In my experience, December in Richmond is summer and winter wrapped up like a neat little Christmas season gift. I was planting bulbs during the first week--a neighbor dutifully pointed out that I was very late, because neighbors are dependably good for that--but the weather was so balmy that my gardening and t-shirt wearing was perfectly timed.
And then there is January and her tempetuous disposition.
It fell to me to winterize the Airstream this past Saturday while Deb attended a board meeting. Hmpf. I called Misty and complained that every resource I read made sweeping statements like "release the pressurizer valve" as if I were expected to know what the hell that meant. She advised that I get
RVs for Dummies. "I hate to say this, but that's exactly
what I'm reading!" If not for the super nice folks at
McGeorge's, I probably would have released all the air in the tires for all the sense I could make out of things.
"Hi, this is Richard in Parts!"
"Hi Richard. I need to winterize, but I have no idea what that means."
"Well, we have everything here that you would need!"
"Ok, that's grand, but I don't have a truck to pull it to you, so I need to be able to do this by myself."
"No problem. Come on over and I'll teach you how to do it."
"Richard, I love you and you're my hero. I'll be right there!"
Richard was fantastic, one of those rare people who truly love their job and make it apparent in their relaxed, joyful demeanor and happy willingness to fold you into their world. We went out into the lot to check out a real live water heater drain. We went into the repairs warehouse to check out real live fresh and wastewater drains. I was handed RV antifreeze (non-toxic, because you drink out of the fresh water pipes!) and a water-inlet hand pump and verbally walked through the entire process. By the end, I truly believed that this would be the most exciting event of my weekend! Richard rocks. I am going to bake Richard a cake.
So out I drove to Ashland, humming a little tune. Everything was perfect, I was ready! I opened every panel on the outside of our 'stream. I found the water heater!
On the phone: "Richard! Oh, thank goodness. There's no water heater bypass kit!"
"Remember, Lauren, it will be on the inside! Access it from inside the Airstream!"
"Oh, right, I forgot! Ok, ok, I'll go look there."
"Ok! Don't hesitate to call me if you have any questions!"
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Ah! Where was I? Just took a Regina Spektor/Imogen Heap/Nils Petter Molvaer segue. Youtube is so much fun on a Wednesday night when you are blogging and generally GenYing. Deb is inspired and playing the trumpet.
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Back to our foray into winterizing! I found where the water heater bypass valve should be, but there was a panel screwed tight o'er top of it and even Mr. Dyson (have we yet mentioned Charles's awesome dad?) did not have a screw bit to fit. So no winterizing would happen until I could come back with an appropriate square shaped screw bit and our cordless screwer (ha! I mean drill, but screwer sounds mo' funnier). So all of that did not happen until the next night, when the temperature dropped below freezing and all of the pipes were frozen solid. Which is how we discovered our furnace.
It is only appropriate that I mention that we found our furnace after blowing a fuse in Charles's house. See, what happened was that Deb, who is much braver than I in this endeavor, tried her hand at opening the propane tanks. (Is it yet apparent that we know NOTHING about owning a motorhome?) The propane smell was strong, in a worrisome way. So I called my Washington Dad, who studied engineering of some sort at Georgia Tech. He has a wealth of useful knowledge. He advised that we use dish soap to check for leaks in the propane tank tubes, and to also consider a space heater in the interim. An hour later found us hooked up to Charles's house, running a space heater, a microwave, a laptop, an electric blanket, lights, stereo, anything we could turn on in our enthusiasm. And of course we blew a fuse. Of course! Isn't that just like life to continually re-teach us the simplest lessons? Anyway, this is how we discovered the location of our fuse box. Deb called Kevin & Ellis, the previous owners, who are sweet as pie, and they directed us to its location. And nary a fuse was blown. So we concluded that we must have blown a fuse in Charles's house, while Charles was out of town on his birthday. What grand friends we make!
So back to the propane tanks. Imagine this scene. Deb turns on one tank in a careful manner as directed by Kevin & Ellis. I benignly ask, "So how do we know when the propane is getting low?" Neither of us have any idea. I notice a little buoy in a valve, painted half green and red. It is very much red. I point it out, and say to Deb, "Say, Deb, maybe this thing here tells us the propane level." We stare at it for a while. Then I remark, "I would think red means bad." We stare at it a little while longer to make sure. Then Deb turns off that tank and turns the other one on. And the buoy shoots up to green! Hooray! Our furnace works! A ::cough, cough:: miracle!
Turns out our furnace runs on propane and 12 volt battery power. The battery, or if we are hooked up to "shore" power, powers the fans and the furnace burns off propane to provide the heat. We set the thermostat to 65 and watched the interior temperature creep up from its sub-30 degree location. Rock, paper, scissors determined that Deb would run down the road to pick up some we-don't-need-no-microwave Thai food while I watched the dogs. Yeeesss, poor pups had to endure all of this, but I wrapped them up in their Christmas sweaters (thanks, Leesa Alder!) to keep them warm. And they were happy as can be just to be hanging out with us. The Thai was delish, and by the time we were finished, the pipes had defrosted!
I unscrewed the wood section and bypassed the water heater (mwahaha! I now know what that means, no thanks to you,
Idiot's Guide!) Then it was up to Deb to open all the faucets one-by-one, starting at the faucets closest to the water inlet where I would be pumping in the antifreeze. I bedecked myself in every warm thing I owned, and then ran outside with pump in hand. The cold must have made me overzealous because the pump piping spat off the inlet so many times that I was wearing about a quarter gallon of antifreeze on my jeans before I was done. But hey! Non-toxic and mums the word! I could lick my jeans and not die, if I was into that sort of thing. Which I'm not. It's just the principle of the thing. Oh, nevermind.
Deb shouted hoorahs from inside every time a spigot shot out pink liquid, and to top it off we poured another cup of antifreeze into every drain, as per our instructions. So we should be safe from the perils of a Virginia winter, as long as the short freeze sustained by our pipes did no lasting damage. I guess we'll find out, one way or another. Thank goodness we have all this time to get our bearings before we actually drive this baby out of the state!
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