Covid RV 2020 Edition - Ch. 2 On the Blocks

Rob -exploring the delights
of RV repairs

RV Dealers are like car dealerships. You take in your vehicle for a simple $100 service and the next thing they are filling your mind with fears of impending disaster if a whole bunch of urgent jobs are not done immediately. I am not a practical guy. I have generally operated on the principle of “God has not gifted me practically. I will trust Him to always give me enough to pay the bills for someone else to do the jobs I cannot” So far that has worked reasonably well, but 2020 would test me to the limit on this.

In late 2019 when I took the RV in for winterizing, a $100 job, they informed me that I needed the rubber roof redone as it was cracked and likely to leak causing real damage. Along with that, they would need to re-seal all of the exterior apertures. All of this could be done for a mere $3500, plus tax. In addition, I needed the canvas cover over the slide out replaced. That would be a mere $450 plus tax. Ouch. I decided to postpone a decision on all of that until the spring of this year. I knew that was just the beginning. There were other things on my list. I needed six months to brace myself.

Some may think that Covid19 has all been a bad news story. In my case, its been a mixed bag. One of the benefits for me, is that I have finally bitten the bullet on starting piano lessons, which has been on my bucket list for ever. I now compete, maybe too strong a word, with my five, seven, eight, nine and eleven-year-old grandchildren at the biannual family piano concert. Suffice to say that I do not like coming last in anything. However, I am learning that humility is a virtue best learnt by experience. I have not quite got that one down yet, but I’m certainly getting lots of practice at it.

Another benefit is that my To Do list for jobs at home has taken a severe hit. I have definitely managed to flatten the curve on that one. What I have discovered though is that I need to be vigilant on this score. If I let my guard down, those jobs are breeding in the background and next thing I am expecting a second wave to be upon me. For now, I am enjoying a brief respite on this front. Does this story sound familiar?

A third benefit has been that I have had time to tootle away on my computer. When I finally bit the bullet and started thinking about doing something about the roof on the RV, I noted that the labor rate at the dealership was$150 per hour. I nearly died. The last time I had paid attention to it, the rate had gone from $100 to $120 per hour. Who on earth can justify a rate like that let alone those kinds of increases? I was incensed. I called the service manager and asked him, how in an age of 2% or less inflation he can look at himself in the mirror in the morning. He is a nice guy. He could understand my concerns and as a concession he would offer me a $130/hour rate. I guess price negotiability is another side benefit of Covid19. This improved my mood, but not much. Eventually out of desperation I googled “how to renovate a rubber roof on a RV”. Lo and behold I discovered on You Tube a previously unknown world. There is a video available for just about every RV job imaginable. I googled “how to replace a RV slide out canvas cover” and bingo up popped two or three videos to explain to helpless souls like myself, how easy it is.

Cher - loving every 
minute of the RV work. 

Armed with these new insights. I asked Chris, my son in law, to help me to do the slide out cover. Start small is my middle name. Chris is the ultimate fix it guy, so he was my secret weapon in case I got into trouble. Bingo – slide out cover done. Total cost $111 versus the $450 quoted by the dealer.

I was starting to get cocky. On the plus side I now had You Tube beckoning me on, and prodding from behind was the dealer’s labor rate of $150 per hour. Next up was the mystery leak we had discovered somewhere in the plumbing system when we were living on the driveway. This was daunting in the extreme. Plumbing is a no-go area for me. The consequences of getting it wrong are too high. Add to that plumbing systems on RVs are designed for midgets and their children. To get to the heart of the plumbing system we had to dismantle the back cover behind the bottom kitchen cupboard and then crawl into the cupboard, face down, with one arm ahead of one’s body armed with a flashlight. That forward arm is the only usable hand. Bottom line it is a challenge even if one knew what one was doing. Cher and I spent at least a day trying to isolate, which part of the system was producing the leak. Toilet, bath, bathroom sink, kitchen sink or our new slide out cover. Sheesh. The mind boggles. Fortunately, Cher is tenacious and logical, and we slowly whittled it down to the bathroom sink. When we looked under there, water was leaking down the pipes under the faucet.  In trying to tighten the fittings I quite naturally broke one of the copper pipes. Who ever does a plumbing job without things getting worse first. We now needed to replace the whole faucet fitting. This was an exercise in patience and good humor, not my strength, and a good barometer of the strength of our marriage ties. Fortunately, Cher was a willing spanner girl and she fetched and carried the right tools while I contorted in too small a space under the sink. Finally, after a couple of hours, we got it done and were ready to test it out. Naturally, water gushed in all directions. By now, we were on our knees pleading to the Lord for direct intervention. Eventually we figured out the issue and lo and behold the leak was gone!! My goodness, what a thrill. I felt like an astronaut landing on the moon for the first time. We had made it through all the challenges and ultimately succeeded. And it had only taken us a day. Eight hours at $150. We had saved $1200. That’s fake math, as it would have taken a proper fixit person only a couple of hours. Nevertheless, thank you, Lord. With this victory in hand, we felt confident to take on the roof next.

To finish the leak story. A few weeks later, Cher and I had the RV out, with the water connected. More out of habit than anything we decided to test for leaks and left some towels out, strategically positioned, to catch any wandering unwelcome water. The next morning, we were devastated to find a wet towel under the kitchen cabinet. Aaaggh! I started reaching for my shotgun to put an end to our misery. Eventually after praying I crawled under the kitchen cupboard yet again - I have lost count of how many times I’ve done it. As a last resort I tightened by hand every fitting that I could reach.  I emerged knowing I had done everything I could. After this the dealer was my last option. After using the RV for a few days, we realized there were no leaks and haven’t been since! The Lord is good. Sometimes he stretches us to our limits just to let us feel the pleasure of things eventually working out.

Each job has had its own stories and challenges but suffice to say that the RV is now looking and driving like a dream. It has a new set of tires and the roof has been re-rubberised. We have replaced all the old rotted out roof vent covers. The toilet seals are replaced. I used some of our savings to have a new radio and back up camera installed. We were good to go except for one last mountain to climb.

The final frontier on the RV revamp list is to re-do the decals. This job is very time consuming. Think $150 per hour and shudder along with me. Eventually I resorted to, you guessed it, Doctor Google and lo and behold all is well in You Tube land. It turns out that redoing one’s decals is a breeze. All one needs is a hairdryer, masking tape, paper, spray paint and LOTS OF TIME. Well thanks to Covid19 and retirement we have lots of that. We have done a test on two of the decals, have learnt a bunch of lessons and now we are ready to take on the rest of the job. It is a daunting task, but in the next few weeks we will turn our beautiful refreshed RV into an absolutely gorgeous one. 

Taping and more taping

.....and more taping

So, the moral of this story is if, like me, you are practically challenged, you have a friend in Doctor Google. The DIY videos on You tube truly are an amazing resource. You too, can come out from being at the mercy of all those plotting rascals at the dealerships who are waiting to relieve you of your worldly possessions and more. Go get em Buddy. Am I feeling punchy? You bet.

As the lockdown has proceeded, followed by limited easing up, it dawned on us; we may be stuck in our house all on our lonesome for the whole summer. And then comes the colder weather and then we would be stuck for who knows how long? The options for getting out of the house were extremely limited. Suddenly RVing began to look like about the only thing that one could legitimately do outside of one’s own four walls. RV’s have their own washrooms, making social and physical distancing easy. The provincial parks were offering a Covid19 free cancellation policy, so we had little to lose by making a whole bunch of bookings to tide us through the summer. Unfortunately, we were late to the party and a whole bunch of people had come to the same conclusion ahead of us. The provincial parks were very booked up and in fact are having a bonanza year. Nevertheless, Cher persisted and eventually we had a great line up of bookings in place. A week at Beavermead with Carla and Neil Daniel at the end of June, a three week trip across the northern shore of Lake Superior in July, a week with the family at Fairhavens Family Camp in August and a long weekend at beginning of September. Our cups ranneth over with plans and possibilities. The long hot summer thankfully held promise for fun and adventure, not something typically associated with these pandemic times.

There is nothing like a pandemic lockdown to boost an interest in the RVing lifestyle. Apparently, sales of RVs are through the roof at present. This is not good news for us. It was already difficult to find good campsite bookings. Now we have even more competition from those dastardly Baby Boomers. I foresee a need to thin out the crowd somewhat. Hopefully, many of the newbies will find they do not like smelling of campfire smoke and are allergic to mosquito bites. Maybe they will be selling their brand-new RVs at the end of the season for a song. I’m starting to dream and ramble but you get the point.

Julia on right with her new and enlarged family
L. to R. James, John, Peter, Mariah and Thalya

A brief postscript note on Julia, Chris, Mariah and boys. Things were going well in their new home. The move had taken place in mid May, the chaos of boxes and placement of furniture was resolved, when something out of left field turned up. Mariah’s younger sister, sixteen-year-old Thalya, who was living with Rose and Roy in South Africa, was not doing well under Covid lockdown. She was depressed, missing Mariah badly and things were tense at home. After some discussion it became clear that coming back to Canada was her best option for the long term and so it was decided that Julia and Chris would offer her a spot in their growing household. Remember that five-bedroom, five-bathroom house they bought? I guess the Lord had some insight as to the fact that it might be needed. And so, after a couple of weeks of frantic activity Thalya was soon winging her way to Canada and the whole gang of them were once again quarantined for another two weeks in case Thalya had brought more with her than just her luggage. Life sure can take some interesting twists and turns. Who would have thought at the beginning of this year how everything would be a mere six months later?