beach [I]Brew Station[/I], Columbia's medium-roasted finest, and some Meiji almonds brought back from Tokyo, 'day before last.
Today: onward to Santa Fe and snow!
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