We are continuing our journey south, and have booked a few nights at a “RV resort” outside Savannah. Last night was the coldest night yet – it was also the night the hot water heater decided to spill its guts!
Coming from Chicagoland, Noelle and I are definitely not afraid of a little freezing temperatures every now and again – remember when the bus fell apart in the below zero temps last year?! Tonight they said it was going to get really cold – a whole 25F, brrrrr. I wasn’t too worried about the pipes bursting or anything, but those thoughts were lingering in the back of my mind as we went to sleep.
I woke up sometime in the night to the sound of gushing water – “Oh shit!!” I hopped up and ran to the back of the camper – ice-cold standing water, the carpet runner is soaked through, the sound of a massive amount of water gushing from behind the wall. I scramble to find my pants. You can never find your pants when you really need them, amiright!
I ditch the search for the pants, run outside and shut off the water. At this point I’m thinking either the pipes froze and burst, or the water pressure was too much – either way, we got’s ourselves a problem! But it’s 4 in the morning, I’m going back to bed.
The harsh light of day reveals a bigger problem – the water was actually gushing from behind the control panel of the water heater. The metal had corroded away over time, and the o-ring had failed. The flowing water shorted out the electrical, tripping the GFCI outlet that powers the heater and the fridge – good thing that was there!
We headed 30 minutes down the road to the closest big-box hardware store for a replacement. I gave us a 60% chance of needing to return to Lowes a second time for this project – Noelle just shook her head and said “Nope 100%.” We get back to the campsite, pull the new unit out of the box only to discover that the plastic housing is completely cracked and falling apart – she was right!
So two trips to Lowes, a few hundred bucks, and about four hours later, I have the new water heater hooked up and pumping out luxurious amounts of piping hot water – Success! I also made the fittings out of flexible faucet pipes that can be easily disconnected 10 years down the road when this happens again.
While it’s never fun to wake up in disaster mode like that, I’m really glad we’ve got this rat-tastic 60’s camper. Pretty much everything can be fixed with a wrench, or a screwdriver, and none of it is rocket science – ‘cause I can’t be thinkin too much for them rockets and such!
We celebrated the return of hot water by setting up our new $8 mini air hockey table from the Cracker Barrel. Noelle won… both games… so fun!
