I have not made it back to the family house since 2 weeks ago to finish up, heck, I haven’t even had a chance to try calling mom to just talk to her. I have been busy taking care of my husband.
No, he isn’t sick, but he has been going crazy over our RV and its batteries. Back towards the end of July I mentioned that we had ordered new RV batteries and then had to drive down to New Jersey and spend part of the day getting them installed (by the company which ordered them for us). We thought that would be the end of dealing with the batteries. It was not.
To explain the problem with this - our RV (a Chevy Express Van converted to a very small RV) has the regular battery under the front hood which does all the “car” type things - like starting the engine. We also have in a cabinet which opens to the outside two more batteries - similar to those in golf cart. These run all the electrical RV things, when turned on, if the RV is not plugged in and the engine is not running - like while the RV sits in a parking lot all day while we are somewhere. (Well most of them - we cannot run the RV air conditioner unless plugged in or the engine running.) There is a small electrical panel on a wall in the RV which lets us check how much water in the clean water tanks, how much is in the dirty water tanks, how much propane we have in it’s tank, and how well the electricity is doing. (It also has the switches on it to turn on the RV batteries to allow them to be used and to turn on the water pump so water works out of the sink, toilet, etc.) The top light for the batteries on this panel lights up and is green when the RV batteries are charging while the RV is plugged in or the engine is running.
In addition to the green charging light showing that the RV batteries are charging, husband has a small device to plug into the cigarette lighter to check the voltage of the engine battery or into a similar receptacle he had put in so he could check the voltage of the RV batteries. This had been low for the RV batteries, which is why we replaced them - especially since they were 2 years passed their expected life.
However, after the RV batteries were replaced, the green light still was not lighting up. That meant the RV batteries were not charging. We do not have an RV dealer near us to go to about any of this (hence the trips to Pennsylvania and New Jersey to get work done). Husband was going crazy about this. Over the past month and a half we paid out something like $4-5000 that we do not have to fix the three vehicles. He needs to get a tooth added to his denture as one fell out - probably another thousand dollars. Between being upset that the RV batteries are not charging, not knowing where to go about it, and not being able to pay to find out what is going on, he was rather despondent and depressed.
We have a really good mechanic and he tries to help us as much as possible even though he does not know about RVs. The fellow who used to work for him (retired) was even better at figuring all this out. Just in time for us - the fellow who had retired decided that he needed to work part time as he was going crazy retired. We called them and explained. I was suppose to go to work this past Tuesday, but husband was soooo, upset about all this - and Tuesday was when they could take the RV - I made the work appointment for Thursday (tomorrow) instead.
The engine battery was also low and was replaced (had another year and a half to go on it). But it the voltage was still low. There is a device, called a separator, which lets the engine battery or the RV batteries charge alone when needed. It is apparently a simple electrical switch, but not generally available. We had talked about ordering one to have it if needed and with all this going on, last week we did. It came in this past Monday.
Tuesday we were ready to go out for lunch and had not heard about the RV, so I asked if he wanted to stop by on the way to lunch and then suggested we put the separator in the car.
The fellow who worked on it was on the verge of replacing the alternator as he still could not get the system to the correct voltage. He was looking online for which of their suppliers had one for our RV that was good and not crazy expensive. We all went out to play with the RV. The fellow had not known about the light panel to show the RV batteries were charging. We showed it to him. They used this voltage meter and that in this place and that. Then I asked - can the voltage going through the separator be checked? Ah ha! Voltage going into the separator - right - voltage coming out - low! We brought him the separator and the voltage on each side was the same. Solved! Husband was so relieved to see the green light on the panel light up!
So, if I had not stayed home with him to comfort him, we would have paid out more big money for an alternator and still not resolved it. (Makes me wonder if we needed any of the batteries, but that is water under the bridge.)
In the process of all this - we have driven out to almost the end of Long Island to charge all the batteries. Since we do this after dinner we can go and return in about 2 hours. I have lived my entire life on this (long) Island and have been out as far this (or further) maybe 10 times, 12 at the most on the north shore. Five of these times - including these two times - have been to charge the RV batteries.
So I lost 2 nights of being able to do things in the house. I am going to my client 3 days later than I planned - and there is a possibility of thunderstorms. Plus the day lost while he was too upset to be home alone and all the time we were outside in the RV playing with the batteries.
In addition, my sister had sent me a text Monday evening asking me to go to mom on Tuesday as she was meeting with the physical therapist and would have to sign papers. Unfortunately it must have come in while I was out of the kitchen - after leaving my phone on the table while cooking. I did not see the text - due to all of the above mess - until half an hour after the end of the of the time range of when I was needed there! So poor mom was there alone because of all this mess. I sent a text to my sister explaining and apologizing, but have not had a chance to call mom.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Our time is limited. If we need (or want) to do one thing, we cannot do something else at the same time. Our loved ones are the most important reason for choice to be made. I am not sure if I had the text in time if I would have picked going to my mom or staying with my husband to make sure he did not go over the edge. When I apologized to my sister, I also told her that next time something must be done on such short notice, to call to make sure I knew about it and did not miss another important text.
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