Trailer Living, Episode 2
One of the things about living in a trailer is you are up close and personal with your utilities. The stove and oven you cook on are in the middle of the living room. The bathroom sink is pretty much in the bedroom. And the thin shell that forms the exterior of the RV makes you acutely aware of your heater, AC and fans.

Not long ago we were sitting in the living room after work, watching TV and thinking about having cold cereal for dinner (again) when we noticed it was getting cold. The heater was on, but the air coming out of the vents was no warmer than that in the room. Maybe a little cooler, even.
When in doubt, reboot. We turned off the heater entirely. Waited awhile. Turned it back on. It worked. Phew.

About 3 a.m. Brian and I both woke up, VERY cold. Me: “The heat is definitely not working.” Brian: “Maybe we’re out of propane.” Me: “How could we be out of propane? Didn’t you fill it?” Brian: “Yes but it’s been cold. We may need to switch to the other tank.”

This is not good news. Switching to the other tank involves going outside in the coooooold, walking around the trailer, fooling around opening the propane tank compartment and switching the open/closed valves on the two propane tanks. It’s not a fantastically big deal, but neither of us were eager to volunteer.

Me: “Maybe it’s the heater.”
Brian: (silence)
Me: “Oh, okay. I’ll go see if it’s the propane.”

Scantily clad and shivering, I hopped into the kitchen and turned on one of the stove burners. This is our tried and true method for figuring out if we have run out of propane. Whoosh! The burner came on immediately. I scurried back to bed.

Me: “It’s not the propane.”

To make a long story only slightly shorter, the heater was on the blink. At dawn I went out to take a look and noticed that a pipe had been dripping above the main mechanism and there seemed to be corrosion on some electrical components. Scary. After shivering through our morning ablations and going to work, Brian called a nearby trailer repair guy and arranged to have him come out.

Now, our lives at this point were crazy. We both had full days of work, followed by a meeting with the general contractor, then Brian was leaving to go see a Blazer game. That left me alone in the trailer, huddled under blankets, waiting for the RV repairman who Brian had conned into making a house call.

“Rocky” arrived around 6 p.m. wearing flip flops and a graying ponytail. He was pretty fabulous, actually. I went out to the driveway to meet him and as we approached the trailer he paused and asked, “Are you comfortable with how your awning works?”

This is RV-expert code for “Good lord! Look what they’ve done to their awning!”

Now, the awning is what it sounds like. A flap of fabric that is attached to the top edge of the trailer, extending out over the front door so you have a place to stand out of the rain when smoking a cigarette.

Clearly, we had not set it up properly. Rocky made a couple of quick adjustments (which I completely forgot as soon as he showed me) and we were all set. This was a BIG improvement, since the awning had been acting as a sail in recent wind storms, putting the trailer at risk of being lifted up out of the yard, or least having the awning rip off.

We went into the trailer and I explained that our heat was out and it wasn’t the propane and there seemed to be water dripping down and corroding the wiring. He checked out the thermostat and general system inside and turned on the heat. We waited. And the heater turned on. Gunnnngghg! Wouldn’t you know it.

However, there had been a problem so Rocky asked to take a look at what I was seeing outside. I led him around to the side compartment and, with vigorous gestures and sounds of dismay, pointed out the dripping pipe and corrosion.

“Well,” he said, “that’s your water heater.”

Oh.

The good news (in the face of my trailer incompetence) is that the dripping pipe is not a big deal. It should be fixed, but this is a pretty normal occurrence.

It also turns out the actual heater was on the other side of the trailer entirely, and only accessible from inside. The fiendishly cleverly designers put the heater under the refrigerator and blocked the access panel with a step. So, getting to the heater involves removing the step that is screwed in to the floor, and since every possible space in the trailer is used for storage, the top of that step flips up so you can put stuff inside the stair. And, me being me, that step was full to the brim with all kinds of things.

We decided to leave well enough alone for the moment, since the heater was working.

Rocky left and about 20 minutes later the heater stopped working again.

Now, we do have an electric space heater in the trailer. It is Brian’s. He keeps it at his feet and creates this little pocket of warmth between him, his cushy chair and the TV. It’s quite comfortable. For him. And he does this even when the heater works.

I broke policy and redirected the space heater to heat the larger room. Called Brian at the game and he promised to pick up another space heater we had in storage at a friend’s house, on his way home that night.

Now, I’m not entirely sure about what happened after that. I went to bed and slept pretty well under the giant mound of bathrobes, towels and random sweaters I heaped onto the bed.

Next thing I know, it’s morning. The alarm is going off. Brian is snuggly tucked beside me. All is well, right? Wrong.

Now, not only do we not have heat, we also don’t have power. None. Turns out our electrical system is not strong enough to support multiple space heaters. This is probably for the best since there’s bound to be some kind of carbon monoxide problem at some point, but having no power was a problem.

Brian explained (still snug in bed as I rattled around the living room) that the circuit blew last night and he had tried all the breakers and none of them were tripped. Well, it turns out that’s because he only checked the breakers inside the trailer. There is also a breaker outside the trailer where we plug into the power pole. Some chilly outdoor investigation revealed that the breaker on the power pole had flipped. I reset it, and we once again had power. No heat, but power. Much rejoicing ensued.

Fast forward. I unloaded the canned goods, spices, spaghetti, chocolate sprinkles, brown sugar and other random things that had been stored in the stairs, Rocky removed the step and replaced the motherboard for the heater. We’re all set now. At least, until the next trailer episode. Stay tuned.

P.S. I’ve been mentioning “rooms” in the trailer as if they are completely separate spaces. That is only somewhat true. For example, the “bathroom” is basically a 3’ hallway from the bedroom to the main living space, with a small alcove for the toilet and shower.