As most of you know, I have full-timed before.....the difference was that my husband took car of all the maintenance, repair, driving, etc. That means I have a lot to learn and have been doing so since I started researching going full-time and even more so since I picked up The Lily Pad.So what is today's lesson? Routines and setting them. No, not the routines like getting up and brushing your teeth while the coffee brews or watching/reading the morning news while you eat breakfast. These routines are things you don't encounter in normal house living.
I knew about checklists and have been developing my informal list of things to do before leaving - I have horrors or driving off with my power or water still hooked up, or worse yet with my trailer hookup only partly done or forgotten. I haven't done the setup side yet, instead I seem to do things as they occur to me but will once the final (or somewhat final) departure list is done.
I know there are maintenance things that need to be done on a regular basis and I'm trying to get a handle on that. There are the things we expect with any vehicle - fluid & filter changes, for example. But those also apply to my generator. Toss in checking the water level in my three batteries. Oh, and now I have a motorcycle that is water cooled. There are things that need greasing, packing, spraying, measuring, wiping, waxing, cleaning...you get the idea.
I discovered this weekend that there are things I need to do every day. That may be overkill but I know that this is a case of better safe than sorry. In this case it's my monitor panel...I tend to look at it every couple of days, when I think about it. This is where I can check my tank levels - fresh water, grey & black tanks, battery level and propane. Previously I was pretty good about checking the black & grey tanks but kind of slacked off because the probes don't seem to be really working (not a big surprise since they are notoriously unreliable). Since I am on shore power, I tend to not check the battery level very often either.
I was watching the fresh water level since I don't really know my tank size - I've been guesstimating 20 gallons. I carry fresh water for drinking and it has stretched pretty far. One morning I noticed it was low and got the guys here to fill it for me. I need to watch how quickly I go through it now that I'm traveling (okay, so what if I'm not moving....
The last light on the panel is for propane, needed for the stove & oven (which you already know I don't use - in fact I have never lit it), my water heater (which I heat up before a shower or around 4pm when it's still warm outside and it takes less time to heat and lasts till time to wash my face & brush my teeth for bed) and my heat. The nightly temps have been down into the 30's for a while now and even though I turned the heat down to low-mid 60's at night and off during the day, Saturday morning when I check the panel......yup, on empty. I went outside and checked the actual propane gauge and it read empty as well.
Panic time? No, I probably still had some propane in the tank but I didn't want to run it completely dry not knowing if that hurt the system in any way. The good news is that I have a great little Honeywell space heater (I had picked it up on sale at Wal-Mart last spring). Saturday was a gorgeous day, warm enough to sit outside and read so I opened up my storage bins and pulled out the heater, still in the box. My neighbor in the RV next door (the one who woke my Sunday morning asking if I had power), brought over another in case I needed it.
Well, I survived the weekend, got my propane refilled and learned another lesson. Check the monitor panel daily - twice a day if something looks like it's getting low.
Till next time - keep on rollin',
Froggi/Donna
Stu and Donna
The one thing I try to remember to do is "The Walk Around the Rig" before getting in the driver's seat and starting the engine. If I had remembered this EVERY TIME, I would have saved muself lots of time, money and embarrasment.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Sally. You can also do some things like hanging a clip on the rooftop antennae that goes there when it is stowed but you put it on the gear shift lever if it has been raised. That way if you go to drive off with the antennae up you will see it right away when you go to shift into gear. This same plan could work for other things, too.
ReplyDeleteI don't know about your propane gauge but the one on my Sea Breeze panel didn't agree with the one on the tank. I found the tank would indicate fuel left when things would not light properly. Expect some differences & see which one you want to go by. Or, learn where on the inside ones scale do you want to go fill up.
We have 2 checklist. One for inside and one for outside. There are many times when we've realized that we had not done something by just looking at the list before departure.
ReplyDeleteEven with the list, I always do a final walk-a-round and visually check everything, especially the towbar.
Jim