Hot water woes ...part deaux

Well I guess I was a little premature when I declared the hot water fixed. I went out the front door of the coach and there was water running out the bottom of the access door to the heater. Now what??!! I knew the pressure regulator had been dripping occasionally and had purchased a spare "just in case". Now it was pouring water out at a steady stream and it wasn't even hot water. Time to change the old corroded regulator with the shiny new one.

I got out my adjustable pliers, turned off the water and "presto, chango" had that sucker swapped out in no time!. I turned everything back on and was back in business. The water heater fired up and ran, and ran, and ran, and ran before finally shutting completely down. Now what??!! I quickly deduced it had to be the thermostat not working. There is an emergency cut off that shuts things down when the water reaches a really high temperature, like 200 degrees (YIKES!). I called the only RV place here in Campbellsville and he had the proper part so we made a stop on our way to work. Yesterday was another "presto, chango" day so I once again got my tools out and started to work. The old thermostat came out pretty easy but the new one was a little tougher to install. The thermostat is held in place by three tabs on the outer wall of the water heater case and is held tight to the inner tank by a spring that has to be compressed while turning the thermostat so it locks in place. I had to bend the tabs a little with my screwdriver and, of course, two were easy and the third one was tough to get too. Of course no job is complete with out a little blood shed and an apology to our neighbors for my language. :-)

I was able to get the new thermostat installed and after two days of operation it is back to cycling like normal.
No big news at work yet on our release date. We are still planning on our last shift being our "normal" end of week on December 21st. There has been some rumors about us getting out a day or two earlier. We are supposed to get the "official" date from Amazon sometime this week, until then it's just work, eat, sleep and repeat. I'll keep you posted.