Monday, February 24, 2014 (La Posa South LTVA, Quartzsite, AZ)

Yesterday after Steve had finished emptying the holding tanks and putting everything away he noticed that the outlet was now dripping a bit. The black water holding tank lever has always been very stiff and hard to close but it now takes all his strength to push the lever in. The lever operates the gate valve on the opposite side of the trailer via a long cable which has a reputation of being troublesome. This morning his plan is to borrow Earl's portable sani-station again and work on ensuring the valves are closed completely. 

Unfortunately, that plan got delayed a bit. I was out for a morning walk while Steve had breakfast and showered. When I got back, he had just finished in the shower...there hadn't been any hot water. It was just barely warm...great, now we have hot water tank issues! At first he thought it just might be low propane flow, so he switched over the tank to the full one and the hot water heater lit...whew! That was it! 

Then it went off...nope, there's still a problem. Time to do some troubleshooting. He checked and cleaned all the wiring connections to the valve including the ground wire. He can hear the valve click and has ignition but no gas flow, so he took the burner tube out to clean out the orifice but still has no gas flow. He suspects that one of the solenoid coils on the valve is not working or the valve is sticking.

Not able to get it to work, he called a technician...he will be here tomorrow morning. At least we have an Extended Warranty.

In the meantime, I had a rather chilly shower...it wasn't ice cold, thank goodness! Steve went over to borrow Earl's portable sani-station and started work on the holding tank valves.  After draining and a few flushes Steve had me add a bottle of baby oil to the tank while he added a couple of gallons of water then worked the lever back and forth a few times. This is a tip he picked up from the RV-Dreams.Com forum awhile ago to lubricate the gate valve seals. It seemed to help however the lever is still extremely hard to push in. We will have to add this to our service at Guarantee RV when we head north. 

While he was working on that, I cleaned up inside and then took my kindle outside and read. It was noon by the time Steve had finished... the valve seems to have completely closed. We had lunch and then we just chilled outside reading for most of the afternoon. Steve did go up on the trailer roof to clean the solar panels, making sure we get the most out of the sun.

Just before 5:00 we rode our quads over to Rob and Joyce's place and joined them for happy hour. We had a great visit with them...of course, happy "hour" turned into happy "2 hours"....lol!