The New Roof!

We snuck into the shop while the roof was being installed and noticed a couple of problems. There were several bubbles along one side that I did not like as well as one spot over the passenger seat where it looked like the rubber had been “bunched” up and folded. We pointed these out to J.D.. the service manager and he agreed with us that it was not acceptable. The workers spent a little more time and fixed these problems. When we got back in and started testing things we found a blown fuse and that got fixed as well.

The replacement solar panel is a 123 watt panel which they wired into my old controller. I noticed the controller was rated for only seven amps and under direct sunlight this new panel is capable of putting out ten amps. This is not a good situation so I went to the Camping World store looking for a new controller. They had a ten amp unit which would work well for $69 but their thirty amp unit was on sale for only $79 so I bought the larger one. If I ever want to add another panel this unit will easily handle it. It comes with a flush mounted panel that I can use to monitor performance and also to cover a small nick I put in the wall during the installation of the original panels last summer. I thought I got away with this as Norma did not notice the damage right away. I should have known better… she discovered it not long after we left for Mexico.

The roof was finished Friday afternoon and they moved the motorhome into their free parking area so we could sleep in it. They wanted us to wait until Saturday afternoon to drive it as the Dicor was still quite tacky and could have been moved by the wind. This was no problem as we had electric and the rooftop batwing TV antenna picked up several local channels.

We got a copy of the bill and it was just under $8000 USA, a little higher than the estimate but reflected a couple of things that we asked them to add. The insurance should pay about $7400 after the deductible and I am happy with this. Because of Camping world’s error in quoting for a solar panel they did not have in stock we ended up with more than double the solar capacity we had before at no charge. This was a nice little bonus.