Things on RVs Break
If you've been RVing for very long, you know that things break.
If you haven't started RVing yet, be prepared for things to break. If you're prepared for and expecting things to break, it's not such a big surprise when it happens.
Here are some of the things I've had to deal with lately
The major thing that broke this week is that my microwave oven died. It was 17 years old, so I guess that was to be expected. The hard part was figuring out how to uninstall it. I watched a few YouTube videos and, after two days of off and on work I got it taken out. They don't make the same model anymore, but I found one I like that fits the hole and ordered it from Amazon. It will be here in about a week.
On the way to Florida a month ago while bouncing down I-95, a bolt came out of my steps. One side drops down when I step on it. I placed three 2 by 4s under the step, and it works fine. Of course, that's just a temporary solution. This week I'm going to get a bolt, crawl under the RV and hopefully replace it and my steps will be back working good as new.
About a year ago a string in one of my blinds broke. I ordered a roll of the string I needed, but that project still hasn't gotten to the top of my To-do list. Maybe I'll get to that in a week or so. I restrung one blind about two years ago. It's not hard; it's just time-consuming.
I did successfully fix a leak on my roof about two weeks ago.
After I put new tires on my rig about two months ago, I started having problems with one of the tires leaking air from time to time. It would be easy to find out where it was leaking if it would lose three pounds of pressure a day or something like that, but this tire will go a week or more and not lose a pound and then lose 20 pounds overnight when I'm parked.
After reading some blogs that said you sometimes have to replace the extension valves when you replace the tires. I ordered a new extension valve, and I will be replacing that soon.
I don't mean to scare you
But if you're thinking about hitting the road in an RV, be prepared for things to break. The secret to how to deal with things breaking on an RV is to think about things breaking the same way you would think about seeing your gas gauge get close to empty. You know it's going to happen, be prepared for it, take care of the situation, and don't sweat it.
On a bright note, it was up to 80 degrees yesterday here in Florida, so it was a great day to be outside working on fixing things.
Bottom line: One of the good (or bad) things about fixing the things that go bad on an RV is that many of the things don't have to be fixed immediately. They can be put off forever and ever. Maybe one of my New Year's Resolutions should be to get the things on my To-do list taken care in a more timely manner--at least the items on the list that involve fixing things on my RV.