Thanksgiving camp 2018

[Rich Thomas]

On Saturday Nov.17th I had started prepping the Palace for our annual Thanksgiving camp and it dawned on me that my furnace had, had a problem this past spring that I neglected to look into. Once again I found myself in panic mode and pulling the furnace out of the little hole it calls home. This is a problem that started from way back when the PO tried to use a modern thermostat to control a basic furnace and smoked the fan relay. I replaced it with a new proper two wire one from the RV parts store and a new  fan relay from E- Bay. This was last season and the old but hardly used furnace igniter board died from dried out capacitors and just old age. Wanting to keep my furnace safe I bought a new suburban part made by Fenwal and it worked in the fall but failed this spring. When we had our last camp of last year it worked with out issue but this spring it fired one time and died; luckily we always have backup and finished the trip with the old reliable space heater. So, I needed to work on it and thought maybe the sail switch was bad or the fan relay had again failed. I hated the thought of working on the electric's because that meant pulling the furnace from the camper because there is no access to the panel; you have to pull the furnace from it's case to do any repairs and that sucks. While it was out I cut a hole at the area of the case that covers the electrics and made a cover for it so next time it will not be an issue. Any way after going through the circuit I found that my new igniter board was faulted and again needed replaced. This is a $139.00 Suburban part and, yes it's made in China.  I decided not to bother with wasting my time and more money buying another one from Suburban and went with a Dinosaur Electric replacement  instead. It was to be here on the same day we was to leave for our Thanksgiving camp so I went ahead and put the furnace with the altered case back into it's little  hole and waited for the part. I figured if it didn't make it we would still be good to go and use the backup space heater. To my surprise at 11:00 Wednesday morning it was delivered to my door step and I promptly installed it into the furnace and ran it through it's paces and again it was good to go. We spent four night's in 25-6 degree weather and could not have been happier. The Dinosaur Electric's igniter board never missed a beat and I was very impressed with it straight out of the box. It is made in America, it has a three year warranty and is very beefy using much larger transistors and capacitors I also have there solid state fan relay for when the old one gives up. Oh and a sad note the back up heater that has served us well for so many years passed some in the night when we had it plugged in to come on in case the furnace failed. The Irony is not lost on me! Camping is an adventure meant to bring us back from the brink in these modern times. For us, the Thanksgiving camp has become a tradition I hope to keep going for years to come. Sharing pie's and bread baked on the open fire and a Turkey masterfully fried in the deep fryer with all the trimmings, friends, family gathered at the picnic table chatting about this and that and, the silence as we call to prayer giving thanks for the bounty and to those who sacrifice for the greater good. I'm proud of my country, my god and my family. I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving!