Here's a follow up post.
We returned home safe and ended up taking a few more showers using the winterizing hose to pump the water. This worked well.
I never could figure out why the water heater would not fire on gas.
Took the camper over to our repair shop and got the report back today. It was the thermostat that died. They replaced the electric heating element with the one I purchased earlier, and they said they had to do some rewiring. Not sure why, but they're the experts. Anyway, the bill was not as bad as I though it would be be. Camper will be ready soon, and I'll be able to pick it up. I won't be able to get back to pick it up until Tuesday morning. But that's OK.
So all is well. Regardless of tools, or lack of tools when camping, I would have never figured out what the problem was, even if I would have been able to get the heating element swapped out.
So word of warning from one old "codger" that has always been extra meticulous with their camper... mistakes can happen... even to the best of us who know better.
Had I not had my Alzheimer's brain fart, I would have remembered the water tank was on bypass to begin with from when I blew the lines out last March on our return trip home from South Carolina and would have spared myself a bunch of ... DUH!
Now, I'll make one more confession!
Getting the camper ready to take over to the repair shop...
I checked everything out one more time, including the water pump. Well ... the water pump would not come on. I was devastated. I checked everything I could think of, and it was like .... dead. I'm thinking to myself... what's going on here. Water heater is dead ... water pump is dead ... what heck!????
Couldn't get it to come on at all. So when I took it to my repair shop and asked them to look at it, thinking something seriously was wrong, maybe even need to replace it. Well, when they did their walk through before I left, sure enough, no water pump working.
On the call today, I asked them about the water pump .... um .... it's working just fine!
What?????
Yea ... the lines were pressurized, so when you flipped the switch there was no need for the pump to turn on. When we turned the faucet on at the sink, the line unpressurized and the pump came on immediately!
ARRR!!!!.... OK, another DUH! Brain Fart! But thrilled nothing was wrong!
Imagine that! Maybe I'm becoming a candidate for the retirement home soon?
