Oops, We Did It Again

Yep, it's deju vu all over again, as Yogi would say. Arrived in Robertsdale to spend one night en route to Louisiana; plugged in our 50 amp power cord, had power briefly, heard our voltage meter alarm go off, saw that it read "HI!!! as in TOO HIGH!!!!!" and the power went out. Called the campground manager, turned on the ceiling fan (battery operated) because of the horrible smell of burning wire/rubber/plastic coming from the area of the bathroom. The manager come over, checked the 50 amp outlet at the power box; all okay. He plugged in our cord directly to the power box, bypassing our surge protector and we had electric but when he tested the voltage in one of our outlets it read 220 volts. Not good in a 110 volt system. We immediately went outside and turned off the circuit breaker but the damage had been done; burned out--the bedroom DVR (again), the projector alarm clock (again), the Wii game console (again) and something new--the motor to Denny's electric powered recliner (yes, he's spoiled and maybe a little lazy.) Knock on wood, this time the central vac, the washer, the microwave and the TV made it through unscathed. We called in a professional who arrived within 30 minutes (thank goodness because it was cold outside and I didn't want to try to run the furnace on battery power until I knew what was going on with the rig.) After listening to our explanation of what happened, he went outside to the power box and checked our plug to our 50 amp power cord (the one that had been replaced when we had our power outage/loss of appliances in September of 2010). After taking it apart he showed us what he found; the copper wires had pulled away from the contacts they were supposed to be screwed into and while loose had made contact with each other, thus created a 220 volt charge. Wow! And did I mention that with the burning smell there was no smoke and therefore no alarm from the smoke detector? But there was obviously hot stuff going on inside? Yeowch! We watch the service tech reconnect the wires, tightening them down firmly and he warned Denny to be careful using the electric hose reel for the power cord as that can pull on the plug causing it to loosen the wires also. Great. But now we know. So, more money out of pocket from not-so-good workmanship by a Heartland dealer. More tension in the RV Vagabonds household. And quite frankly, I left messages with the kids letting them know where we were parked just in case we burned up in the rig overnight. This is not a fun way to live.

A day later and we're in Louisiana. Today our new DVR arrived (pretty impressive on the part of DISH network) and we picked up another Wii game console. The Amish folk that built our recliner will be sending a new transformer to see if that works, to be followed by a new motor if it doesn't. Another alarm clock has been ordered, there's no smell of burning wires and we haven't noticed any other problems with the electricity or appliances yet, although I haven't actually tried to do a load of clothes yet in the washing machine or dryer. Perhaps it's time for a betting pool on what will go wrong next with The Beast. What do you think?