We came to Celina, OH, hoping that Kevin Mallory at Cruising America
RV Service would find a solution to our roof A/C problems that we've
been dealing with for over a year. Several other shops have tried
and all have failed. Our schedule was clear for the near future, so
Kevin had plenty of time for diagnostic work. After several days of
testing he came to the conclusion that the Coleman A/C units were OK
but the Atwood climate control system that controls all of the
heating and A/C was not functioning correctly - and that system is
no longer being manufactured! There is only one company that can
repair the electronics. They have at least a 6 week turn around and
you must ship them the entire system consisting of a circuit board
at each of the 2 air conditioners, and the wall thermostat plus
remote sensors and a few other components. Without this equipment
we would have no A/C and only portable heaters during the repair
time. This was obviously not a good solution!
Kevin suggested a complete change-out of the old Atwood controls to
a new system from Dometic. Also during this week Kevin fixed a
newly acquired leak near the Aqua-Hot heating system, and
Hank got some heavier drawer latches and repaired two kitchen
drawers that were giving us problems. And Kevin's grandson gave
Little House a much needed bath!
Week #2 began with Kevin filing a claim for the repairs with our
extended warranty company, which was approved this past Monday
without an inspection. Parts were ordered, and over the next few
days, the new system was put into place.
On Friday, October 6, everything seemed to be working as it
should. If the the system continues operating well over the next
few days, we'll consider the job a success! Kevin also checked
our coach and chassis batteries. We have 4 big "house" batteries
that supply power to an inverter that provides us with 117v AC
(house) electricity when we are not connected to the power grid.
These are big golf cart type batteries and as we suspected they were
quite weak. We also have 2 "chassis" batteries that crank the big
diesel engine and power all of the vehicle 12 volt electrical
circuits. One of those was weak and the other was very weak. So
all 6 batteries were replaced. Kevin said they appear to be the
original equipment from when the coach was built in late 2007.
Replacing these batteries is expensive, and since they're
considered a maintenance item, the replacement is not covered under
our service agreement. But Kevin's prices are reasonable, lower than
any price we found online for the same batteries, and It's nice to
know we now have a more reliable power source for those times when
we park without electrical hookups.
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