The heat that almost killed us (HH/BW Challenge Series)
We are convinced that our RV is thermophobic. Every time the temperatures rise, we end up with a whole list of problems, as our components start shutting down one after another. Remember this?
That, of course, was in the Nevada desert at the end of April, not Illinois at the end of April. But then again, we do live in an aluminum box. It's not even really the trailer itself, though. The trailer loves the heat. It's thermophilic! It's everything else, like our inverter, and our generator, and our batteries, and now our transfer switch.
Except we don't actually know if we can blame the heat directly. We just know that the heat is what led us to run our generator, and then the transfer switch didn't actually switch the power over. What could have fried the contacts? Could it have been a surge from our generator? Or maybe something external that we didn't notice for a while because we hadn't needed to run our generator? Theories abound and we might someday figure it out, or we might never know. All we know is that our transfer switch needed to be replaced for a second time, and until then, there was only one thing we could do. We needed a rod.
If the relay won't engage with the contact, then we need to force it manually. We learned how to jerry-rig it after the lightning strike, but eventually we got rid of that rod because who would have ever thought we would need it again?! Also, we've since moved the transfer switch to a different part of our storage bay, so the first rod probably wouldn't have been a good length anymore, anyway. We decided to try and continue plans as usual. We would leave Walker's Bluff Casino and go the mile up the street to the winery. We were planning to unhitch anyway so we could go hiking, so we dropped the trailer and went straight to Home Depot, where Anthony ran in and bought a bundle of all different length wooden dowels.
Just like last time, we wedged the rod between the storage bay wall and the relay, only this time, we needed to push the button for generator power, as opposed to shore power.
With the jerry-rig engaged, we were able to run the generator a while longer to charge our batteries up to full. This way we could run the air conditioning for the pets when we went hiking. We initially thought we'd go to Garden of the Gods this day, but it was going to be an hour drive and we were running out of time before we needed to each be back for 6PM calls. We decided to postpone Garden of the Gods to the next day and go to Crab Orchard Lake instead, since that was only about 20 minutes away.
We've talked about pet safety and remote monitoring of our rig a few times in this blog, but let's recap. We have had a Govee temperature monitoring device since we began RVing. It shows us heat and humidity, and we can connect to it through an app using Bluetooth when we're nearby and WIFI when we're far away. We also have our Blink security cameras, so we can keep an eye on the rig and the pets. We've been able to know if the AC is running because we can hear it when we turn on the camera sound. Lastly, we have our newest system, which is our control panel for our electric setup now that we have solar. On here, we can see if our AC is running because of the amount of power being used.
AC load is much higher when the air conditioning is running
Before we went to the pool when we were at the casino, we attempted to set all of the devices, and we noticed that the Govee needed its batteries replaced. After that, it seemed to work fine. We did, however, notice that our control panel wasn't connecting to the cloud, so we couldn't access the information from the app. We would need to try and troubleshoot this later, but with Govee and the Blink cameras good to go, we set the thermostat and headed over to the pool.
We did the same thing before we went to Crab Orchard. We set the AC to kick on in the low 70s. When we do this, the Govee reads in the low 80s because it's placed high on our wall. There is typically a 10-degree difference between the air temp near the roof and the air temp at human and pet-level. When we left, it said 83°F, and we expected it to trend down.
First, we went over to the Rocky Bluff Trail, which we heard was the most popular trail in the area. About 2 miles with not a lot of elevation, and in springtime a waterfall appears because of the rainfall. We were excited to hike because it had been a while, but we certainly wished the weather wasn't as hot and muggy. The trail ended up being mostly in the woods, and despite being shaded from the sun, it was brutal. The humidity caused us to sweat immediately, and it was so buggy that bugs stuck to the sweat. Parts of the trail were muddy, so by the end of it all, we were covered in a lot of things we didn't want. We spent most of the time booking our way through, but we did try to stop for a few pictures before the bugs swarmed us. We did see the waterfall, which was more like a watertrickle, and we got to see the green leaves and spring flowers. We just couldn't truly enjoy any of it.
I'm not sure if it was the heat and humidity, our speed, or my anxiousness to get the hike done, but by the end of the trail, my heartrate had reached 175bpm. That's unheard of for me normally, especially on an easy hike. I usually don't clock beyond the 140s. I have circulation issues, so I pay close attention when something seems out of the norm. Back at the truck, I made sure to blast the AC, rest, and rehydrate, and my heartrate came down. Checking my trend over the whole hike, it only spiked at the end where there was a climb, and then it came back down. Still surprising since the climb was small, but these trends are better than a sustained elevated heartrate for no obvious reason.
Besides that trail making me feel like I never wanted to hike again, I was feeling okay. We decided to stick with our plan to head over to the lake. As soon as we got back to good enough cell service, I checked the Blink cameras and the Govee. Blink was on mute, but Tanner and Lily were hanging out in the living area of the trailer. Govee was saying 80.2°F. We were good to go.
We had driven past the lake a couple of times on our way to and from the casino (and Home Depot), but Google Maps took us to a parking lot north of the causeway. The area had a little trail with benches along the way, where people could stop and watch the birds. The trail was partially under construction, but it was cute. We didn't stay long, but I snapped a few pictures and filmed some footage for a Harpscape.
We were glad for our little outing, but we just couldn't get in the right mood. Our bodies weren't used to the heat yet. We wondered about our excursion to Garden of the Gods the next day, when it was supposed to be a high of 86°F, 2 degrees higher. With more humidity, of course, because the storms hadn't washed it away yet. But we had booked overnights down here to specifically go to Garden of the Gods! That's part of the challenge, right? To seize the opportunities for adventure because we are only staying in places for a short amount of time. Seizing to the point that it doesn't kill us, of course.
When we got back to the trailer, I opened the door and stepped in, and I was immediately hit by a wall of heat. What on earth?! I went over to the Govee, and it was reading 95 degrees. We were flabbergasted. We had just checked the app about 30 minutes before. What happened?! The AC was not running, but instead was blowing outside-temperature air with the fan. Tanner was panting a lot, but he was fine. He got up and came over to greet us when we walked in. On his level, it would have only been in the 80s, but we don't even want that for a dog, especially a furry one like him. I quickly took him outside and ran some water over him from our outdoor spigot. Then I put him in the truck with the AC running and gave him some drinking water. I sat with him while we waited for the trailer to cool off.
We had to wait a while. Anthony was having trouble getting the AC to kick on at all. He needed to turn the thermostat off entirely for several minutes, something he learned after troubleshooting a multitude of other things. Eventually, we got the rig cool enough to bring Tanner back in, but boy did we feel like terrible humans. Really though, it was the perfect storm. How would we ever believe that, during a time when we can't remotely access our panel, that both the thermostat and the Govee would fail? And as far as Blink goes, even if we had taken the camera off mute, we still wouldn't have known because we would have heard the fan blowing and assumed it was the AC. The whole thing was a total disaster. We were just so thankful that it wasn't any worse. If we had gone to Garden of the Gods, we would have been away for a lot longer.
During Anthony's troubleshooting, he noticed that the Govee was reading low battery again, despite us putting new ones in the day before. He changed the batteries yet again. Then when we checked the Govee app more thoroughly, we noticed that, while the temperature trends were correct, the real-time temperature wasn't updating. It was supposed to refresh every 10 minutes, but instead we'd get reads of temperatures way earlier than that. Unless we look carefully at the tiny text that gives the date and time, we wouldn't know anything at first glance because the trend doesn't show up right away and the real-time would look totally normal. Quickly checking during a point of good cell service, we just looked, saw a temperature we expected, and thought nothing more. Even scarier was when we noticed that the temperature climbed the entire time we were gone, and the temps had been reading in the 90s for 2 of the 2.5 hours we were gone.
The left photo shows how the trend temperature shows up as accurate, but the real-time temperature still hadn't updated in 10 minutes as it was supposed to, despite us actively trying to refresh it. The right photo is the trend from that day, showing the steady climb up to 95 degrees, despite the real-time saying the temperature remained in the low 80s.
That was the final straw. We were done with Govee and needed to get a new pet monitor. We had had minor issues with it since we got it, with it not always notifying us of extreme temperatures or low battery, and I hadn't been able to connect my app for months. Those are all annoying, but this situation was unacceptable and could have been downright dangerous, or worse, tragic.
We also began discussing finally switching our thermostat to one we can operate remotely. It's been on our minds for a while, and an incident like this definitely lights a fire under us to get it done.
We decided then and there to not go to Garden of the Gods the next day. We wouldn't enjoy it if it were super hot and constantly worried about the animals. Tanner is 1000% more important, no doubt about it. He's 1000% more important than pretty much everything, let's face it.
So many questions remained, but we expected that the answer to a lot of them would be "replace and upgrade." We continued having issues with our thermostat. It seemed as though whenever we ran the generator and turned it off, and then turned on the AC, that the AC would not run. We assume this is somehow related to the transfer switch, but we will need to get some new equipment to know for sure.
This was not at all what we expected from our journey down to southern Illinois. Typically, the highs for this time of year are in the 60s and 70s, but with all the extreme weather going on in Tornado Alley, we were probably caught in a warm front. We'd still take it over the tornadoes, that's for sure! A lot was up in the air, but we were determined to keep up with our challenge. The jerry-rig wasn't foolproof, but it was working well enough. Soon the rain would come in, and even though the temperatures would remain high, the sun wouldn't be beating down on the rig, which makes a huge difference. Then after a few days, we'd be heading back north, hopefully to cooler temperatures. In the meantime, we now knew exactly what needed extra diligence, like making sure the AC actually kicks on when we set the thermostat. And making sure we check the date and time on the Govee every time we enter the app.
Garden of the Gods didn't happen, but I was telling the truth when I said I was equally excited about Walker's Bluff Winery. Amidst the mayhem, we did take a few pauses to soak in the scenery.
The winery is open Thursday-Sunday. We arrived on a Wednesday, so we hadn't yet been able to see it come alive. After our pleasant surprise at the casino and seeing how beautiful everything was, we had high expectations. We just didn't want to be disappointed. After everything that had happened in the past 24 hours, neither of us were in a frame of mind to handle disappointment well.
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