When Tom and I get back to Ohio, we usually have a long list of things to do. After all, Ohio is our “home base” and we know where to find the things we need. When we got back to Ohio after Grand Portage we also wanted to find a good repair place for the RV so we don’t have to go back to Kansas whenever we need something done. I am happy to report that we got almost everything on our checklist done and found some great service people in the process.
One of the challenges of living in an RV fulltime is finding a good repair place that understands that you don’t have anyplace else to go while your home is under repairs. If you have a house, you have the repair people come to you. With an RV, the repair people want you to bring the RV to them. Fortunately there are some mobile RV repair people who will come to the RV.
We had two particular things to do for repairs on the RV: we wanted to get the air conditioner fixed in the bedroom before coming to South Carolina (high temp yesterday was 84) and we wanted to get the microwave / convection oven working. I wrote about these things breaking in a different post and the microwave / convection oven has steadily declined in reliability. We found a replacement microwave / convection oven and were prepared to buy it and spend a day installing it when Tom decided to check out some electrical connections as a last resort. He plugged the microwave into a different outlet using an extension cord and it worked fine. Then he plugged the microwave into the outlet we have been using but kept the extension cord attached. Ever since it has worked the way it is supposed to. I don’t know why the extension cord makes a difference but I am happy as long as it is working. An easy, cheap fix that I wish we had discovered a year ago!
The air conditioner was beyond Tom’s inventive expertise, so we asked around at the RV campground and found Mobile RV Service: “Professional Service at Your Location.” The owner and repairperson is Mike Graney. When we first called him, he was going on vacation and said he would call when he got back. With the weather in Ohio in the 80’s every day, we were hoping he would remember. About ten days later he called back and said he could come out to look at it. After 20 minutes on the roof with the air conditioner, he had the problem diagnosed. He told us a part to order and where to order it from. When the part came in three days later, we picked it up, called him, and he came out that afternoon to install it. That night (and every night since) the air conditioner has worked beautifully. Mike was more expensive than taking the RV in to a service area but it was much more convenient for us. We are willing to pay more for excellent service. He is definitely our go-to repair guy from now on.
Another one of our things to do was get the RV washed and waxed. Just like a car, the RV needs to have its finish serviced. We called Speedy K’s, a detailing service that does cars, boats, and RVs. They put us on their schedule and came out bright and early one morning. They washed the RV very thoroughly, restoring the roof to its proper shade of white. They waxed the finish to a beautiful shine. They cleaned all the windows outside and cleaned the carpeting and upholstery inside. They were expensive – they charge by the length of the vehicle – but they did beautiful work and even pointed out places where the finish had been damaged at the factory! Lesson to remember: don’t use an automatic buffer on the finish on an RV. I also learned that paint finishes on vehicles and RVs are not as sturdy as they used to be because of the environmental guideline changes to paint. Speedy K’s was expensive, but they worked very hard and were done in four hours, giving me excellent service.
Our list of things to do was pretty long when we got to Ohio. Now that it is time to move on, it is good that so many of them have changed from things to do to things done.