Aqua Hot Repair Pt 3 & Sky Rider Cafe

If you have been following my blog for the past month or so, you would know we've been having problems with the electric part of our Aqua Hot heater.  The Aqua Hot runs on electric or a diesel burner and provides continous hot water to the appliances & also to the furnace.  When it works, it is great.  

We returned to Tucson early to have the unit worked on and they determined it was the electric heating element, which was replaced after it was ordered, so second trip.  Nope, didn't fix it.  Then it was diagnosed as the main control board.  The board was ordered or maybe it wasn't.  When I checked, they fumbled around and said they would try and locate it locally.  That was my first clue they had forgotten to order it.  Finally, it came in and today was the day for repairing the unit.

We arrived early for our appointment and sat around for a couple hours and grew bored.  I took advantage of being at the dealer to have the Aqua Hot unit serviced as it is recommended to do this every year and we hadn't had it done in 3 years.  Hey, it still worked fine on the diesel burner.  Otherwise, we would have been out of there in an hour or so, according to our service writer. 

Normally the dealer has a free lunch for customers but the restaurant section is closed on Monday.  Note - no future service on Monday.  We at first thought we'd visit the Rodeo Museum in Tucson but decided to save that for a later day.  We had discussed having lunch at the Marana Regional Airport a number of times and decided to head out there for lunch.

 
They have a small lunch counter and also a number of tables in two sections.  We chose the larger room and made ourselves comfortable.

 The restaurant seems to be popular with motorcycle riders and there was a table full of them here today.  These are not the "Hells Angel" type of riders, but just everyday people out enjoying riding on their Harleys.  One of the bloggers I follow was at the restaurant the other day.  Retired Rod 

There was a mural painted on the wall behind me and Gerry managed to get a good picture of the mural and a goofy shot of me.  There are a number of aircraft pictures, artifacts and odds and ends on the walls of the restaurant.

 A little guy decided to drop in for lunch while we were there and arrived in an unexpected manner.

Gerry ordered a chicken bacon wrap and I had my old standby of a ham club sandwich.  I have found that it is very difficult to mess up a club sandwich and order them all the time.  The meals were filling and it was not possible to finish them off, so we left some French fries and onion rings.  We couldn't escape without ordering a huge cinnamon bun to go for eating later in the evening.  I wonder why I am so fat. 

There is some history at the airport and I didn't learn about it until after we left.  We explored down an airport road and turned around too soon.  If we would have gone another 1/4 mile we would have seen the following historical airplane.

The first Air Force One aircraft is housed at the Marana Regional Airport. The Lockheed VC-121 Constellation 48-610 was affectionately named after the columbine, state flower of Colorado, the home of first lady Mamie Eisenhower. It was used as the presidential aircraft in 1953 and replaced in 1954, when it became the backup.  Now it is rotting in the sun and heat and is being destroyed very quickly.  It is estimated that it would cost $220K to restore the plane but nobody has stepped forward with an interest in doing this.

It was time to return to the RV repair shop and wait for them to finish up with the repairs.  They work slowly and I think on more than one RV at a time.  Made for a long day for us.  The control board below was at the root of all our troubles and was replaced.  It amazes me to see all the printed circuit boards in use in computers, cars and RVs.  I can't imagine how many boards are in modern airplanes.

They finally completed the repair and service work and we were out of there just in time for rush hour.  As usual, the repair costs were enough to take your breath away.  However, we got out of there cheaply.  When we bought the RV we paid for a 5 year extended warranty and they picked up the major portion of the costs.  Nice.  Now I just hope the Aqua Hot works for the remainder of the time we have the RV.

BTW:  While we closed the bar the other night, it was an early closure.  We were out of there by 11pm and on our way back to the RV.

We took Gerry's cousin and husband to the Tucson Int'l Airport Friday morning so they could catch their flight to Las Vegas, NV.  They completed their 4 week visit to the U.S. there and left this afternoon for the long flight back to Australia.  Bon voyage you guys.  

That was our exciting day, how was yours?

Aqua Hot Repair - 2nd visit

Once again we were up early and on the road to La Mesa RV to have the Aqua Hot heater worked on.  They ordered a new heating element and thought it would fix the problem.  We were at the check in for the repairs before 9AM and they took the motor home in quickly.  

Great, maybe we would have time to drop off Christmas cards at the post office and a quick trip to Costco before they called us.  All went well at the post office with Gerry completing the mailing, buying stamps and getting out of there in 5 minutes.  I don't know if we were lucky or the staff at the Cherrybell Rd post office is that good or it isn't used that much.  It is the main post office for Tucson so you would think they would be very busy.  In any case it was a welcome stop at this busy time of year for post offices.

Then it was over to Costco to take on gasoline at $2.19/gallon and then wait for the store to open at 10AM.  We made a phone call to Cassie & Bella and that took up a lot of the wait time.  It was a breeze in Costco since the hoards of shopper hadn't arrived yet.  Wow, this is looking good for us.

Back to La Mesa RV in time to get a free hamburger and drink for lunch.  No wait there since they weren't busy at all.  We took our time eating and then went over to the service lounge area to wait for the work to be completed on the motor home.  We waited and waited and I checked on the progress a couple times and there wasn't any progress.  Finally at 4:30PM the service writer came out and said there was a problem.  It seems the main control board is bad also and they have to order a new one.  Ooooopppss!!!  That wasn't good news to say the least.  Now they have to receive the new control board and we scheduled an appointment on January 5, 2015 to have the new board installed.  Yes, 2015!!!!  

The only thing good to come out of today with the motor home was finding out the Extended Warranty company is footing the bill for whole repair except for our deductible.  That is a big relief since this repair will most likely be around $2k by the time they finish the job.  We still have the diesel heater for hot water and the furnace, so we can function fine until the repair is completed.

We had a chance to talk to some of the people waiting for their repair work to be finished and had some interesting conversations.  I should say I talked to them while Gerry read an interesting book on her Kindle.  One gentleman has just purchased a motor home and was on his first trip to the Southwest and he also had a problem with his Aqua Hot heater.  Humm, am I seeing a pattern here with the system.

Another young couple had an older motor home and the high pressure hose on his power steering burst and he barely made it into the dealership.  They spent the night inside the fence at La Mesa RV and were taken in early this morning.  I don't know what all the problems were with his motor home, but it was an expensive repair from what I heard him say.  Enough that it must have ruined his day.  They left around 4PM and were heading for a boondocking spot west of town.  

Finally, we were on our way back to the park and were hooking up when Ron K came by and invited us to dinner.  We finished the hook up and joined him at a local Mexican food restaurant.  He goes there often enough that they know what he is going to order.  The food was great and we enjoyed chatting with Ron and when another Cactus Country rver came by and chatted with us it seemed like a nice homecoming.   Then it was back to the motor home to visit with Ron for a while and finally some relaxing tv watching and enjoying a glass of wine.

I received a nice Christmas present from Larry Jr via email today.  He has a good memory and proved it today with the email.  Thanks Jr., it brightened my day.

See, we do live an exciting life sometimes.  How was your day?   

Aqua Hot Repairs

We took the motor home in to have La Mesa RV check out our Aqua Hot water heater system on December 9th.  It's more than a water heater system and is quite complicated to work on it, plus it's in an almost impossible spot to reach.  The technician pulled the unit and discovered the electric heating element was faulty.  I had an idea that since it would not heat on electric but ran fine on the diesel burner, it had to be the heating element or the board.   La Mesa said they would have to order the part and they would call us when it comes in.  At least we've had hot water the past month or so running the diesel side of the unit.

The problem first appeared when we were in North Carolina, but the local dealer said it would be January before he could work on it.  That is a familiar reply from them when I've tried to have them work on our motor home.  Always 6-8 weeks in the future, so that ruled them out.  Rather than run all over looking for someone to work on the water heater, I called La Mesa and made an appointment.

We got a call from La Mesa RV on Friday and now have an appointment for December 18th to have them complete the repair.  It will be nice to have the electric unit working once again since I really don't like to run the diesel burner all the time.

It started raining Friday night and rained all day on Saturday and we decided to stay around the campground all day.  I had ordered an air compressor on Amazon a few days ago and it came in Saturday.  The compressor is bigger than it looked on the order page and will do all that I need it to do, plus some.  It is an 150 PSI unit and is strong enough to air up the tires on the motor home.

Now I have to find space to store it, which may be difficult.  I guess I will have to work on the 3 cases of beer in the basement area and free up that space.  Why 3 cases?  Well, I like Yuengling Beer and they don't sell it west of the Mississippi river so I bring along enough to get me through 3-4 months.
 
Gerry decided since we were grounded by the rain, she would work on making Christmas cards for the family.  We still have to send out the cards this year and are running behind schedule due to arriving here later this season.
   
After church today we went on a search for some Crosse & Blackwell Mincemeat so Gerry can bake me a mincemeat pie for Christmas.  Safeway usually carries it, but they don't have any in stock.  Fry's and Walmart also don't have any in stock so this could get very serious.  None Such Mincemeat is available, but I don't care for the taste of it and prefer Crosse & Blackwell.  Picky, picky!

Those were our exciting last few days here in Tucson.  Throw in some shopping and a few restaurants for dinners and that's it for us.  Some blog posts are interesting and others aren't.  It depends on your taste in reading which category this one falls into.