karenandcollins

We just replaced the float. How do you reset the sensors? Our jacks retracted, but now they won't go down again.

We have Good Sam's. Just got our RV at the beginning of the year. We already had to use it & they were very good about paying it. I have already found out, that it's the repair shops themselves you have to watch. They take forever & don't always fix everything you took it in for.

We have 2 AC units in our 40' motorhome. The front one practically freezes us out, unless I set the temp rather high. The back one in the bedroom seems to start out cool but gets warmer as it's run. At the beginning of the summer, even in high temps it worked great at 74 or 75, now, it's much cooler & I'm running it at 71-73 & by morning its not all that cool. I've cleaned the filters & looked inside as much as I can. Any other thoughts. Thanks.

I don't know anything about the charts the others gave you. However, we recently had trouble with out dash ac. We had it repaired & it works great now. However, the guy who fixed it told us he is also an RV owner & when you're driving in 100+ temps, as we were, it's hard to keep cool with only the dash air. He said he puts a curtain between the driver section & the rest of the coach. We bought a closet pole & some drapes that matched the rest of our interior & put them up. It made a huge difference in the temp in the driver's cabin. Maybe that will help you if your air is working propertly.

Hi Jack & Peg, Well, we've been full timers for just about 6 weeks now. We spent about 3 weeks in NC enjoying so many things. It is really beautiful here. We've been to the Smokey Mts, driven the Blue Ridge Prky (in our car - which was recommended to us by another full timer), seen the Biltmore Estate -wow- & found some beautiful waterfalls. We've decided we like staying in one place at least 2 weeks & driving to different places. It seems easier to be settled & you get a better chance to meet people. I hope you guys will be leaving soon. I know you're going to really enjoy yourselves once you get going. We've already learned so much & thankfully haven't had any more problems like we did the first night. One thing I will tell you, is be very careful if you need service on the road. These repair shops really don't care about you for the most part. I've now learned when I call for service, I specifically ask if they will take care of it on a certain date. We will also make a written list of the problems & have them sign off on it. If you have an extended warranty, followup to make sure they get approval before they do the work. So far, as a newbie, that's the best advice I can offer. Good luck, karen & collins

Hi Jack & Peg, We left IL on July 20th for the big RV rally in Louisville. Unfortunately we didn't have enough time to move everything to the RV in a timely manor & put stuff away as we went. Our RV was filled with tubs & boxes of stuff to put away. You could hardly walk from front to back & the basement was filled to the gills. We had decided we would go to the Rally, then take the RV to Lexington, where my sister lives, to have the repair work done. I called & told the guy our problem, the part # for the jack & made an appt for the 26th. Our first day out was a DISASTER!!. Collins forgot to connect the the line from the RV to the car for the brake lites, etc. About an hour out, someone next to us on the expressway started pointing at the back. Of course we panicked & pulled over as soon as possible. When we realized what happened, we hooked it up & went on our way. A couple hours later we stopped at a rest stop to change drivers & as we were checking all the tow connections we realized there was a break in the wire for the lights. It must have happened as it dragged on the ground before we connected it. We knew we needed to get it fixed before we stopped for the night because it would be dark. So...... we checked our gps for a Walmart & got off where it showed. Guess what, it was a Sam's club, which we don't belong to & it probably wouldn't have the part anyway. We drove a little farther, thinking maybe there was also a walmart but there wasn't. This was kind of a small town & we did a really stupid thing. We pulled into the drive of a company that was set back, thinking we could turn around there. Unfortunately it came to a dead end at a fenced parking lot. I wanted to take the car off the tow dolly & remove the dolly so we could back up & turn around but my husband thought he could turn it in a huge sweep in the grass. Well, there was a gully, but he did get it turned around. Well we thought we had solved the problem & were on our way again, trying to figure out where to find a walmart. As we got on the expressway again, we noticed something was wrong with the way the dolly was tracking. So, we pulled over again & realized the we had bent the trailer hitch going thru the gully. We got off at the next exit & stopped at a truck stop. We figured we'd take the car off the dolly & try to get a new hitch or drive the car the rest of the way & the dolly would probably be ok to tow. Surprise!!! In the process of all this, the rachet end of the tire strap had come loose & wedged between the tire & the dolly. It caused the tires to lock so we couldn't get it loose. It was getting dark, & we were getting very frustrated. Then we met our guardian angel. Another RV had pulled in & was going to stay overnight. The gentleman came over to ask what had happened. To make a long story short, he got out his jack & a few other things, helped us get the car off the dolly & the bent hitch off the RV. It was too late to buy a new hitch & we weren't sure where we would have to go to get it. We did go to a walmart & buy a new hookup for the lights. We met up with our guardian angel & returned his hitch. Wanted to take them out for dinner but it just didn't work out. We told him we would pay it forward some day. The Rally was good, although I thought most of the classes at the RMCA rally were better. The trade show was great & we were able to buy a new hitch. I learned about the use of Velco in one class. I'm amazed at all the uses I had for it since that class. It's my new "duct tape". Thank God, our trip to Lexinton was uneventful. We have spent the past week at my sister's house while they've been on vacation. We took the RV in for repair on Monday only to find out they had just shipped the jack that morning & it would take a week to arrive. It's supposed to get here some time Monday. After a few days or so, we decided to bring the bring the RV back to my sister's for a couple days & put everything where it needed to go. Luckily her house is at the end of a cul-de-sac so we were able to let it be off the driveway into the street. We checked with the neighbors to make sure they didn't mind. We were able to put everything away, consolidate tons of stuff in the basement & clean the whole thing inside & out. It looked great when we took it back to the repair shop today. I have to say, I'm amazed at the storage we have in there. We bought a MIFI (it's a wireless aircard from Verizon for more than one computer to use at a time. I was able to spend this week setting that up with our wireless printer, so we should be in good shape. I put unlimited minutes on the cell phone becuse I got tired of worrying how much time I was spending trying to take care of so many things. We also have a magicjack but I haven't put that to usethis tr on ip yet We mostly use that in the dominican republic. . My sister & her husband come home tomorrow but they don't mind us being here next week til the repair is done. We're hoping for Wed, but I've come to realize these RV repair places don't know the word "hurry". We've also come to realize that most repair shops don't repair everything. Our dash air isn't working as well as it should, but it would have to go to another shop for that. We tried to get that in this week, but they were too busy. We may do that when we visit friends in Nashville. As soon as we know when we're gettingout of here, I'll set up that appt. It's kind of crummy because you then have to pay another deductable on your extended warranty. When we leave Lexington we're planning to visit Mammoth Cave State Park. That looks very interesting. I'm just not sure how much cave exploring we'll be able to do because there are a lot of steps & I'm not sure how much Collins can do with his knee yet. It is healing well, but I'm not sure a lot of steps will be helpful. We also learned at the rally that you can camp very reasonably at a lot of military bases. Many of them have very nice campgrounds. We plan to check that out. I hope you're able to leave soon & hopefully a little more settled than we were. We would have stayed home longer & organized everything but we want to go to that rally. We ended up dry camping there, which I never would have chosen, but it worked out fine. The first night they made us turn off the generators at 11pm. I thought I was going to die it was so hot there. The next day they lifted that ban. We had plenty of water & I now feel a lot more comfortable about dry camping. I think it's sometimes good to be forced into some things. I'm looking forward to your updates & hope that we can meet somewhere along the line. And yes, I love the forums & Lazy Days was at the rally & they talked about their website at forums.betterrving.com for questions.

Hi Jack & Peg! I too am glad I found your blog. My husband,Collins, and I, Karen, are getting ready to go full time too. We're also Newbies & have only had our RV out a couple of times, once to the FMCA rally in WI last month. We moved all our furniture out of our house this past weekend & are now sleeping in our RV in our driveway. We will be renting our house. I'm trying to get the rest of the stuff moved into the RV & figure out what we need & where to put it. We lived in our house in Elgin, IL for 25 years & believe me, it's been no easy feat trying to figure out what to keep & what to get rid of. Luckily for us, there is a Goodwill Store close to us & they have gotten car loads of stuff. I can't believe how many clothes we owned. Collins & I were realtors for almost 25 years & decided this was a good time to call it quits. We.ve talked about buying an RV for the last 5 or more years, but decided to go for it this year. We bought a 2006 Monaco & are busily trying to learn the things we need to know, which is a lot. We've discovered a bad leveling jack & an intermittant problem with the wiring. Right now, we're waiting on a new jack & don't know what they're going to do about the wiring. Every once in awhile all the breakers shut down. We were going to leave in April, but Collins ended up having knee replacement last month so it slowed us down. We are going to the big RV rally in Louisville on July 21-25 with or without the RV. I'm afraid it's going to be "without" since they haven't gotten the jack yet. Also, Collins hasn't been released from therapy for his knee, so we'll probably be back in IL for a few more weeks. I think what we're going to do is head to our friends in Nashville when we do leave, then go to the Smokey Mts & the Carolinas. We'll head down to FL & end up around the Tampa area In Dec. We'll leave the RV in storage & come back to IL for the holidays. Then we'll head to the Dominican Republic, Punta Cana, for 3 months. When we head out in April 2011 we plan to head up the east coast. I think the scariest thing for me right now is that there are so many things about the RV we don't know. Just moving in the past few days, we haven't been able to get our Satellite TV to work & it's so frustrating. We took a few hours of driving lessons from an instructor for the long haul truck driving school at the local junior college. I found it very helpful & have driven the RV myself. We've taken our car out on the dolly once. Our car can't be flat towed, so we have a tow dolly. I think we have it figured out. I'll be following your blog & hopefully I'll learn a few things along the way. I hope your heel gets better soon so you can head out. Where are you going. I'll be following with interest. Karen

We're going full-time in a couple of months. We have a 41-foot diesel pusher with plenty of basement space. Any suggestions for a safe or whatever you're using for storing "important" stuff?

I'm a newbie & hate our mattress. I measured it & it's the same size as our queen bed. I'm thinking, I'll trade them, since we're going full time in about a month. Am I missing something here?

I'm the one asking ???'s about that rally. We just joined FMCA a few days ago. I saw something about early arrival for the 8th, but didn't see where to indicate that when you registered. We're new to all of this, will be starting full time in Aug & have never been to a rally. Can we meet up with you on the 8th & how do we go about it?? We live in Elgin, IL right now.

Do you have water hookups available or what? Do they post a list of the seminars and days ahead of time. I registered, but it didn't give much info.

My husband & I are planning to start full-timing in August. We just bought our beautiful 41' RV. We took driving lessons from someone who teaches long haul truck driving at the local community college. It made me feel a lot better about driving it, which I plan to do! We too have a home full of stuff. Our plan is to store what we want to keep in climate controlled storage & rent our home until the market improves. I'm having a bit of difficulty knowing exactly what to take in the RV. I'm open to any helpful suggestions. We want to put the mattress on our home bed in the motorhome. Anyone know of any problems trying to do that? We are planning to attend the midwest rally in WI in June, not sure what to expect.

My husband and I just bought our RV and have never been to a rally. I met a man at the RV service center the other day and he told me about FMCA and the Midwest Area Rally in Wisconsin. We joined FMCA and would like to go to this rally, but since we've never been to one before, I really don't understand how it works. I can't find much info on it. Do we need to bring our car? We have a 41-foot motorhome. Where do you camp and what is available? How do you know what seminars are available and what days. Any info someone can provide us would be greatly appreciated.