A disastrous weekend
We were preparing to go to a THS rally over the Easter weekend and by Wednesday we were ready. The management had the fridge chilled and with enough food for the forthcoming period (she always pre cools the fridge at least 24 hours in advance). By the time we retired for the night all that remained were the final bits to go in before 'the off' in the morning.
At about 1.30 am something went bang in the house and we awoke to find we had no electricity. Something had tripped out the main circuit breaker. Worse was yet to come as we could not reset it. No problem, a couple of phone calls (it was covered by insurance) and we were assured someone would be out first thing to attend to it so we retired again. At 7.30 the phone rang, the emergency repair company said they had a problem but someone would be attending at midday. It then occurred to me that the fridge in the motorhome had been without power for six hours and perhaps I should put the gas on and restart the fridge. Entering the van it seemed a bit cold as the temperature had gone down to zero overnight so I felt perhaps a bit of heat wouldn't go amiss, we would get the repairs done and still get away. Several phone calls throughout the morning gave me impression the the repairman was not going to get there as quick as we had hoped, the house was cold, no hot water, no electric and no heat. One o'clock and I went to the chippy for a hot meal and I got back to find the electrician looking for my address. We got the power restored an hour later but none the wiser as to why it had cut out in the first place and then it tripped out again. We finally got away for the rally at 6.30 pm, arriving on site at 8.30. There was not much to do so after a light meal and a cuppa we retired for the night. It is unfortunate that I have to use a CPAP machine to sleep otherwise the other half doesn't get any (sleep that is). This uses electricity but performs quite happily on an inverter so the lack of an electric hook up didn't bother me. Early the next morning it started bleeping, telling me the power was low. I put the solar panel on the roof and later on during the day got the generator running to top up the battery. I had forgotten that heating the van uses battery power as well as gas and with no electricity the battery was struggling. By Sunday afternoon the gas supply failed so we switched on the the second (smaller) reserve bottle. The heater continued to work but started to cut out unexpectedly for no reason as gas was still available and the fridge and hob still functioned. By this time we had decided to cut the holiday and depart a day earlier than planned. Everything was packed away and I put the key in the ignition to start the engine. Nothing ! One and a half hours later we restarted, with thanks to the RAC and we made our way home. I learnt that the RAC do not recover vehicles over 5.5 metres in length, mine is nearly 7.5 metres. Good job we are still covered by our manufacturers warranty. Why had the break been such a disaster? The leisure battery did not have enough power and unknown to us the auto system had switched the power supply from the leisure battery to the vehicle battery and had slowly drained away leaving insufficient to get the van started, both of the batteries were less than a year old and had been topped up throughout the winter periodically, alas the weather had not helped as it had been exceptionally cold. Today I checked the system and everything was back to normal. The heater failed because although there was gas available, there was no power to run the blower. The literature that came with the van doesn't mention the auto power switch but does state that there is a symbol showing when the vehicle battery is in use on the display panel. I should have noticed. Something tells me we should have put off the disastrous weekend when the house power first went down but, for all that we had a great time. I'll do better next time and check before we set out on another trip.
