You might remember our water heater drama over the last month.  Our original Suburban water heater developed a leak and needed to be replaced. Randy did the research and, with my agreement, bought and installed a Girard tankless water heater.

The advantages were that it reduced our travel weight by 100 lbs. because we wouldn’t be transporting water and a heavy tank .  It would also give us unlimited hot water while we shower and was $100 less expensive.

Almost immediately we (mostly I) had issues with the tankless hot water heater.  Our campground water pressure was so high that too much water was going by the heat source that it couldn’t be heated adequately. That could have been solved by reducing water flow but we like a lot of water pressure when we shower.  Randy fixed the problem by increasing the temperature so that the water that was heated was hotter. There was still a bit of a cold or hot flash now and then but it was working for showers.

Washing dishes was a whole other challenge because you couldn’t turn the water on and off while washing or rinsing because then you got 5-10 seconds of cold water while the heater reengaged.

Then we moved to the west side of the lake where the water pressure is pitiful.  The tankless water heater would randomly shut off because there wasn’t enough flow to recognize that it needed to heat water.

The temporary fix was to fill our fresh water tank in the trailer and use the water pump which maintains a stable flow.  We were filling our fresh water tank almost daily because we were using it for drinking, bathing, washing dishes and doing laundry.

It felt like we were constantly chasing a moving target and that was likely to be true every time we moved.    While we could make it work when we had a sewer hookup, the problems would only increase if we were without hookups.   We’d be losing valuable water waiting for it to get hot, and using valuable grey tank space to store the water that went through while still cold.

Just a few days ago I said that having hot water shouldn’t be this cumbersome and I was discouraged by current and future moving targets.

Did I mention I am married to a terrific guy?   Even though Randy would have liked to make it work, he was on his phone ordering a new “old technology” water heater that same day.    When it arrived, he put it in the same night.

He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not, HE LOVES ME!

Future home of 100 pounds of water…

Randy had taken pictures of connections as he took the original water heater out so that made the replacement some easier.   Did he have a premonition?

Happy Wife, Happy Life!

We thought we were going to take a financial hit on the tankless water heater, probably selling it used for a couple hundred bucks on eBay.   Randy suggested I look on Amazon to see if we could return it and we made the return date deadline by two days.    We said it “didn’t meet our expectations”.   I did my small part doing the return prep and taking it to the McCall  UPS store.   We will get a full refund.  We love Amazon Prime.

And in bizarre other stuff…

While working in the campground Randy found these labels I had written years ago.   It was easy to go back in our camping journal to find the entry.   We were here in July 2013 and the wifi was very sporadic.   The camphost at the time didn’t know how to help so Randy called the provider and together they figured out what was happening.    The wifi installer had powered the repeaters from campsite power poles and campers were turning the power off when they left – just like good campers do.  So I wrote notes so campers wouldn’t turn off those breakers and accidentally turn off the wifi.   Five years later they were still in place.    The park has recently gone to a different wifi provider with free service only near the bath house so my labels were no longer needed.

We’ve mostly enjoyed some critters in and near our campsite.  

We saw this multi-colored fox on our first night on the west side and haven’t seen  him since.   We saw a fox on our first night on the east side and never saw him again either.

This was a big beetle!

We saw this family of skunks scurrying down the road last night.   The picture is disappointing but we weren’t going to get closer and open the window just for a picture.

And of course, Elko is our favorite critter of all!   No chance we love him not! WE LOVE HIM!  Elko goes to the lake several times a day for a drink and tummy soak.  He doesn’t understand waves and why he sometimes gets a face full of water.  

I hate him, I hate him not.  I HATE HIM!