Kirk W

First of all, download a copy of the RV2652 service manual from Bryant RV website. Next: Heating Element: 39.5 (I know you said 44ohms was right but is 39.,5 ok) That is less than 10% differential and should be OK. Thermistor: 4.79 at around 75 degrees & 11.25 when put into ice cold water Your readings there seem to be in k-ohms? If that is just ohms they are clearly bad. If that is k-ohms then it would be pretty close and likely OK. If readings were taken on the 20k ohm scale, then that is probably within acceptable range. The voltage sounds correct as it should be pretty close to what you read across the battery and the units are built to operate between 14v and 10.5v. It sounds like the cooling unit may be failing. Are there any signs of yellow powder or sludge anywhere in the back of the refrigerator, inside of the outside access panel? That is one of the indications of a refrigerant leak, but the lack of yellow doesn't mean that it still works. They can fail for many different reasons. How old is the refrigerator? In my opinion it is seldom cost justifiable to replace a cooling unit unless you plan to do the work yourself because the cost is close enough to that of a new refrigerator to make it a better choice. Boiling inside of the boiler part of the cooling unit is normal, but you usually can't easily hear it happening. The absorption refrigerator must boil the refrigerant for one to work. Your brother is wrong about the repair of the cooling units, or at least I have never heard of anyone who does this. It is possible but most people buy a new cooling unit and install that as the labor cost of repairs would be excessive, if you could find someone who was willing to do the work. As for what you are looking at, I'd need to see a picture to say what it may be that you see.

First, welcome to the Escapee forums! We are happy to have you here and will help all that we are able. You can install a water filter under the sink if there is enough room to do so, and many people do that. I prefer to use a high quality water filter on all water that I put into our RV so use one on the supply to the potable water tank/system. I use one of the whole house type, canister water filters such as you can get at Lowe's or Home Depot since the filters are more reasonably priced and you have more choice in filters. Some folks use a single canister type while others use the two canister type with a sediment filter first, followed by the more expensive filter of carbon or other types of filter. A good place to check out RV water filter choices is the RV Water Filter Store.

Thanks for the update. Things like that can certainly drive a person crazy!

Try looking for the profile on the first post........ None exists which indicates that they probably removed it and after only one post??? If you can convince enough people to buy the stock you purchased, that will make the price rise, at least for a while.

You and I see things much the same way. I often marvel at the numbers some folks throw about speaking of both making money and also about losses. You have neither made nor lost a thing until you sell any particular investment. Large returns come with great risk taking and risky investments can loose money even more rapidly than they gain it, but both are just numbers on paper until liquidated. Wise investors start by setting some goals to figure out what it is that they are seeking and then evaluate the risk that they are willing to accept to reach the goal. Younger folks who are still employed have much more time to recover from a bad choice than do those in my age group. I really don't care how impressive other folks numbers happen to be as I am only interested in what I am able to do with what I have and counting money isn't one of my hobbies. Nobody has figured out a way to take money with them to eternity, so I plan to make the best use I can of my resources while I am here. I am more interested in security of funds than I am in rapid growth. One has to balance between the two as I doubt any of those who share advice with you will help you to recover should that advice prove disastrous. EDIT: I went back to take a peak at the person who made the first post in this thread........ Check it out as they seem to not exist any longer...... Or did they ever exist?

If you are near the place that took your slide out to repair it, they are the first people that I would ask about this problem. It may not be related, but the work is a prime suspect.

From the service manual that can be found in the link above, page 18, DC power requirements... The 11.8V is a bit low as far as the battery condition is concerned but not low enough to account for the refrigerator not working.The schematic on page 22 shows a 4a fuse in the red wire between the 12V supply and the relay which could be part of the problem if you have not checked it. That is in addition to the 3a (dc) and 5a (ac) fuses located on the power circuit board. On page 4 of the manual there is a trouble shooting guide that lists the following: No operation - no panel lights DC Volts Fuse Wiring Control Panel LED Display Board Lower Circuit Board Each of those suggested problems then has a reference to the appropriate page for instructions in what to check next.

A good place to start if you want to trouble shoot the refrigerator is to visit Bryan RV and download a copy of the 1350 service manual, which is free. The 12V power connection to your refrigerator is a terminal block which is shown in a drawing on page 18 of the manual and it is also in this photograph. The white plastic terminals are what you see in the drawing and in this case the power is two white wires, but RV manufacturers do not have a standardized wire color code.

The lights and all control functions of your refrigerator are powered by 12V-dc from the RV battery/12V system. That is also true for your interior lights in the RV so the first hint is if those lights will turn on and at proper brightness? Did you check for 12V or more at the RV batteries? If it is there, then you need to check for 12V at the refrigerator connections. It is highly unlikely that something in the refrigerator failed while it was turned off. An RV refrigerator must have a good 12V-dc power supply for it to be able to work from either 120V-ac or from propane. The lack of any display or refrigerator interior light tells me that it is not getting 12V power. My best guess is that the problem is in the 12V supply, not the refrigerator at this point, but we need more information to do anything more than guess. Did you take any voltage readings while you were checking fuses? You should read 12V across the 3a fuse holder when you remove that fuse.

Pam has been using the Walmart phone app for quite sometime now as well. She has seen it as high as $12 in one month but she says that lately it has dropped off to $3 or less per month. Last month it was only $1.09. But a dollar is a dollar...........

My opinion is that you are going in the right direction. I have come to a point that I do not use the two detector/one package products at all for several reasons. I keep a CO detector in my home base located in the living area and a second one in the bedroom, both of them are the 9v battery type. I also have a propane detector mounted behind the propane heater in our living-room that is plugged into 120v-ac and has a 9v battery backup. In my RV we have the single sensor type of propane detector and I plan to take the one from the house out to use as a test system, just to insure that I don't have something legitimately triggering the present one. When the propane bottle to the RV has been turned off for a long period but the alarm goes off, I feel pretty comfortable that the problem is not caused by propane, but haven't yet figured out what it is. Maybe we will both get lucky? Some time back I started a thread on this same subject and several folks informed me that it has to be propane. Somehow I doubt that as the last time it alarmed, there wasn't even a propane bottle attached to the RV.

While I'm not sure that it has anything to do with your problem, which propane detector do you have? Ours is the one from MTI which seems to be most commonly found in RVs. I've considered changing brands.

In addition, you don't shoot pure butane into the opening with the lighter as it will mix with air and I have found it does just fine held a couple of inches from that opening. It really doesn't require a very high concentration of the butane or other hydrocarbon to trigger the alarm. I'm sure that you could damage the sensor is you held the lighter there long enough or had a large enough supply, but most lighters just don't put out that much gas. Rich, like Barb I think that you probably are getting an alarm caused by something other than propane, but it may be tough figuring out what. The problem that we have had with ours don't seem to have much pattern, other than always being at night. I have suspected that at least part of our problem is one of "out gassing" from construction materials. I am about to get back to work on ours for coming seasonal travel. The RV has been stored and I disconnected the alarm when it went off one night with nobody in the RV and the propane had been shut off for a month. My first attempt will be a new detector but mine is separate from the CO side. I don't like the combo units just because they are too hard to pin down, but it does help that yours has a light to say which side is alarming. I've seen some that didn't have that light.

It don't harm anything and I have done so for years, after learning to do so from the manual that came with one of our detectors. Propane and butane are both products of petroleum distillation and either will be detected by the alarm. The alarm actually detects hydrocarbons which both contain, along with several other gasses. From propane dealer association.....

We all seem to be assuming that it is the propane side that is alarming, but do we really know that for sure? Does your combination alarm indicate which detector is alarming or does the same alarm go for either one? It is important to know what it is that is alarming before we jump to any conclusions. It can be very difficult to pin down what is causing what seems to be a spurious alarm, but one should make sure that it is a false alarm. I had a problem of that sort with the propane alarm in our RV not so long ago and it was happening with the propane all shut off. The alarm is only 4 years old so should be good, but I have ordered a replacement for it and will be replacing it. There are also propane alarms that are battery only operated and there are some from places like Lowe's and Amazon that use 120V-ac power. As a test, I'd turn off the propane and then see if the alarm goes off. It is pretty difficult to actually prove that a detector is working properly. You can test if it goes off by using a butane lighter that isn't lit and pointing the gas jet into the opening of the propane detector. It should alarm. There are hand held combustible gas detectors, but they are a little bit expensive to keep in an RV.

Interesting calculator. This is something that should be introduced to those in their prime earning years. In fact, I just sent the link off to our three sons. For me it is just a little bit late since we are already into the required withdrawals. Even so, it is kind of fun to play with.

I just wait to see what the person I'm speaking to calls his lifestyle. Much less conflict that way.

It's really difficult to find a way to level the expenses with our different styles of RV living, but the reason I chose not to include vehicles is wide difference in amounts spend for RVs and other vehicles. It was an attempt to let others know what our average expenses run for daily living of the lifestyle. I'm sure that even things like food budgets vary quite widely but there is a clear pattern to the typical costs as you look at the results. While that won't tell anyone exactly what they must have to survive, it should give some targets to work with, or at least I hope that it does.

We at least stopped wearing ties a few years before I retired but even then it was "business casual" with only collared shirts and no jeans.

We did exactly the same as you, starting a bit more than 1 year before we actually left the house. Since our house was not paid off but the RV would be, we did pay the house payment over and above our living amount but we kept all other spending to what we would have after retirement and we put the excess into savings. We didn't do that in one stage however, but started to pare the budget in that direction at 2 years out with that as our target. What we found interesting was that once we were actually retired our budget was not nearly as tight as in that year before since there are expenses associated with a job that most of us do not realize. Our clothing budget was a particularly large drop. And the fuel that we burned to get to and from work was nearly enough to supply fuel for our travels, if you leveled it out over a period of 90 days.

Makes one wonder if there are going to be changes in other states approach to the issue. I wonder if they keep the LEO's in FL aware of such things, let alone those of other states. Just for fun, why don't you drive a few states away and then do something to get stopped, just so we can hear the "rest of the story?"

Without a doubt, the very best writing on the subject of fulltime budgets that I have ever read was a column that I read in Motorhome Magazine way back in 2001, titled How Much Does It Cost and written by the late Gaylord Maxwell. It applies just as much today as it did at the time of publishing. I really think that it is worth reading for anyone who has not yet done so.

While I do agree with you, I really don't know how that could be done via the forums. If there were a way, I'd sure give it a shot. It might be possible to publish a list of questions about such things here and ask others to respond to those items if they have such data available. Otherwise it mean a series of polls with one question each.

That is what I had in mind. Whatever you spend, excepting payments on an RV or vehicle, since that is one of those things which many choose not do have at all. The idea is that if we narrow things too much it becomes a very personal lifestyle thing. We all spend something on entertainment, hobbies, and a lot of other things. My thought process was that by lumping everything into a single category, we can remove some of the differences from personal choices and preferences. Most of us adjust our optional spending downward when repairs or such are needed but then spend more on entertainment and such when we have a budget excess. It is an attempt to arrive at some very loose ideas on what people spend on the road to live reasonably well and enjoy our travels. My thinking is that it was enough once we reached an annual figure of $50K, and first had that as my upper number as $50k and up. So I did go back and edit the responses to $60, $70, and $80 and up. If you were in the $60K group you may want to edit your response. One has to stop somewhere.

It has been a long time since we had done this sort of general poll but the cost of living on the road is always one of the concerns that those who contemplate taking up the life must consider. While it is a very individual thing and is influenced by lifestyle, domicile, and a host of other things, I still believe that there is value to the researcher in knowing a range of what most other people find to be sufficient. Before we returned to part-time we posted our annual budget and while it is still available, it is also becoming outdated. How about folks here anonymously sharing the total amount they spend in a typical year of travels on the road? I ask that you simply lump in everything you spend with exception of any RV or vehicle payments, savings plans/investments, or other optional expenditures. If you have some expense that is likely unique to your situation, please also leave that out. Since this should be a general figure it isn't critical that each of us combine the exact same things into the numbers or that they be totally accurate. Lets just do our best to give those who are new to the road some idea of the range in actual expenses incurred in a year of travels. If you wish to post some general information about your response or more specifics to your budget, that too might be helpful but nothing is expected or required. Because we have now been part time for nearly 5 years, I am not contributing to the poll as I hope to keep the information current. Thank you in advance for your assistance in helping others to life on the road!