From the song We're Gonna Move, written by Vera Matson and Elvis Presley, as sung by Elvis Presley:
Well there's a hole in the roof where the rain pours in
A hole in the floor where it drops right out again
Well there's a leak in this old building
Well there's a leak in this old building
Well there's a leak in this old building
We're gonna move to a better home
I had a strange feeling this week that Elvis was right. It seems that my motor home has developed a hole in the roof.
After a six-week trip home, I retrieved the motor home Tuesday from a storage facility near Dayton, Ohio, and drove to Indianapolis. A heavy rain storm Tuesday evening produced an unexpected result: a steady drip-drip-drip of water from the air vent over the bed. Oh-oh!
I placed a bucket on the bed to catch the water. That's not a good solution for sleeping but, luckily, the rain stopped before my normal bedtime. Wednesday morning, I looked up at the air vent over the bed and could see just a bit of sunlight streaming in. That was not a good sign.
The motor home has three crank-open air vents. These are somewhat like trap doors in the roof. Each one is about a foot square and is made of fiberglass. The vent in the bedroom had developed a hairline crack. It was a tiny crack, but big enough to let the rain drip in.
I assume that duct tape can fix anything. I decided to place a bit of duct tape over the crack and I believed that would fix things for a few days until I could schedule repairs at a local RV repair shop. I always keep a roll of duct tape handy.
I climbed up the ladder on the back of the motor home. That, in itself, was a scary experience. I don't do well on ladders.
Once on the roof, I cut off a six-inch piece from the roll of duct tape, leaned over, and gently pressed the tape in place. Then all h*ll broke loose.
It seems my gently used motor home has been sitting in the sun a bit too long. The fiberglass vent has become brittle from age. When I pressed on the top of the hairline crack, the entire top of the vent disintegrated into little pieces, similar to the crust of a freshly baked pie. The vent collapsed.
The hairline crack was instantly converted to a hole big enough to put my fist through. In fact, it looked as if I had done just that: put my fist through it!
Luckily, air vents aren't terribly expensive. In fact, the labor charge will probably be more expensive than the parts. I called a couple of repair places but nobody could replace the air vent until Friday. Sadly, I had to make presentations at a genealogy conference on Friday and Saturday. I made a service appointment for first thing Monday morning.
As I pondered the new, huge hole in the motor home roof, I realized that a long line of very dark clouds were moving in from the west. The weather forecast was for heavy rain, high winds, and even a slight chance of tornados. I don't want to sleep in a wet bed so I couldn't wait until Monday!
What could I do? I tried more duct tape but only succeeded in making the hole even larger. Duct tape had failed me.
I ran to Wal-Mart (it was the closest place I could think of) and bought the largest dish pan I could find. I rushed back to the motor home as big drops of rain started to appear on the windshield. I went up the ladder again in a hurry, carrying the dishpan and the roll of duct tape with me. That was dangerous by itself: I didn't have enough hands to carry everything properly.
I flipped the dishpan upside down and placed it over the vent with the hole. I hurridly used the duct tape to hold the inverted dishpan in place in case of high winds. It wasn't pretty, but the kludgey combination of a dishpan and duct tape kept everything dry as the rains came down a few minutes later, accompanied by what I estimate to be 30 to 40 mile-per-hour winds.
Whew!
As I write these words, it is Sunday evening and I am parked outside the repair shop at Camping World. I'll be sleeping in the parking lot overnight and should be first in line when they open up at 8 AM tomorrow. That's not unusual for people who own motor homes or camping trailers. There's already several other RV owners "camped out" in the same parking lot this evening. I assume they are all here for repairs of some sort.
I had planned to drive to Oshkosh on Sunday and should have been at the opening of the big airshow there about now. However, it now looks like I won't be in Oshkosh until Tuesday evening, at the earliest. If the repair shop is busy or needs to order parts, I could be delayed even longer.
