Our inverter replacement did NOT go as planned

Let's catch you up. On what was supposed to be a relaxing evening of nothingness, our inverter decided to die in dramatic fashion – literally going up in smoke and frying itself into a stupor.

Anthony learned how to bypass the inverter so we could get electricity back in the rig, coming down the wire to get our air conditioning running before temps got too high.

It was a successful learning experience overall, but it left us with limited electric capabilities compared to what we can run on our inverter. To keep things easy, we made plans to get on electric hookups – ideally 50amp – until we could get a replacement. This would allow us to run as many appliances as we needed, even 2 air conditioners. In the rapidly increasing Carolina temperatures, this was an asset.

We didn't think we'd be waiting long for a replacement. It only took a couple days to file the warranty claim and find a local installer, EcoEthic Solar. We had every reason to believe we'd be fully back up and running in a week or two, with time to spare before our plans to return to New England for the beginning of summer.

Well, that might have been wishful thinking. Victron, the company that manufactures our inverter, has a warranty process that doesn't exactly allow for a quick turnaround. We called it the "bureaucratic orbit" in a previous blog post and already shared some of it. To recap, Victron works through dealers, so business-to-consumer sales are not their thing. This makes the warranty process difficult when we, as consumers, end up with a malfunctioning piece of equipment. We hoped to file the warranty claim ourselves, but they wanted our solar installer, Boondoctor John, to do it. Not a problem. The bigger problem was when they also said we needed John to install the new inverter. John is in Arizona, and we were in South Carolina. We needed to convince Victron to approve the claim and let us use an installer in the Carolinas.

After that, we assumed it would just be a waiting game to get the paperwork in order, but we were hit with more pushback. At first, Victron said they'd send us a replacement inverter without us needing to return the old one, but then they changed their tune. Not only did they want the smoked inverter back, they wanted us to pay for return shipping. With an item this bulky and heavy, we'd be talking at least $150, maybe more. At this time, the contacts at Victron stopped responding to John, and we were all getting angry. In one final Hail Mary attempt, Anthony decided to email the one contact at Victron who had been responsive and reasonable with us. Next thing we knew, John told us to abort our plan for shipping the inverter back, as he had heard from the company. Finally, we got confirmation that our replacement would be shipped.

We love our Victron inverter, and we think the company has a stellar product. However, we were incredibly irritated by their administrative processes. This went beyond them not having adequate means of communication with consumers. Even the very dealers they work with – Boondoctor John and EcoEthic Solar – had issues. We half-expected to be writing a scathing blog post, "What you don't know about the company that makes your inverter." We're glad it never had to come to that. We hope that, in some small way, our debacle helped streamline their back-end warranty process better for the future.

The replacement inverter was getting shipped directly to EcoEthic Solar, only now we missed our window to head up there for an appointment. Initially, we hoped to group it with our repairs at Trailers of the East Coast, but that appointment came and went. Then we made a big life change, renting a cottage in Myrtle Beach after the inverter death became the straw that broke the camel's back. We parked the RV at a monthly site during the move, and we weren't about to take it anywhere until we felt relatively settled.

7 weeks went by, and during that time, we completed our transition into part-timing. The cottage became our primary dwelling, and our RV site became more of a parking spot where Buggy could be on hookups, and we could go back-and-forth when needed. We extended our site reservation to get us all the way until the start of our now-delayed New England trip at the end of June. But we had a decision to make:

Should we try to get our inverter replaced before that trip, or should we lump the appointment on at the beginning of the trip when we're already back on the road?

Ultimately, we decided the smarter choice was to have the inverter installed sooner than later. We wanted to make sure all systems were running properly before jumping into a multi-week trip that would include a lot of campsites with limited or no electric. So we booked our installation for Friday, June 12. The guys at EcoEthic solar expected it to only take a couple hours and wanted us to drop it off right when they opened. We made plans for an overnight nearby, followed by a short displacement day during the installation.

Meanwhile, we wanted to keep our long-term site at Crooked Oaks, and so when we extended our reservation, Anthony let them know that there would be a couple of days where we'd be taking the trailer for repairs, but we'd be coming back. We always like to give a head's up if we take the RV somewhere, so the staff doesn't accidentally think we checked out early or had some kind of emergency.

Another reason for taking this trip early was to ease the pets – Mac and Piccolo especially – back into RV life. They had been living in luxury at the cottage since Memorial Day Weekend, and we wanted to show them that sometimes we'll RV again, but we'll come back, so they don't need to worry. Considering we once moved them into a house and then left after 2.5 weeks and never went back, we wanted to create a new pattern. This would be a trial run for us, too. What did we need to pack from the cottage? How did we feel traveling again? How could we better prepare for our longer trip in a couple weeks?

We needed to deploy a part-time mindset, and we didn't really have one yet. We figured gradual acclimation would be best. We packed only what we needed for a few days, and since the trailer was still travel-ready, we didn't need much except for some food, toiletries, and clothes. We took the pets back over to the RV the night before we left, allowing them one night in a familiar RV park before our travel day.

Our itinerary:
1. Night at Crooked Oaks
2. Head to our pre-appointment overnight near EcoEthic Solar in NC
3. Pre-appointment overnight
4. Head to EcoEthic Solar
5. Half-day displacement in the truck
6. Get the trailer back and decide to either head straight back to Crooked Oaks, or have an overnight (depending on the appointment timing and our energy levels)

During our last repair appointment – the one at Trailers of the East Coast – we made a few missteps, which we tried to correct this time. The first one was booking a site for the night before that looked promising for staying hitched. We stayed in a 90ft-long, relatively level campsite at Cross Winds Family Campground, about 15 minutes from EcoEthic Solar. We can't say much about this campground because we literally pulled in, ate, slept, and pulled out, but the site did what we needed. We were able to stay hitched and were only down an inch on the passenger side, which meant we could do without levelers for the night. The campground looked nice. Our loop was tucked away in the woods, which meant our Starlink didn't have a clear view of the sky, but the campground WIFI worked great. There was a small pool across from the office, but that's about all we saw. This campground might warrant a return visit someday when we could actually experience it.

Only, we did discover one unfortunate side effect of not leveling. It wasn't raining, but we noticed water dripping in from the bedroom AC. Turns out, the weather was hot and humid enough that the condensation was pooling on the roof, and instead of staying put like when the trailer is level, it slid into the unit and dripped onto the bed. In case you need a reminder, we have a constantly-reopening wound in our roof from a tree branch that fell on it during a blizzard this past winter. We've had issues with leaking in our bedroom AC ever since. Since it was only for a night, we just threw a few towels down and made plans to level our trailer at all future campsites until we get the roof replaced.

Ah yes, the heat. Even for the Carolinas, we were dealing with some fiery temperatures. This made us nervous for our displacement because, even with the AC cranked, our truck gets really hot. The forecast was saying highs around 97°F with a feels like temp of 100°F or more. We could only hope that our trailer would be ready before the high temperatures hit. We also knew the reality, that when we did get the trailer back, it would probably be really hot. The guys would need to turn off all power – ACs included – to install the new inverter. But we kept thinking about the result: a fully functioning electric system where we weren't beholden to 50amp electric. The freedom this brings would be worth standing the heat.

We dropped the trailer off to EcoEthic Solar a little after 9am and showed them our storage bay, where the old inverter was located. The guys told us to expect the install to take 1-2 hours, and with that, we left in search of a shaded place to park. Within minutes, we got our first phone call. Right off the bat, we got scary news. There is a breaker box between the solar panels and the solar charge controller, and when the guys started moving things around, they noticed sparks coming from the breaker box. There was a short due to some frayed wires that would need immediate replacing. The guys also told us they were trying to map out our system and found a couple components that they weren't sure of. Once we figured out what they were referring to, it all made total sense that they were confused. When we got our solar installed, we ended up having fluctuations with our LED lights. Whenever we'd run an appliance, the lights would dim. Boondoctor John installed DC converters to stabilize the voltage. We explained the situation, and onward they went.

We ventured over to a couple local parks and finally landed on Finch Park, less than 10 minutes from EcoEthic Solar. It was a big park with recreation fields, a playground, basketball court, and picnic areas, but we were there for one thing. The parking lot was big enough that we could park in the shade and continue moving as the sun shifted. Another plus was that there was a bathroom. We would have loved to take the pets outside for some fresh air, but the temperatures were already rising. All we could do was sit in the truck and take Tanner out in short spurts when he needed it. This is a recipe for restlessness, but we had reason to believe the inverter would be installed in no time.

At 10:38am, we got a text. The guys were wondering if we still had the metal brackets that attached the old inverter to the storage bay. We said we'd bring them by. This seemed like a good sign, that they were already at the point where they'd be mounting the inverter into the storage bay. They'd be finished in no time!

But when we got back to the trailer, we could tell there was still more work to be done. Naturally, the inverter needed to still be wired once it was mounted. But we weren't worried. The guys had been efficient thus far. They told us they should be done within the hour.

1 hour turned into 2, and as we rounded the 3rd hour, we decided to check in. We got a text response with a photo of our new inverter, installed and running. Success! Only, what was the holdup then? The inverter was in fact working, but they were trying to connect it to our Cerbo, which is basically the hub that allows our panel and app to monitor the power. Small problem: they couldn't find where it was, and we didn't know! We all took an educated guess that it was behind the panel in our front entry, where most of our switches and buttons are. We knew that John had done work back there, at least to wire our panel. The guys at EcoEthic Solar needed us to make a few decisions:

1. Did we want them to remove the panel to check for the Cerbo?
2. Did we want them to proceed with trying to connect everything, knowing that this could take another couple of hours and cost more money?

The conundrum was, we technically could run our system without the Cerbo, but we wouldn't have the monitoring ability. We rely on this monitoring for a number of things, but mainly limiting how many amps to draw from shore power when we're at our MA home-base. You may recall that we delayed our New England trip because we needed our inverter to successfully stay at our home-bases in MA and NH. At Nicole's parents' house in MA, we only draw 8amp from the grid, and we supplement the rest with our own system. Without the Cerbo, we'd have no way of doing this.

The other important part is the remote monitoring, as this is one of the ways we make sure the AC is running properly when we're not there, so we can ensure the pets are safe and cool. You might recall this scary experience when our multitude of pet monitoring systems all decided to fail at the same time.

For us, getting the inverter connected was a must. We weren't looking forward to spending more time stuck in the truck, especially because now we were dealing with the peak temperatures. Even in the shade, the truck's thermometer was reading well into the 90s.

But that's the price we pay for freedom. Freedom to be self-contained. Freedom to stay on our home-bases. We could hunker down a little longer.

The 2-hour displacement turned into a full day, and we had a rollercoaster of emotions during that time. Unlike when we were full-time, we had no actual reason to put the pets through this. Anthony could have brought the trailer while everyone else stayed back at the cottage. We took the trip together because we assumed the displacement would be just a short blip in an otherwise nice weekend. But this is us! We should have prepared for a worst-case scenario. Unfortunately, there was nothing we could do now except try and keep the pets comfortable, and to not be too hard on ourselves for the circumstances we couldn't foresee.

We also grappled with what RV life meant to us now. We had been loving the cottage and felt it was too soon to be back to RVing – especially when this trip became riddled with all the things we hate about RV life, like repairs, displacements, and heat. We felt thrust back into the very circumstances that led to our emotional breakdown, and we struggled to handle it.

And right at the peak of our stress, we got this email:

Oh no. Did Crooked Oaks check us out?! We called them immediately, and our fears were confirmed. They hadn't made a note of our temporary departure and thought we checked out early. A little strange that they didn't call to inquire, considering we were supposed to be there for another week and a half. They just credited us the remainder of our payment and that was it. So we needed to explain to them that we were coming back, and they then reinstated our reservation. Thankfully, it was an easy process, but one that could have been avoided if everyone communicated better. We will say, though, this hiccup aside, we loved our time at Crooked Oaks and couldn't have chosen a better campsite for our cottage transition. The grounds are lovely, the location was good, and the staff were super nice. They'll be getting a rave review from us.

Now back to the main topic: the inverter. We eventually drove back to EcoEthic Solar to check on the process in-person. We simply couldn't sit around any longer. We were happy to see that they found the Cerbo and all systems were connected. They were even running our AC! A few loose ends needed to be tied up, and the guys recommended some changes and upgrades based on things they noticed about our install. These are all considerations for the future, but for now, we were happy to have our system back up and running. It felt like forever to get to this point.

We didn't leave EcoEthic solar until 5pm, after giving the pets a chance to hang out in the trailer for a bit while Anthony geeked out with the guys over solar technologies. We were happy to put our long displacement day behind us, but we were in no way in good enough shape to now make the 3.5-hour drive back to Crooked Oaks. We were conflicted because, as much as we just wanted to go home, we knew it wasn't safe to drive in our state of exhaustion. In anticipation of this very situation, we had tentatively booked a campsite closer by. And maybe, just maybe, this campsite would remind us of the good parts of RV life, if we gave it a chance.

To be continued.