Why not to wait until the week before leaving to check out the Airstream:
We’ve decided to go to Penn Wood Airstream Park, outside of Clairon, PA, since it’s close and relatively inexpensive. Unfortunately, this was the first day I got to go to the Airstream and check on the systems.
I planned on accomplishing the following:
- Refilling the air in the tires, making sure the tires hold air after sitting 11 months slowly going flat;
- Connecting the water lines, and firing up the water heater (which I’ve never done);
- Re-repairing the torn vent tubes;
- Testing the (electric-only) refrigerator, and reinstalling it if it works;
- Cleaning out the interior, to clean out the mouse-signs and sand from last year.
There’s a warning sticker on the air compressor that cautions you to only plug the compressor into an outlet, never an extension cord, and boy, they weren’t kidding! I ran 3 lengths of extension cord from my in-law’s house to the trailer, and tried starting the compressor. The noise it made was of the “aChug Hummmm…” variety, so I wheeled it back toward the house (and two of the 3 extension cords). There, I got an “aChugmmmmChugmmmmmChugmmmm…” I can’t really figure out how, but somehow the compressor just KNEW I was trying to cheat.
So after I plugged the compressor into the house outlet (where it worked fine), I ran the lengths of hose to the airstream to pressurize the line. When I went inside, however, I found that the trailer had grown a shower under the galley sink. Apparently, my plan of blowing out the water lines to avoid putting antifreeze in them didn’t work out so well.
Sure enough, there was a split in the 1/4″ cold water supply, right where the sink fitting was soldered into the cold supply. I hacksawed the split section out and took a trip to Lowes. I decided to go with compression fittings, since I’ve never soldered plumbing before, and seems like it would be easier to fix future breaks with compression fittings.
It seems that the pipes either expanded slightly all along it’s length, or the pipes from 1977 were made slightly thicker, because I wasn’t able to get the compression fitting on the sink side, despite cutting the pipe back several times. I think I’m going to have to learn how to solder plumbing, and quick, since we’re suppoed to be leaving next weekend, and I still don’t know if the hot water tank works, which is important, if we’re going to be using the shower.
I gave up on the sink for the moment, and went to fix the torn vent stack hoses. That turned out to be another problem, since removing the old tape revealed that one of the hoses was torn way below the level of the floor, and to fix that, i’d have to remove the belly pan to access it.
That problem put me way behind schedule, so I’m going to have to find time this week to catch up.