First night in the new RV – a leak

Well, some people say they have one of those days, but me… I have one of those lives!

OK, so a bit dramatic, but we spent our first night in the 2007 Hurricane 34B, just outside of Disneyland. We found a park that had available spots, booked it, and drove it there. Only the 2nd time driving this rig, as the first (besides the test drive) was taking it home.

I backed it into the spot, right next to a family who was picnicing right behind our spot. It turned out OK and I came back to check out my work and announced to the family there – “not bad for my very first time, huh?”  They were excited for me and couldn’t believe I had just parked it for the first time and didn’t do so bad.

We did our setup – turned on the generator to put the leveling jacks down (can’t do that in most 5th wheels), pushed out the slides and then took a walk. Mean while the family behind us has disappeared – probably to Disneyland.

We took the dogs for a walk and I inspected how other people had hooked up their rigs. I had never done this, and I learn by reverse engineering how others do it. When we got back, I opened up our side locker with all the hookups (everything is in one locker – electric, water, sewage).

I grabbed the power plug – the fat 50 Amp cable, opened the hole in the bottom of the locker, and wove it down the hole and over to the power pole. Opened it up, checked the breakers – turned the all off, and plugged in the cord. Nothing exploded, so I flipped the breaker on. Again, nothing exploded. So we walked inside to see if lights worked. Seriously, I’ve never done this before. And we noticed that instead of a green power light AND an amber gas light on the fridge, there was only a green light – the fridge was on, but not using gas. It worked. And the lights worked.

We had to do some disinfecting of the storage water with something from Walmart. We were told to buy the liquid water freshener and pour it into the hose – then connect the hose to the inlet and turn it on. But I messed that up trying to get the hose connected, so most of the stuff leaked out and what a pain.

So we hooked up the water and decided to wait on the sewage for now and celebrate our small victory – power and running water. We went out for food, and came back in time to walk the dogs and watch the fireworks from Disneyland. That was our goal, to launch to fireworks and celebrate the next step.

Except… when we got back in, there was a small river in the bathroom! Turn off the water!

We went a day or two, only turning on the water long enough to get some pressure to flush the toilet, and no one really wanted to ‘use’ the toilet for anything other than a quick bathroom break. Luckily, the park had free bathrooms that were clean, so no trauma in the RV.

It took some calls and some experimenting to take off the covers to the shower pan and faucet to look behind and try to tighten things. A few days of running the water for short periods and turning on the shower to test things. A trip to Walmart for a pressure regulator just in case and a water filter and I reattached the faucet and everyone took a shower while I checked under the shower pan after each one. A week into in and still no more leak.

But, there was a horrible musty smell in the bathroom we couldn’t take any more. So I broke down and got some mildew stain remover and two rolls of paper towels and wiped every surface I could reach in the bathroom – floor, walls, cabinets, under the shower, behind and under the vanity. There was a bit of black mold even between the shower backing and the ceiling and I spent a lot of time on that. I even put stuff in the toilet and wiped it all down. There is still a little ‘bathroom’ smell but overall, the musty smell is completely gone.

So far, problem #1 has been solved. Whew!