mud daubers

Dance Chick wrote:
We spent an entire summer with problems in our DP from FL to SD and home. We spent days in 3 different Cummins Coach Care facilities and 2 nights in a hotel. Thank goodness we were still under warranty as it would've been very expensive for the hours and hours of diagnostics. It showed we had a fuel problem, but they couldn't find the problem. Lo and behold, we had a dirt dauber nest in the vent line to the fuel tank. Once this was removed, our problems went away.It was very frustrating, to say the least.

You were VERY lucky. Dirt Dauber and Insect caused problems are NOT a warranty item and any costs associated with finding the problem are not covered. Doug

We spent an entire summer with problems in our DP from FL to SD and home. We spent days in 3 different Cummins Coach Care facilities and 2 nights in a hotel. Thank goodness we were still under warranty as it would've been very expensive for the hours and hours of diagnostics. It showed we had a fuel problem, but they couldn't find the problem. Lo and behold, we had a dirt dauber nest in the vent line to the fuel tank. Once this was removed, our problems went away.It was very frustrating, to say the least.

What they do is kinda of cool actually if you are into insects.

Momma Mud Dauber starts a nest and creates a three sided chamber out of wet mud.

She then flies off and finds a food source, usually a caterpillar or spider. She then stings it, BUT not enough to kill it, just paralyze it.

She puts it the chamber, lays an egg on the paralyzed insect and seals the chamber.

When the young hatch they have a fresh food source right there in the chamber.

Momma Mud dauber loves fresh mud, so if you don't like you neighbor, put some fresh cement out for her. She will build the nest of cement, on you neighbors house.

You haven't lived until you try to remove a Mud Daubers nest built out of cement!!

A few moth balls in a suitable location will convince them that they should reside elsewhere.

Had one nest built inside the blower motor and had the motor locked up. Had to put a wrench on the shaft to crunch it up. Had a whole house unit set in the attic for 15 years and it took hours to reclaim it when the central unit failed with an empty bank account. That was in 2005 and the bank account is still empty and the 1987 Sears 25,000 BTU unit is still humming by the way as I type. :)

The 1992 units on the MH tested fine on a recent generator run. The pre 1995 units seem to run forever.

Have them in all the places that I have lived. They eat insects, spiders. You should see everything they eat in part of the nest.