How is the camper holding up?

We're now over 6 months into this trip, and the maintenance has piled up. So how has the camper held up? Overall its been solid, but we have had to do some work to keep it road-ready and livable.

The first issue that popped up was a slow drip leak from the grey tank piping. This came up in the first 2 weeks of the trip, and we managed to plug it with some epoxy. That held for a couple of months until cold weather froze the pipe, which expanded just enough to crack the epoxy and reopen the leak. Additional patches with epoxy failed, so we eventually bit the bullet and cut out the joint and replaced it with a new section of PVC. The repair was fairly easily, but having to buy the tools/supplies for it and sneakily do it in a campground made it a bit annoying. Most campgrounds have a rule against doing repairs onsite (to keep you from disabling your camper and abandoning it) so Shawn did this repair discretely one night to avoid us getting kicked out.

Repaired grey tank pipe

3 months into the trip we started having battery troubles, with the charge lasting only a couple of hours. This was surprising to us, since we had purchased a brand new RV/marine battery just prior to the starting the trip. It turns out that this type of deep cycle battery needs the acid cells to be topped off with distilled water occasionally. We had neglected this, but it was an easy fix to fill it back up. We've since added this as a monthly maintenance item and have not seen any further issues with the battery life. Shortly after this, the battery cover disappeared so we purchased a new plastic case and mounted it in place of the old one.

Our January stay in California was where the maintenance really caught up with us. The previously mentioned grey tank leak occurred for the second time here, plus our propane system stopped working. Neither the propane heat nor the propane chilled refrigerator would turn on, though we could still use the stovetop so the gas was clearly available. This turned out to be a broken motherboard, which required a $500 replacement. This was definitely the biggest equipment related setback of our trip. It also took us a couple of weeks to get this fixed, as our initial appointment for it had to be canceled due to norovirus.

At the same time as our propane was out, we got hit by the heavy rain and wind storms that hit northern California in January. The wind was so intense it ripped a panel off the side of the camper, and it happened to be the one where the electrical hookup is located. Fortunately the wiring was not damaged, and we were able to remount the panel (with an extra screw added for additional assurance that it won't happen again). For a few moments we thought that this was why we could not get power through our campground's hookup, but that was actually due to a simultaneous town-wide power outage that lasted for 2 weeks. The rain was so heavy and lasted for so many days that our carpets started getting damp from underneath the camper, which led to a musty smell throughout the camper. We had to clean them with baking soda after the weather dried out to get them smelling fresh again, but that did the trick.

The panel in question

Finally, we've had several light bulbs and fuses burn out over the course the trip. The LED bulbs we purchased before the trip are doing fine, but the remaining ones that didn't get replaced have failed at a much higher rate. Fortunately these are just a moment or two to swap out. We have plenty of fuses on hand, but the light bulbs are a little more annoying since we need to buy them each time.

At least so far, we've had no problems with the Starlink or the truck. There are just 2 more months left in our trip, so we are hoping to get through with only minor inconveniences!