Winter RV'ing Is A Humbling Experience

It has warmed up to 32F here today.  Bruce decided to tackle a couple of outdoor jobs since it was now above single digits, so his digits could work now!  Frozen fingers do not work well. 

First off, he climbed up on the MH roof to check the vent on the black tank...thanks to that suggestion from our follower FD5.  (see previous post: Exploding Toilet) Truthfully, we hadn't thought about that, however, Bruce wouldn't have been willing to climb up there at 6F or 9F.  We had installed one of those whirly-twirly tank vents last year...and sure enough....it was frozen in place and would not whirl or twirl.  He unfroze it and twirled it around to make sure it would move.  Simple fix, if that is all that was needed.

The next step was to tackle the water pump, which is still not working.  He took the Zoey stool outside to sit on while he messed around with the pump.

He had already pulled out all of the insulation he had filled the compartment with last week during our sub-freezing temperatures.

I fixed him some hot water to warm up some of the parts in there and melt the ice that was still lingering in the filter screen and the head of the pump.  It still won't operate, so there may be more ice inside of it somewhere that he cannot get to.  We're hoping that this week, with the warmer weather coming, the ice will begin to melt.

Bruce also retaped our water hose in several places and we are hoping to be able to leave it out from now on so we can have that luxury of running water.  I'll never take running water for granted again.  

A new problem popped up (so what else is new?) yesterday.  We have a winterization valve inside the MH back in the bedroom, under the washer/dryer cabinet.  Last winter it began squeaking or whining when water would be run through the system.  We couldn't get any parts here for it, so we just waited until we got to Winnebago in August and they replaced the whole valve.  Well, it started doing the whole squeaking and whining thing again since we've had the freezing temperatures.  I guess another replacement or a repair will be in order eventually.

As I wrote, winter RV living is a humbling experience.  Things can be very difficult to deal with most of the time.  It is good to have helpful suggestions from fellow RVer's to count on.  We try to think of every possibility for every situation, but you sometimes just don't see the big picture through all of the aggravation and stress.  Of course, Sammy Sunshine doesn't seem to exhibit much stress, so that is a good thing.   Be it ever so humble....there's no place like home!