Almost back to pre-building collapse status

I’m going to write a follow-up to last week’s column. In the last sentence, I mentioned how well everything was working after the repairs on our small motorhome from the snow-caused collapsed building in December 2022. That’s true, but not the whole story.

Everything I used worked very well, however, I never turned the furnace on, even though the temperatures dropped into the low 60’s in the early morning hours on a couple of occasions. We found loose duct work connections when we went to fill the freshwater tank. I don’t fit under the built-in sofa where the furnace, its ductwork, and the freshwater tank and water pump live. My wife does sorta fit, but she doesn’t have the hand strength to easily reconnect and tighten the fittings.

She did her best and three of the four connections were good. The fourth connection involved a fitting that attaches to the back of the furnace. She did her best, but the connection was still loose. Knowing that I would be rattling over some bumpy roads to get to the shoot with the possibility that things would loosen up and leak air, I opted to use a small propane heater the couple of nights I needed heat.

After arriving back home, we went to drain the freshwater tank in the RV. My wife rechecked the four duct work connections and, to both our surprises, everything was tight, including the one with the fitting. Apparently, all the bouncing and bumping along had caused the fitting to tighten itself up. In our future trips, we’ll plan to use the furnace as needed, but we’ll still bring along the propane heater as back-up.

I had also taken my riverboat over to the local marina to have the professional mechanics go through things, tune up the engine, and make sure things were working properly. The boat was ready for pick up after I got home. In speaking with the mechanic, he explained everything he had done and how things looked. The engine tune-up went well, with the replacement of plugs, the rotor, and other parts of the carburetor. They didn’t have the sparkplug wires in stock, and he found the shifting cable operated, but not smoothly. He recommended that the sparkplug wires be replaced along with the shift cable.

These are all, as far as I know, original parts that have been on the boat since I bought it, so it was probably time to get new parts. Just the work done was costly enough, so I told the mechanic I’d bring the boat back over this fall to have the wires and cable replaced. This would also give them time to locate a shift cable and get the sparkplug wires in stock. Everything still worked fine but was getting older every year. I also had to replace both batteries and the engine belt. I kept the take-off belt as a back-up for future reference.

They didn’t launch the boat and run it, but they did back it down the ramp into the lake and started it to make sure things were running properly. They ran it for about a half-hour to bring the engine up to temperature. The mechanic told me he was surprised at how quickly the engine fired up and how “strong” it sounded after it warmed up a little. I’m planning to run the boat around on the lake for a couple of hours as time permits to feel comfortable that everything is working correctly and to burn off some of the “old gas” still in the fuel tank. I can replace the old gas with fresh gas as I use the boat.

The third thing involves my replacement storage building. My contractor spent about a week, while I was gone shooting, finishing the work on the building, and has informed me that the building is now complete and finished. I have a call placed with my insurance company to find out exactly what they want so they can pay off the balance of the claim. I need the money so I can pay the contractor and, hopefully, recover some of the six grand of my own money I have invested in the building to get it built.

As the “toys” are coming back on line, I’m hoping to get out and start using them again. Since I’m a couple of years older than the last time I had the toys available, I might not use them as much, but I plan to try!