Search Results for: Caravel plumbing

Feb 01 2013

Yesterday

For a couple of weeks I’ve been anticipating Alumafiesta kicking off, and the key day in my schedule was yesterday. Yesterday was the day Brett & Lisa were scheduled to fly in from Florida to help with the pre-event arrangements, and so Eleanor and I had to get the Airstream Caravel over to the campground in the morning to serve as their housing.

Eleanor has been working hard to get the Caravel set up for guests, since it’s not normally prepared that way. She’s added some useful kitchen items that it really needed, bought new towels, cleaned, checked all the supplies, loaded in special items that Brett & Lisa will need, etc. It took a surprising amount of time, probably because the Caravel hardly ever gets used and things were really not well thought out. In a space that small (17 feet long), you need to think carefully about every item that goes in it, and every item that needs to get out of the way.

Lack of use has been bad for it, too. All RVs and travel trailers need regular attention in order to stay in good shape. The Caravel has been sitting for about nine months, visited only for repairs in the past few months when we discovered the water leak in the fresh water tank. I’ve been apprehensive about putting it back into service, since the long hiatus probably allowed a few new problems to crop up unnoticed. The large temperature swings of the desert in winter and the intense UV light are enough to break down almost anything over time.

For that reason I wasn’t surprised to discover that the propane regulator, which tested fine only two weeks ago, was now leaking gas. I found this problem yesterday as I was hitching the Caravel up the GL320 in the morning. It was too late to do anything about it, so our guests will have to keep the gas off except for when they need to make some hot water for showers, or cook on the stove. I’ll install a replacement regulator later.

While setting the Caravel up at Lazydays, I heard a sinister hissing near the water pump. It turned out that a hose clamp on the water line had worked loose somehow. A single turn of a screwdriver fixed that, but now I was on Full Alert for other water leaks. We’ve had a lot of trouble with the plumbing in this trailer in the past, and frankly I don’t trust any part of the plumbing system at all.

So we pressurized the water system and checked all around for other leaks. Found another one under the kitchen sink, which was resolved with a twist of wrench. This confirmed my paranoia (or whatever, since it’s not paranoia when you know the trailer is out to get you). I left Brett a message to be observant for other signs of water leaks in the plumbing when he arrived.

And sure enough, they found another one the next morning, a pinhole leak in the line leading to the water heater. This sprayed water inside the closet and forced them to de-pressurize the water lines between uses of water. Not a great hotel room, as they go but hey, the price was right.

I have reached the end of my patience with the plumbing. It was one of the few systems that wasn’t completely renovated with the rest of the trailer, and it’s a hodge-podge of hose clamps, different fittings, adapters, and three types of tubing. The various leaks that have sprung up from fittings coming loose and pinholes have managed to put water stains on all the new birch furniture that we spent weeks fabricating. It’s time for a major overhaul with all new materials, so you can expect to read about that sometime this year when I get a chance.

But I didn’t have time for that yesterday, because I needed to run around town all day doing errands for Alumafiesta. My first and best job was to take Bert Gildart over to the Tucson Mountains and Saguaro National Park, both on the west side of town, and help him scout out sites for his upcoming Photo Safaris. That took a few hours, but the results were very gratifying, and we had a nice time, followed by lunch downtown with other Airstream friends.

If only the rest of the day were so pleasant. I ended up logging 110 miles of driving around the city yesterday, battling slightly-worse-than-usual traffic caused by an influx of snowbirds and gem show attendees, while trying to get a few errands done. At the end I was wondering why I was anticipating Thursday so cheerfully.

I guess it was because Thursday meant that things were finally, truly, honestly, happening. I have been working on this event for a full year. Only elephants take longer to gestate. It was immensely gratifying to drive through the Lazydays campground and see already half a dozen Airstreams parked and waiting for the festivities to start next week. That sight, and the smiles on peoples’ faces when they start meeting each other, really makes it all worthwhile. By Tuesday afternoon, we’ll have eighty Airstreams parked together. As one participant wrote to me a few weeks ago: “Can. Not. Wait.”

There are undoubtedly some epic tales to be told of the trips people are making right now, to get here. I know that many of our attendees are coming down fro snowbelt states, possibly battling snowstorms and headwinds to get south or through some mountain pass before descending to the desert floor. Even coming from as close as Flagstaff could mean a tough drive through snow at 7,000 feet. Other attendees are facing personal barriers. I got an email this week from a friend whose mother died on Wednesday. The funeral is Saturday, and he’s leaving Sunday from his home state up north to drive through winter weather over 1,500 miles and get here by Tuesday afternoon.

When people are making that kind of effort to come to our event, well, that’s a very positive kind of pressure. We all want to make sure they feel the trip was worth it. We’ve got to put on a great show. And so help me Wally Byam, we will. With that perspective, I guess I can live with the minor hassles that popped up yesterday. There are worse things than water leaks and traffic. It’s going to be a good week.

Oct 22 2012

One little problem …

When I saw the water leak inside the Caravel several weeks ago, I knew I was in for it. But I had no idea it was going to be this bad.

You might recall that back in early October we discovered that the fresh water tank in the 1968 Airstream Caravel was seeping water and had damaged part of the Marmoleum floor. This incident put me on Full Alert status, because the trailer had been extensively renovated. The Marmoleum floor covering and the plywood subfloor were pristine, and all the woodwork was made new from birch with my own hands. I had a lot invested in that trailer (both time and money) and the sight of a water leak was a dagger to my heart. Water is the #1 killer of Airstreams.

After freaking out for a few minutes, I removed the dinette to assess the damage. The birch was mostly OK thanks to multiple coats of polyurethane, the Marmoleum was lifted (the underlying adhesive had failed), and the water tank was irreparable. Those of you who have been following this saga know that I tossed the tank and ordered a new one, re-glued the floor and mashed it back down with a few hundred pounds of rocks, and fabricated an aluminum threshold to pin the flooring edge. I also sealed the perimeter of the floor covering with tan silicone caulk. That all went well, and now it’s hard to detect that anything ever happened.

The problem of the past week has been installing the new water tank. I ambitiously ordered a 12x12x48 polyethylene tank, which is slightly larger than the original. This by itself just meant I had to trim a little bit of wood here and there, and fabricate a new piece to hold the tank in place. No big deal. The problem came from my failure to request a vent on the tank.

See, the tank is standard-sized but you can have threaded fittings spin-welded anywhere into it. I requested two on the left side: one large fitting at the top for filling the tank, and one small fitting at the bottom for draining it. Logical, right? So I popped the tank in place, hooked up some hose, and we tried to fill it with water as a test.

With no air vent to release the pressure inside the tank, water wouldn’t go into the tank any faster than a weak dribble. Try to fill any faster and water would just burp out the fill opening all over you. I realized my mistake immediately, but what to do? I could have taken the tank around town and found someone locally with spin-welding capability to have a vent added in, but that seemed like a major hassle. Besides, there was no clearance above the tank to fit a vent on the top. The highest point I could fit a vent was equal to the fill point, which meant that when the tank was full, water would come out the vent. That meant I had to find a way to route the vent tube outside, which likely meant cutting a hole in the trailer somewhere. I wasn’t keen on that.

So thereby began a process of trying to outsmart the laws of nature. I dreamed up all kinds of clever ways to vent the tank at the fill hose where it met the tank. Unfortunately, my clever solutions inevitably resulted in a frothy water/air mixture bubbling up the ad hoc “vent” and plugging it, at which point the tank would have no functioning vent and we’d be back to the original problem. Worse, that plug of water would then be forced up the vent hose (by air pressure building inside the tank) and eventually spit out inside the trailer somewhere.

I literally went to bed at night thinking of ways to solve this problem, and woke up in the morning with fresh ideas—which also didn’t work. Every day I went to the hardware store to buy a handful of brass bits, hoses, PVC pipe, and various other plumbing supplies, which I would assemble in the trailer and test. I now have a small Museum of Failed Plumbing in the trash bin. I actually did design a water/air separator that would have worked, but there wasn’t sufficient clearance above, since the dinette seat covers the entire area.

After three frustrating tries, and about six trips to the hardware store, Eleanor suggested something much more clever. “Why don’t we just turn the tank so the drain is at the top?” I glared at the tank for a moment, and suddenly realized she was on to something. By rotating the tank 180 degrees, the large fill opening would be at the bottom, and the drain would be at the top, thus usable as a vent. There’s no problem filling a tank from the bottom as long as the top of the tank is below the entry point, and with a little plumbing I could also use that same bottom connection as the drain. You can see the solution in the photo.

This works beautifully. Now we can fill the tank as fast as we want. As a bonus I was able to route the vent into the existing floor drain, so I didn’t have to cut a fresh hole in the trailer. (The yellow knob is for draining the tank after a camping trip.)

After this I figured I was home free, but no. The next big surprise was that the new tank bulges when full. I hadn’t anticipated that either. The old tank had thick walls and was essentially rigid, but modern poly tanks are thin-walled and very flexible. When I dry-fitted the wood cover and filled the tank to check for leaks, the wood was forced off by the bulging of the tank.

The solution here was to add reinforcement to the tank cover to resist the weight of 225 pounds of water trying to push the walls out. I could have fabricated a new tank cover to accommodate the bulge, but that would meant a search for 1/4″ birch plywood (much harder to find here in Tucson than in wood-happy Vermont) and a few days of cutting, staining, and finishing. At this point I’d been working on the tank problems for a week and I was looking for a way to get this job done. So I added braces and extra screws and I think it will hold up. If not, I have a backup plan involving some aluminum L-channel.

At this point I think I have about 25 hours of work into this “little problem” caused by the original tank leaking. Admittedly, I didn’t just set out to fix the primary problem. I also wanted to improve a few things along the way, like the floor edge sealing, the threshold, and some woodwork details. But it was amazing how that stupid little leak in the tank ended up taking over my life for the past week.

The furniture is back in the trailer now, but the job’s not done. I want to reduce the weight of the dinette table by routing out some of the underside wood. The table was re-made by some well-meaning friends who used 3/4″ plywood, and as a result the table is so heavy it takes two people to lift it out (to convert to a bed). I also need to sanitize the fresh water system with bleach, and I think I may go find the spot where the plumbing makes a loud vibrating noise when the water pump is running, and find some way to silence it.

Whether I get to those jobs this week or not, the trailer needs to get out of the carport and back into off-site storage soon. The Safari’s floor makeover is languishing until I have more carport space, and the Mercedes 300D wants some love too. I’ve got about another six weeks of really fine Fall weather in Tucson to get my projects done, so there’s no time to waste. I’m just hoping that the next few things go more smoothly than this “little problem” with the Caravel.

Oct 07 2012

Airstream floors

Since this is our “off season” for Airstream travel, we’re getting on to maintenance projects in the Airstreams. The 1968 Caravel has taken precedence, by virtue of springing a leak.

A few years ago we replaced the subfloor in the Caravel and put a Marmoleum floor atop it, which I figured would last a long time. Marmoleum is great stuff, although hard to install in a trailer. Stored under cover, in the desert, it seemed unlikely that the floor would be water-damaged, but that’s what happened, right here in our carport. The original plastic water tank began seeping water at a brass fitting (a fitting which has no purpose that I could glean). The seepage was so minor that it was unnoticeable until it had leaked for a few weeks. I went into the Caravel for a quick inspection and stepped into a puddle of water right at the entry door.

By then the wood subfloor was saturated with water, which caused the floor adhesive to fail, and allowed the Marmoleum to lift off and warp. Most annoyingly, the water puddled entirely at the entry door where the damage would be most visible.

We had quickly disassemble the dinette, and lift the Marmoleum an inch at the edge in order to dry out the subfloor. Even in our dry season, with outdoor humidity running about 15-20% during the day, it took over two weeks to fully dry out the wood. In the meantime I consulted Colin Hyde and he warned me not to try to fix the water tank, as it was likely to fail again due to age. I didn’t need much convincing. The old tank was riddled with various plugged holes for tank monitors (unused), drains, and who-knows-what. In the photo you can see the the old brass fitting that was the cause of our problem. The white crusty stuff around the edges is probably dried minerals, and you can also see a split forming in the tank itself (barely visible at the 5 o’clock position).

So I bought a new tank from Vintage Trailer Supply with custom inlet and drain threads “spin welded” in place exactly where I wanted them. The new tank is a little larger than the original, with a 28 gallon capacity, but it fit into the same space with just a little modification to the wood dinette that surrounds it. I had to trim one edge of the lower storage compartment’s face frame, and fabricate a new wood piece to hold the tank in place.

Once installed, the new tank will be much easier to service because it can be positioned to avoid the outside water fill tube, and thus plumbing access will be straightforward. The other one partially blocked the water fill tube, so it was a real pain to connect. I’ve had to take that connection apart three or four times in the past because the water fill kept leaking, so I’m glad to see it go. The new tank will have much cleaner connections that are under less stress, and the tank itself is less likely to leak since it has only two openings (fill and drain) and I’m using all new plumbing. The threads will get Teflon tape, too.

I’m not so sure about the Marmoleum. It got pretty warped in the drying process, and a tear formed at one point. We have attempted to re-attach it to the floor using tan silicon caulk. To flatten it, we’ve stacked a few hundred pounds of leftover slate tiles and flagstone, with a base layer of corrugated cardboard. I’ll let it sit that way for a few days while the fall desert heat bakes it, and then see if we’ve had any luck. If not, we’ll have to scab in a patch.

We can’t do much else inside the Caravel until the floor is fixed, so our attention is turned to the Safari. A few weeks back I had announced an ambitious plan to face-lift the interior, but reality (meaning budget) has prevailed. So we’re going to stretch out the work, and just start with the flooring. John Irwin wrote an article about flooring replacement options, which will appear in the Winter 2012 issue of Airstream Life. Inspired by this, I began to look at quality vinyl planks and discovered that there are some really nice options, and they are cheap, easy to install, and will go right over the existing vinyl floor. We’ll remove the dingy old carpet in the bedroom and put the vinyl planks there, too.

Eleanor and I bought some of the flooring today to do a test layout in the Safari, and it looks good. I expect we’ll take a few days to complete the job, including time to pull out the furniture, prep the existing floor, cut around obstacles, and reinstall the furniture. We will get on that job after the Caravel is done and back in its off-site storage spot. We need extra space in the carport for all the furniture that we’ll be removing from the Safari.

I really don’t have any particular love for flooring work but, like painting, it is gratifying when it’s done and everything looks great. And we’re entering the season of perfect daytime temperatures for outdoor work, so I’m looking forward to tackling the Safari floor soon.

Aug 27 2012

Fortunately, everything got better

I promised you that the second half of the story would be better than the first, so hopefully you can read this blog entry without wincing.

When we left off, things were finally starting to turn in our favor. By Thursday we had the electrical problems mostly worked out, water was extending to all of the campground, most of the trailers were parked, and our seminars were purring along. But we weren’t in the clear by any measure. One of the legs of my 30-amp power cord had melted (due to corrosion and heavy use in Tucson) which caused it to fuse to the surge protector device and melt part of it as well. This meant we could not connect to the power at all. Adam went out to Camping World and bought a new pair of plug ends, so I could fix the cords while working registration in the Event Trailer. The borrowed Caravel that Brett G and Lisa were using had a plumbing problem that caused their black tank to fill up with shower water, and they could not get 30-amp power all week (due to their location). Their refrigerator didn’t work either, so they carted their groceries over to a nearby display trailer and used its refrigerator instead.

Meanwhile, Lucy the bathroom trailer was functional but didn’t have any toilet paper, soap, towels, or hand sanitizer. We managed to get some TP in there but I don’t know if the rest of the supplies ever arrived. (I never had time to go look.) Our dump station still wasn’t done, and so gray water was undoubtedly being disposed by “creative” means. The vendors in the Showcase area were still operating on very limited electricity, and the Event Trailer itself (our headquarters and home of several laptops and all our walkie-talkie chargers) had no power at all. Periodically we’d steal the cord from Chris Cooper’s trailer to recharge all our stuff. He was nearby selling iPad cleaners, and was very good natured about sharing the power.

Amidst all this we had many heroes. From Timeless Travel Trailers, Brett Hall was literally tireless. The man never seemed to sleep. He stayed calm throughout every mishap and always had a plan to overcome. He also ran fantastic historical tours of Lakeside Amusement Park on Wednesday and Friday that helped people appreciate the unique setting we were in. From his team, Paul stood out as an incredible worker, always with a good attitude and quick to solve a problem. Frank, Dick, and John were there most of the week too, running the Bobcat and fixing the power—all great guys who put in a lot of hours to get our sites ready. Lori G, who helped us at the last two Alumapaloozas, helped again with parking and running errands, including fetching pizza for all the staff on Tuesday.

Scott V was there every day to help with parking despite the sun and heat, and his wife Denise came in as well to staff the Event Trailer when the rest of us were running around crazy. Mary and Kyle helped us tremendously just by bringing their daughter Kathryn, because Katheryn and Emma stuck together the entire week and mostly kept themselves entertained. The two sleep-overs were really helpful too. Mary pitched in at registration for a couple of days, even through she was a paying participant in the event. Kevin and Laura volunteered their extremely cool hexcopter to shoot aerial video and the photo you see above.

So if it all worked, it was not because of our core team (Rich/Brett/Eleanor/Lisa) but because of the dozen or so people who jumped in and worked overtime to do their very best. And we’re incredibly grateful.

Now, all of this narrative has been solely my perspective. I was in the trenches, and rarely got a chance to stick my head up and find out what was really happening. As it turned out, the event wasn’t half the disaster that I thought it was. Most of our attendees were very understanding of the glitches and appreciative of the program we’d put together for them. We had tours of Lakeside and Timeless, many seminars, vendors, contests (Aluminum Chef, Backup Derby), dozens of door prizes, some great entertainment, Happy Hours, Open Grill on three nights, Swap Meet, Blogger’s Roundtable, and Luke Bernander’s one-of-a-kind “BarStream” (a.k.a. the “rat trailer”) was hosting evening parties until midnight with free New Belgium beer and popcorn). I gradually began to notice that people were actually having a lot of fun. It was just us workers who thought everything was a disaster.

To some extent, this happens at every first-time event. We set a high standard for ourselves and our events. Our goals are to keep everyone preoccupied with fun things, and have lots of surprises (in this case: free beer, popcorn, Hi-Chew candy), and have everything work smoothly. Well, nothing ever goes perfectly smoothly the first time, but nonetheless by Friday I was being inundated by people saying that they were really enjoying what we’d put together. And when the park opened on Friday night, and everyone saw all the gorgeous lights and rode the rides, they started saying, “I get it now.” They could see why we went through the trouble to build a campground right on the edge of Lakeside Amusement Park. It started to get magical.

In fact, things were running so smoothly by Friday that we all took a break for the evening and rode the rides too. Eleanor and I started with the Ferris Wheel, then the Cyclone roller coaster (the best ride in the park), the Wild Chipmunk, Merry-Go-Round, and the Spider. I joined Adam, Susan, Brett and Lisa for a race in the little “Sports Cars” that go putt-putt around a track, and then the bumper cars (called “AutoSkooter”). We rode until nearly 11 p.m. and then collapsed into the Airstream, wiped out by five days of sleep deprivation. Emma and Kathryn rode the Spider eight times.

There were some other hassles that occurred as late as Saturday afternoon, but overall we felt like we’d managed to work around all the problems and everyone I talked to said they had felt it was a marvelous week. Most of them said they’d like to come back, despite everything. I don’t know if that will happen yet. We are going to look for a number of important improvements before we commit to a repeat, including things like a grass surface and our own entry gate and tent. A few people even signed up on the spot for Alumafiesta in Tucson (Feb 5-10, 2013), so I guess they were really pleased.

After dinner (which was good and ran smoothly, thank goodness), I spent Saturday evening unwinding with some new and old friends among the bloggers. They have documented Alumafandango far better than I could, with photos and video, so I encourage you to read their version of events.

Riveted
Mali Mish
Channel Surfing With Gas

Normally I would have blogged this event daily, but I think you can appreciate why I was silent all week. There just wasn’t enough time for anything, including photos. I have virtually no pictures of my own. But now that it is over, and we have caught up on sleep, I’m able to reflect on everything and read the comments of those who were there. The horrible week I had is starting to look not quite so bad. We survived. We conquered. We learned a lot. And we’re still married. Overall, it was a success.

Now for a little vacation. We’re heading out today for points west. Dinosaur National Monument is at the top of our list. After that, we’ll meander down through Utah.

Oct 28 2011

A dark and stormy night …

The Caravel is a wonderful trailer, into which we’ve lavished attention, parts, and buckets of money, but still it has a few bats in the belfry. (Note: Halloween-y reference in appreciation of the upcoming holiday.) I fired up the water heater in the morning, took a shower, and discovered several new problems. Problems are to be expected in any travel trailer as a result of time, miles, or — worst of all — long-term storage, but it just seems that at some point I should get into it and find that everything works as expected. So far, no luck on that one.

In fairness, the problems are small: water leaks in both of the supply lines leading to the bathroom faucet, and another water leak at the water heater output line. It’s not that the issues are big or expensive, it’s simply that they are there when they shouldn’t be. None of this plumbing leaked last April when I last used the trailer, and it’s only a few years old. So what happened?

Well, storage happened. There are some types of plumbing that are better than others for long-term reliability. Nearly every part of the Caravel has been replaced or renovated in the past few years — except the plumbing. It looked good, so we left it, and that has turned out to be a mistake. I think these leaks are number 5, 6, and 7 since we put it back into service about two years ago. Every compression fitting seems to be failing, possibly as a result of thermal stresses (heat in the summer, cold in the winter) or maybe just age. Some have been fixable with teflon tape, others have required outright replacement.

Paul fixed the water heater leak by replacing a kludged set of rigid plastic fittings (going around a tight corner) with something more elegant. That got me to the rally site in the Grasslands yesterday, although I have had to keep an aluminum pan under the sink to catch the water that is leaking from the other two leaks in the bathroom. (After every use of the water, I turn off the water pump and de-pressurize the system to minimize the leakage.)

The other plumbing surprise was the smell of the hot water. Yikes. Imagine a mixture of onion, wasabi, and sulfur, and then take a shower in it. Phew. It was a result of leaving the trailer in storage all summer. I should have drained the water heater before storing it. Fortunately, I didn’t smell like it when I came out of the shower. After that experience, we drained the hot water tank and flushed it out with fresh water, which seems to have mostly eliminated the issue. I’m going to do a full flush of the system and sanitize it when I get to a full hookup campground, or at home, whichever comes first.

So with the emergency tweaks done, we lined up the rigs in the driveway and set off. There were three of us: Paul & Anne’s 1955 Cruiser, my 1968 Caravel, and Pat’s 1966 Globe Trotter. We paused in Decatur for lunch at the Whistle Stop Cafe and then headed up to the Grasslands, in a steady cold drizzle.

There’s not much positive to say about the first night, unfortunately. It was cold, windy, rainy, and a little muddy. Six Airstreams were parked at the primitive campground we are using in the Grasslands, and all of us hunkered down for the night with the heat on (well, those of us who have heat –Paul never got around to installing his) and stayed inside.

I watched a movie and studied some travel books I’d brought. The catalytic heater was my best friend, hissing quietly and glowing dimly all night long.

Today, however, is another story. The weathermen were right: it is sunny, cool, and dry, and the wind is gone. It’s the kind of weather that Texans have been waiting for all summer. Airstreams are trickling into the campground for the weekend. I have no idea how many we are expecting, but when I left this morning there were 10 already. I took off for a few hours in nearby Decatur to get the parts needed to fix the rest of the Caravel’s plumbing issues, and to take a couple of hours at the local Starbuck’s to catch wifi and charge up the laptop & phone batteries. That’s where I am now, milking an iced decaf Americano with cream and hazelnut as long as possible. This afternoon I’ll install the new pipes in the Caravel. Tonight there will be a potluck dinner and I expect to find a few friends will have arrived when I return to the campground, so it should be a much more interesting evening than yesterday’s dark & stormy night.