RV Maintenance

RV maintenance is a combination of house maintenance (like refrigerators and AC) along with car maintenance (oil changes, tires).  It has the added wear factor of vibration.  A house doesn’t normally run over pot holes or continuously vibrate with the beat of a bad road.  I think there is added maintenance and wear due to the fact we’re in such a small space.  It’s not like we have 3 bathrooms and multiple rooms to roam in!

At this point we’ve owned the RV over a year and have been on the road about 10 months.  Plus, we bought a used RV.  So we do have to spend time and money on repairs.  The most expensive was replacing the tires (http://tandtrv.blogspot.com/2011/09/more-comments-and-stories.html ).  That was due to dry rot so I think I’ll consider that under the purchase price of the RV.

We had dolly problems earlier (http://tandtrv.blogspot.com/2011/10/dolly-problems.html).  We sold the dolly later (easy to do with craiglist) and bought a tow bar instead.  Again, this is more the price of setting up an RV.

Another expensive repair was the fuel pump (http://tandtrv.blogspot.com/2012/01/life-at-repair-shop.html ).  This was a cascading failure where one problem caused another.

We’re now working on the roof and seals.  John had to completely reseal the RV last summer and has done some more work recently.  We’re still trying to find some leaks since it’s been raining every day in Florida.  We've seen quite of few other RV's working on this problem with either seals or repairing the whole roof.  Once in a while you'll see a tarp over the top of an RV to keep rain out until repairs can be made.

Recently the thermostat went bad for the air conditioning.  It gradually went bad so that we had to readjust the setpoint plus the AC was going off and on at weird times.  A new thermostat fixed the problem quickly.

John also had the honor of replacing the toilet seal.  I guess this is a normal maintenance item for an RV.  Sounds like fun, doesn’t it!

Vibration means different pieces get loose and need to be reattached.  Plus,there is normal truck maintenance. 

Overall I’d say we’re spending less than we would at home.  Our maintenance is less than home ownership with maintenance on appliances like washers and dryers, painting rooms in a large house, or mowing grass that some else mows now or doesn't exist.  However, if you go RV’ing, be prepared for repairs. (And yes....having all of John's tools he's stored in the RV and car has helped!