Monday, March 30, 2009

Seasonal Start-up Snafu Syndrome

I am sure Seasonal Start-up Snafu Syndrome or S.S.S.S. followed by "hit", is very common across the world. After a long winter you want to get ready for the camping season. You go out and begin cleaning up the things that you said "that will be all right, I will have it for next season" and repairing the things broken during last years season. You know the items, the screens your kid pushed out, the cabinet latch that was not lining up right, the loose piece of molding. All minor details, but none the less, things that need your attention. Yesterday was just that day for me. I have have been very busy with work, getting clients trailers here safely, and finishing projects up and I have not gotten Anna ready for the Cherry Blossom Rally that is just a few days away. My first task was to clean up and out.
I opened the pantry to get a flash light out and it was stuck to the shelf. Turns out the Seven Up minis I left in there last fall had frozen hard enough to split wide open and leak from the second shelf all the way down to the bottom shelf. The liquid must have thawed slowly for I had thickened Seven-Up on every shelf and also down one of the walls. All six cans, still in their plastic holders sat there empty. Now if it was November, I probably would have just shut the door and said that is what spring is for, but I had to clean it up. Six buckets of hot water and soap, it was cleaned up. Note to self: Self, do not leave anything including mouse proof cans in the trailer over the winter. It might be below freezing for weeks on end and the items might split. A can of Trader Joe's Turkey Chilli split too but nothing leaked out. Now that is a waste of mighty fine chilli. The rest of the clean up was fairly straight forward after this.

I have been holding off on putting water to her. The weather here is very unpredictable in March. One day it is spring the next it is winter again. I did not want to put water to her and have a cold snap come through. I checked three local weather forecasters and they all say the temperatures will be well above freezing so yesterday was the day. I hooked the hose to the city water inlet and went to the house to turn it on. I turned it on just a little, as to not over whelm things, and walked back to the trailer. Water was pouring out of the belly pan right at the belt line. It was actually beautiful the way it was a solid curtain from bumper to wheel well. I opened everything up and began looking.
In my search the first thing I notice was that the drain line coming from the kitchen sink is not into one of the fittings. Turns out I did not glue it when I put it all together. Nothing like saving a task a whole year. But this was not the source of my leak. My leak was coming from a supply line. I followed the lines from the inlet through the manifold (total waste of money, materials, and time). No wet spots yet. I keep going on down the line into the closet and no wet spots here. I pull the drawers on the vanity and see no wet spots. I am getting to the end of the line now. I open the hamper door (now like the manifold, this is a joke to me. Who in their right mind is going to put their dirty clothes in that little hole and then later try and get them out) and there it was. The union between the copper of the toilet and the PEX line.

A broken Sea Tech fitting. Now as I said a year ago, these things are junk. Luckily I had one left over and was able to swap it out fairly easily. I had opened all the valves just incase water remained in the lines, but forgot to open the toilet fill valve.
So many things to learn, so many years to learn them....

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

No pics yet of the caravan or rally? Whats taking so long?