Taking Our Problems to New Hampshire

The Universe spoke once again, and bad weather delayed our departure from Massachusetts. This can only happen so many times without us wondering, what gives? Why do all the big problems tend to happen when we're in MA? The plus side to that is, when the storms hit and the equipment breaks, we have a home and a family providing much needed support. The downside is, MA isn't RV-friendly compared to other states, so professional help is hard to come by. The lightning strike had left us with no way of getting electricity to our rig, and so we couldn't hook up to a campground until we had the proper cords, adapters, and surge protector. We had reservations in NH starting Wednesday August 10th but let the owners know we wouldn't be arriving until Friday the 12th. That means we had a full day to regroup and help my parents with their post-storm regrouping as well.

The big event of that Thursday was the stump grinding of the massive tree-turned-chimney that got struck by the lightning. Take a look at the diagram in the first photo to see just how massive this tree was. We also joked that it ended up looking like a firepit, but no, we didn't use it as such. We were done with fires for a while.

We left on Friday knowing full-well that we might not be able to camp that evening, unless we found some way of powering the rig. So that was our goal before checking into the campground. We left Marshfield at 6AM and went straight to Pro RV, the service department at Cold Springs RV in Weare. These techs work with our brand of generator, and ours hadn't worked since about 10 minutes after the lightning surge. We had already been having issues with it for a few days but thought we had fixed them. Sometime during the storm, the issues either started acting up again, or the lightning brought new ones. It was time to call in the pros. While there, we asked the guys to plug the trailer in with an electric cord and let us know that it was working. Since the storm, we still had no way of knowing for sure if our electric was OK.

Buggy went into his service bay for the day, and we took the pets and found a nearby café so we could have some breakfast, get some work done, and relax a bit. Tanner and Lily enjoyed naptime in the sunshine before it was time to head over to my friend Shannon's house, where we had all our electric equipment delivered.

While at Shannon's, we got a call from Pro RV with an update. They tested our power with an electric cord and confirmed that our power was working in the rig. Yay! That meant that the lightning did not damage our outlet or internal system, such as the wiring, transfer switch, or converter. The less-good but expected news was that the techs needed to order parts for the generator. They weren't exactly sure what was wrong, but something was acting faulty, so they decided to replace basically every component. It was the equivalent of throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks, but at this point what did we have to lose? We started wondering if it was a faulty sensor indicating low oil, and if that sensor was already failing due to our earlier oil problems, or if it fried in the storm. Either way, the fix would be the same, but we'd have to wait a few days for the parts to come in.

At least we were ready to camp again. The electric was working off shore power, and we had now picked up our brand new 50 amp cord and accessories. We said bye to Shannon and her family and headed to pick up the trailer and finally check into Riverbrook Campground. We could practically smell the mountain air, and as the day grew later the crisp temperatures welcomed us with open arms. After a week of mayhem, could we actually have a stress-free camping experience in our happy place?!

Not so fast! After backing into our site, we went to check the electric and it was not working. Our hearts sank. We knew it had worked for the service techs, so what happened between then and now? Was our new 50 amp cord defective? Did something jostle loose between Pro RV and the campground? We went to work troubleshooting our issues, with help from a couple of our campground neighbors. We determined that power was getting from the pedestal, through the cord, to the outlet, and to the transfer switch. But the voltage wasn't tripping the switch over to let the power into the RV.

The next part is hard to explain unless we give an overview of how transfer switches work. When we power the trailer, either through shore (pedestal/electric cord) power or the generator, the voltage will trip the switch to allow the electricity in. This is done with magnetic force. There are magnetic contacts on the switch that pull in when the voltage hits. If you unscrew the transfer switch cover, you can see the relay pop in and out depending on if there is power and from which source. It looks like a little button.

After confirming that we had proper voltage coming into our rig, we were able to determine that the relay wasn't switching. We had had issues with our transfer switch shortly after getting the trailer, to which the solution was to use contact cleaner to get rid of any dust or debris. There wasn't any dust or debris, but we tried it anyway. No success. Then we started fearing the worst. What if the surge had actually messed with our electric? The one remaining test we could do was try to manually push in our relay to see if it would power our rig. If it did, we likely only had a transfer switch issue. If it didn't, we wouldn't be able to rule out worse damage to our electric system.

Thankfully, manually pressing the switch in worked. We got power to our rig! That was our hope, considering Pro RV had been able to power our rig earlier in the day, and it's very unlikely that an entire electric system would fail in the span of a couple hours. Our best guess is that the contacts had fried in the storm, but they were still magnetized enough to power electric for a short while. That last surge of electricity did them in, and by the time we went to plug in, the transfer switch was done. That was just theory, though, so we sought a second opinion. We contacted Central NH Trailers, an ATC dealer about an hour away from the campground (and the first place we went to look at ATCs in person!) and they generously squeezed us in first thing Monday morning to take a look.

After doing their own troubleshooting, the Central NH techs agreed with our theory. They explained to us a little more about how the transfer switches operate (basically more detail of what I just explained above), and they let us know that it's very easy for those magnets to get fried in a surge, especially one that strong. They couldn't confirm that that was the cause, but the only way to find out would be to dig inside, which would effectively destroy the switch anyway.

So it was time for a new transfer switch. This meant ordering the part through ATC, which could take a long time. We needed a way to continue powering our rig so we could stay on the road. The solution isn't the most advanced, but it gets the job done. Thanks to our neighbor Neil who had the perfect length rod to jerry-rig our relay! It should hold until we get our new transfer switch.

And my little addition, a Blink camera in the storage bay, so we can keep an eye on the rod whether we're home or not, to ensure that it's staying put.

Now that we knew we were waiting potentially weeks for the new transfer switch, we spent the week with fingers crossed that the generator parts would come in before we had to leave. Unfortunately they didn't all make it in on time. We knew we could get electricity if plugged into shore power, so we rearranged all our upcoming plans to ensure we had electric hookups. After NH, we were leaving 2 nights free to drive to upstate NY, hoping to park at a Harvest Host or Boondockers Welcome on the way there. That plan was now a no-go. While some of the Harvest Host/Boondockers Welcome locations have electric hookup, none were convenient for us. So I went to the drawing board to find campgrounds with availability between our NH and NY campgrounds. We found an inexpensive water & electric site outside of Saratoga and booked it. At least then we could breathe easy that our plans were set, we had places to stay every night, and as long as our jerry-rig holds out, we'd have electricity.

As things stand now, we've scheduled an appointment with Pro RV in late September when we'll be back in the area. Hopefully we can get it fixed then, because we have big plans for boondocking in October. If the transfer switch has come in by then, we will also be able to head to Central NH and have it installed. Here's hoping the end of September will be a successful week, so we can finally put this lightning strike crisis behind us.

With a pin in our repair plans for the next month, we wanted to start focusing on the positives. We were finally RVing in NH, our favorite place. We hadn't been in almost a year. Our original plan was to go last October as our first official RV trip, but our trailer delivery got so delayed that we only picked it up in October, leaving no time for our NH trip. This was our long-awaited introduction of our new love, RVing, to our old love, the Granite State. With everything that had happened recently, NH gave us a big hug and let us know that things were going to be OK.