The "7-Year Glitches"

bluegypsy wrote:
Like the "7-year itch" kinda....
Our rig is approaching its 7th year of full-time use, and in the past couple of months I've had to replace the bedroom lights dimmer switch (quick and easy) and the water heater relay (not so quick and easy).

The water heater relay was an especially scary "glitch" - we hooked up at a CG in TN, and after a few minutes began to smell an awful "burnt insulation" smell in the bedroom. After switching off all AC power and checking all over the place, we discovered where the smell was coming from, the back end of the Atwood water heater. A call to Atwood followed, where we found out that the OEMs (in this case Fleetwood) sometimes

leave too much wiring in the little plastic box

that houses the relay, causing eventual chafing and wires shorting out (this being the 15 amp AC to the heater!). That's exactly what happened in my case. Removed burnt wiring, shortening it, and replaced relay just in case it was damaged. All OK now.

Funny thing I learned during my troubleshooting: At one point during my "smell-check" I turned off the circuit breaker to the water heater, and also the "washer-dryer" breaker (which we don't have) - later noticed my power distribution display showed I was only hooked up to 30 amp power, but I was connected to 50 amp at pedestal. Called CG maintenance over, they checked pedestal, all good. After checking my transfer switch, etc, etc, (and sweating & swearing) discovered that turning the "washer-dryer" circuit breaker back on fixed the erroneous display.

Anyways, guess it's just the start of the rig's "7-year glitch" time.

x2
Right around 7 years is when I started replacing items too.

Interesting about the 'extra' wires. Seems the manufacturers of RV's think more is better when it comes to wires and hose.:R

I had 'extra' wire going across the underbelly up and over the frame for running lights that came apart. Took 3 service calls to no avail. Until the day I crawled under the MH to look at something else and saw where they had zip stripped it to the top of the frame out of view and the splice had come apart. THE reason I had no running lights.

'Extra', WAY extra fuel line hose looped all over the underbelly for the gen ended up being a problem that took 5 service calls to figure out. Poor ole fuel pump was pooped trying to suck gas thru all those hoops. Cut out all the excess hose and she worked fine.

Still cheaper than fixing the sticks and bricks where ALL the big buck appliances go out miraculously at the stroke of 10 years!