In staying on the road today we're going to discuss RV furnace repairs and maintenance and how to keep that puppy running all winter long and enjoying the RV life.

We're going to discuss the psychology of downsizing, letting go to live on the road.

And in money saving tips, there's five unique ways you can save money to fuel more travel.

And then in the next stop, we're going to visit Madison, Wisconsin.

And in shadows of the past can be a little bit different.

Today we're going to discuss Cambridge, Wisconsin and an RV envy keeping those 110 volt cords and adapters in tip top shape.

Hey everybody, this is Eric Stark with the Smart RVer podcast, your trusted source for tips and insights to embrace the RV lifestyle without worries.

So let's talk everything RV today.

Today is episode 184, so let's just dig right into this.

So welcome back Smart RVers.

We've got another show ready to go here for you.

That kind of rhymed in another show ready to go.

Before we get into the show to the things you're waiting for, we're going to discuss one thing in the RV Envy.

Keeping 110 volt cords and adapters in tip shop shape.

In the last episode I used a real life example of someone who had a problem, had something installed in his house, a 30amp outlet.

Now that was different.

That was an installation that kind of gone awry, wasn't done right.

So today we're going to talk about protecting or keeping those cords and adapters in shape.

And it's important because in our shop we see failures all the time.

I would say 95% of the RVs that come in the power cord ends are bad.

They're not taken care of, the prongs are bent, they're just in bad shape, filthy, crazy, corroded.

So we're going to discuss about that and that's going to be an RV envy.

So that's going to be at the end of the show.

So stay tuned for that.

So I want to remind everybody to share this show with family, friends, fellow RVers.

Hack your enemies, it don't matter.

We just want everybody to know about our show.

We love our show.

We put a lot into it every week.

So we want you to love it and share it with everybody, you know.

So this is something we come across too.

We talk about wholesale warranties quite a bit and we really appreciate the ones of you that are signing up with wholesale warranties, inquiring with them.

And there's always a link in the description of our show.

Use that link and it gets the ball in motion to contact them.

But just recently, someone came in and they had a problem with their extended warranty, and they're going to have nothing but problems with it.

The things they were told were covered, weren't covered.

And this was a little old lady living in this rv.

You know, she can't move it, so the service center has to come to her.

But wait a minute, the service center doesn't do that.

Who sold her the warranty?

And they told her we do.

Oh, excuse me, the dealership.

The dealership.

Oh, yeah, we go out there, no problem.

They don't do mobile RV work.

They misled her.

Actually, they lied to her to get her to buy that warranty.

And the warranty does not pay for mobile repair techs to come out or they don't pay the drive time, the service fee.

They'll pay for the labor.

But it has to be the right mobile tech.

It has to be be totally licensed, everything insured, the whole nine yards, which is good, but it makes it more complex because a lot of mobile guys aren't.

And that's again, a reminder to check into RV help if you need mobile technicians.

RVhelp.com, boy, we're just kind of embroiling all sorts of companies here today.

But it's a good reminder to start with wholesale warranties before you ever talk to dealership about extended warranty.

Wholesale warranties does new used.

They take care of you.

They're not going to make things up.

You're going to get what you pay for, and you know what you're going to be getting before you ever pay for it.

That's the way to go.

So that's wholesale warranties.

And if you need mobile help, try rvhelp.com I kind of intertwined that there, and I didn't mean to, but you got to check it out as well.

And so links to those descriptions or links for those will be in our description today.

My sinus has been going crazy all summer long here, and I got to tell you, I take the sinus medicine, and it makes my brain all rattle.

So bear with me today.

But I'm not blowing my nose.

It's not running down my face.

You know how that goes, right?

All right, let's get into enjoying the RV life.

You're the smart rver.

You have some experience now.

You've been rving and you decide you really like this lifestyle, and you've penciled it out on paper, and it really makes sense for you to sell your home and to live life on the open road, man, you got it all planned out in your head.

You want to live in your RV full time, but, you know, there are some things about doing that.

And basically it's downsizing to a very small portion of what you had before.

You know, think about an RV, you know, 40ft long, 8ft wide.

You know, that's the box.

But then you have bathrooms, bedrooms, walls, dividers, refrigerators, appliance seats, so forth in that living area.

So now your living area gets even reduced, maybe 2/3 of that, a half of that.

So the space is not what you think it is or you imagine.

But you had.

It's your rv.

So you know, you know, whether you're comfortable in it, not.

So there's a lot of things you have to pencil out.

And we're not going to get into that list.

This is a different conversation.

So it's.

Assuming you've gone through that list financially, it makes sense, you know, that if you sell your home that you've got money to buy another home down the road.

In case you decide to put the brakes on this, it's not working out, or health problems force you back into a home somewhere or.

Yeah, making sure you have the cabbage.

Or maybe you don't sell your home, you rent it out, you decide you'll do that, and you drive through that same area through your travels.

You think you'll be there two or three times a year so you can physically make sure the home is still there.

You've got it all figured out.

But now it's time to really get down to brass tacks and start planning your sale.

To get rid of all your possessions and or put them in storage.

But you can't put it all in storage.

Some of it wouldn't even be worth storing.

Actually, probably none of it would be.

Although storage would probably be a safer bet than giving it to family and friends sometimes.

Because they might say, yeah, you can put that thing in our garage, no problem.

Then after a year of that being in the garage, man, they're tired of it.

They don't even saying to you, they just get rid of it.

It's gone.

Poof.

You got nothing out of it.

So you want to plan this.

Really think about your memories, the different things that you have in your RV near home.

You don't want to just get rid of everything without really thinking about it.

Things that have specific memories, very special memories.

Do you want to put some of those in the rv?

Is there someplace where you can Safely store them like a storage unit.

Do you want to pay for storage or do you just want to kind of break camp, if you will, and get rid of everything?

Because a lot of possessions we own.

It's more than a possession.

It's a memory.

You know, like here behind me in my studio, you can't see it.

Everything on these walls is from a trip someplace.

It's from a part of my life.

There's things going back years, decades.

There's some things you can't see.

You can't see the entire studio, both sides.

You know, Sometimes I do YouTube videos and different angles, but everything is from somewhere.

Now I'm kind of a knick knacky guy.

I like having stuff on the walls and everything.

Before we moved to Montana, my entire office, floor to ceiling, had knickknacks on the walls.

It was unbelievable.

It was awesome.

Maybe I'll put a picture of that on this episode or on the page for this on our website smartrverver.com so that's what I'm getting at is everything's a memory and those things jog memory.

Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad, sometimes it's just a neutral memory, but nonetheless it's a memory.

So you don't want to take all the memories out of your life.

Maybe it's taking pictures of those items.

Taking pictures of a wall with all those items, whatever it might be, so you have the pictures to scroll back through.

Sounds kind of hokey, but pictures don't take up any space.

They're on your phone, a computer, someplace where they're safe.

Like if you have an iPhone, you got cloud storage, they can be right there, safely put away.

But if you decide you want to do this and it's time to sell everything, start early.

Don't really wait until it's a week or two before you're going to set out on your adventure.

Start planning this.

Go through your house, your possessions, and really go through it.

This is just trash.

This stuff I've been saving for years.

I've never used it.

It's just here.

I move it around every so often.

Maybe it's just trash.

Throw it away, give it away, give it to Goodwill or something, if that's what you want to do.

Then there's other things that maybe have a value to you, but it's a financial value.

Then those just go up for sale.

You sell all those things and put that money in your house fund for the future.

Hopefully your RV is taken care of and you're not making payments on everything.

So put that in the house fund for the future.

Ask your family if they would like anything, things that would be special to them.

You start doing that and all of a sudden you start getting rid of things pretty quick.

But you're making piles.

Basically, this is what I want to just throw away.

This is what I want to give to my family, this is what I'm going to give to some friends, and this is what I'm going to sell you.

You get that kind of wrapped up and then you can have that sale maybe a week or two before you're going to go on your trip.

Now remember, if you sell everything out all of a sudden and it's time to go, it's time to go.

You know, if you don't have a place to stay, maybe you sell your house, sell things in lots, bulk.

You know, like if you have a bunch of hardware in your garage, maybe you do it yourselfer.

Nuts, bolt, screws, hardware and things, some tools, maybe sell it as a package deal.

All this for 50 bucks, 100 bucks.

It only has value to you, I guarantee it.

Most of the stuff you have only has value to you, especially when it comes to a garage.

A snap on screwdriver that cost you $50 ten years ago is probably worth about five bucks today.

Sell it for five bucks.

Take your beating.

If you're going to sell tools, that's how it's going to work.

You're not going to get top dollar for everything.

So there's some real life stories here.

So like Tony and Carla, they listen to the podcast and they found that letting go was really tough because they had to let go of all that stuff.

The home base, the memories, you know, the, the dinners with family and friends.

But they discovered that a lighter life on the road was more palatable to them.

They didn't have all the stuff they had to worry about before.

They didn't have all the obligation.

And then Diane from Montana, she cried at her dining room table.

She was so sad, so distraught about giving everything up.

But you know what she does when she goes into town where her family and friends are, she invites them to her campsite and she just has dinners there that replaced the dining room table.

That's where family and friends sit and talk so often.

You know, the kitchen is where all the conversations happen, right?

So Diane just worked around it.

So do what you need to do with your possessions, whether it's sell them, donate or gift them away, and embrace the idea that having less is better.

A simple lifestyle can Definitely be better.

Less things to own, less things to maintain, less things to worry about.

If you're thinking about going on the road, that might be an obstacle that you're facing right now.

So if you have a story about downsizing, the struggles you went through, or maybe it was just super easy, you know, it's just this is what we did, you know, it was like clockwork.

You just bump, bump, bump, got rid of everything, got on the road and never looked back.

That's absolutely awesome.

You know, I have a friend that did that years ago.

Basically him and his wife decided we're going to go full time.

They sold all of their possessions.

In the meantime, their house was on the market.

And like after they sold everything they owned other than the house, the household, like a week later the house sells.

So now they have nothing but their rv.

But they're ready for that.

You know, they had family nearby so they could stay at their house if they had to, if they couldn't live in their RV at that moment.

So they were prepared.

But they did it.

Just everything just.

They didn't look back, man.

They got rid of everything.

The last nut and bolt, screw, whatever it was gone.

And then after a couple years on the road, what they found was they really wanted a house.

They wanted someplace that they could go back to as a home base just in case.

So they bought a house in Arizona and it worked out perfect for them, is in a mobile or as a mobile home, actually in an RV park.

But they love the RV park.

That's where they've been going for years.

They thought, let's just buy a house here.

We use this in the wintertime and then we'll travel all summer.

But it worked out for them.

They got rid of their big house, bought a smaller home and it just works.

And living in a mobile home in an RV park is almost like a full time RV in itself.

You have a little bit more luxury, but not that much more.

So anyways, ever how it works for you, Plan it out and think ahead though, in case things don't go as you planned, that you can back out of it at some level.

Now let's go to our money saving tip.

Today's economy, the government says where everything's good but jobs are falling away, where, you know, they always say we're never in a recession, but it sure feels like we are, right?

Saving money so you can still fuel your adventure is very important as an RVer, a lot of things.

Saving money is obvious.

You know, drive.

I mean, we've talked About a lot of obvious things.

You know, drive.

Don't drive with a heavy gas pedal.

You know, keep the fuel economy better, air up the tires, make sure the engine is running good.

A lot of obvious things, you know, shop for RV parks.

Don't just stay here because it's got everything.

Maybe something is $50 less a night or 20 bucks, 10 bucks, and it has all the amenities that you really need.

So it's shopping, but those are the obvious things.

But staying out on the road and using your RV is important.

Not only using your RV is good for the RV.

Sitting does not help RVs.

It's not healthy for it.

Things still deteriorate.

They probably deteriorate more rapidly.

It's sitting in the sun someplace or the weather, wherever it might be.

Those things have costs as well just to sit.

So you might as well use it.

And if you can use it, try to do it, you know, cost effectively.

If you're on a budget, and I think most RVers are today, you know, there are some that, you know, the budget doesn't really matter that much.

But even those with tons of lots of money, you know, they, they shop, they.

They cut back because maybe their jobs may be getting us iffy if they're going to have a job.

Things change in all of our lives.

So it's trying to be smart while you can.

Using your RV.

So here's five unique ways that RVers can travel and save a few bucks.

So maybe you like selling things, you have a hobby, maybe you make little crafts or maybe you sell certain products.

I know there's people that sell like waxes and fuel additives and things like that, oil additives.

But, you know, you can do that with your RV, and a lot of people do, or some RVers do.

But you can set up a table outside your rv, have it visible to everybody in the RV park.

Of course, you'd have to ask the RV park management if it's cool, but you know, keep a sign there.

Be practical.

You don't want to have draw so much attention to you.

The park's like, no, you can't do that.

Draw attention to your merchandise in a dignified way so the park doesn't have a problem with it.

Then as you're traveling, you can sell whatever it is you're selling, whether it's waxes, oils, jewelry, and make little things.

You know, I knew a friend of mine years ago that he made jewelry he sold on the road and he had a tiny little lathe and some stuff to do it.

It was Kind of hard for him to do it on the road, but he's able to do it and it helped fund his traveling.

And then if you have solar now, this might sound crazy, but you know, you could sell some of that extra power you have, right?

The power grid does it, utility companies do it.

So maybe there's someone out you're at and they're having, you know, they have one battery, two batteries and their batteries just aren't cutting it or they're really tight and they need to charge up their cell phones or whatever, you know, different devices they have.

Maybe you could sell them some charging electricity, charge up your cell phone, two bucks, charge up your tablet, three bucks, charge up whatever.

If they have a power center, one something that's not charging quickly enough for them to run a CPAP at night, maybe you could charge them a few bucks for that.

Five bucks to charge up your CPAP machine or your power center.

That's really what this is.

Now you might think that solar thing's absolutely crazy.

How do you do that, right?

Or who would do that?

How could you charge somebody?

Well, there's people who'll pay for it.

There's always somebody who will pay for something.

Now that might not be a money making adventure where you're going to be able to retire, but heck brings a few extra bucks in.

Maybe you're doing a few things, maybe you're selling some trinkets at your rv.

You got a little solar recharging station there.

Makes sense.

Then if you have any subscriptions, and we've talked about this a little bit, but not in great depth, change out any subscriptions you have.

If you don't have to have them, you can turn them off during the summer, turn them off during the winter.

Do that.

Take advantage of what the companies will allow you to do with any subscriptions you have.

Sometimes we just like as easier to let it run.

But you know, 50 bucks a month for six months, it's you know, $300 that adds up.

You know, 300 here, 300 there, 100 there, 300 here.

So change out those subscriptions if you can and maybe it's time to look at your subscriptions.

Are you paying more for services that you don't use anymore than when like let's say a phone, you got a phone when you first signed up with Verizon, you know, 140 bucks sounded okay and then like, you know, I don't really use all this stuff anymore.

Then you go to their next lower plan and then maybe it's like okay, maybe I'm going to leave Verizon and go with one of these companies that, you know, supposedly sell off their towers.

My wife and I did that.

We went to peer talk.

Absolutely regret it.

We don't want to go back to Verizon though.

But it's just an example.

But you got to be ready.

You might have to change again.

Peer talk was just absolutely horrible for us.

Or it is horrible for us.

That doesn't sound very good.

Right, But I'm just being honest here.

You know, sometimes these in peer talks down are really good for us.

It's not working for others.

I know it does work.

And it's like every form of cell service there is.

Some people absolutely love ATT and other people absolutely hate AT&T or you know, whatever the company is.

Now another thing, you could house, sit, pet sit, park your RV on the person's property.

Maybe they let you stay there for free, maybe they charge you a minimum.

But if they have a dump 110 in water, you're good to go.

So that might be an option.

Then of course campgrounds leveraging that off peak price if they have off peak seasons where you can get a lower price.

So every dollar counts.

All five of these in much greater detail are going to be on our website, the smartrverver.com under money saving tip.

Every dollar counts to journey.

Keep the journey alive.

Keep traveling.

Don't give up on travel because of obstacles.

Does that make sense?

We want to keep traveling as much as we possibly can.

All right, so staying on the road, we're going to talk about RV furnace maintenance and repair.

Now, RV furnaces, you know, listening to this and how to maintain a repair is kind of difficult.

I mean, I get it.

You're driving, you're sitting around in your office doing something and you're listening.

Even in the video version of this, we're not going to have a real furnace here.

Working on it.

Trying to explain this in this format is kind of difficult.

It's definitely worth listening to because we're going to make sure you understand how a furnace works.

And what I think is true is that when you understand how the furnace works, it's much easier to diagnose the RV furnace.

Now one of the things you have to be able to do, be willing to do is troubleshoot it.

And that's going to require a couple tools.

First you're going to need a multimeter or a voltmeter.

You got to have at least a 12 volt volt meter.

Furnace runs on 12 volts it's not 110 volts.

It takes propane to make the heat, but it needs 12 volts to work.

It has a circuit board in there, and everything in that furnace runs on 12 volts.

And what I find is that some RVers, like when they come into our store, they just want to buy parts.

They don't want to check anything, and they have to take the furnace out to do a check.

Well, some furnaces, you can work on them in the RV because the circuit board and all the parts that you need to replace the sail switch are accessible through an access door on the outside of the RV.

Now, not all RVs have that access door.

So some RVs, you have to pull the furnace out.

Like suburban furnaces typically have to be pulling out hydroflame and dometics.

Some of them can be worked on from the outside of the RV because they have a door, but not all of them do.

So your RV furnace is.

Might not be like everybody else's.

You know, you might be one half of the population with your furnace or the RV owners.

And I say that because it's not every rv.

Like if you were to sell your RV and think that the next RV you got, the furnace is going to be accessible.

That way when the furnace fails, you might be going, oh, wait a minute, there's no door outside.

What do I do?

Because your other one had it.

Not all RV furnace are the same, like so many things on an rv.

So you have to have a voltmeter.

You've got to have one.

Even as an RV owner, you should have a volt meter.

You know, most of them have 12 volts, 110 volts.

You can read ohms on them, milliamps.

And that's all cool.

That's the way to go.

That's a multimeter.

And you don't have to learn how to use every function, except if you keep the instructions handy, you can just kind of pick it, pick at it as you go.

Learn what you need to learn at the moment.

Get that voltmeter and then, you know, a couple of basic tools.

You know, a screw gun is always nice with a cordless drill with some different bits, quarter inch, five sixteen Phillips head, square tip.

Those are typically what you're going to need to get a furnace out.

A couple wrenches, 3/4 and 1116, I think, or a 9, 16, 5, 8, 2 Crescent wrenches.

You know, I'm not a big fan of crescent wrenches, but heck, if that's what you got and it works and they're Good wrenches, and they don't strip out the nuts.

You're fine.

And knowing to turn the propane off and disconnect the battery when you start doing this type of stuff.

But a furnace is a very simple appliance in the rv.

And I, I kind of laughed there because sometimes they can be a nightmare.

You get furnaces that are very odd.

You know, we got a Suburban furnace in here.

Actually a mobile tech did.

He finally brought it to us just to make sure he wasn't going crazy.

And the entire frame of it had 18 volts running through it.

When you hooked up power, the frame had 18 volts running through it.

It was the weirdest thing.

It didn't matter what you did, it had that power and so the furnace wouldn't work right.

So Suburban replaced that furnace because it was a new one and the new one was exact opposite.

Worked fine.

You put them side by side on the bent.

Same thing.

You know, one works, one doesn't disconnect all the 12 volt parts onto the circuit board.

Everything still had 18 volts in it.

So that's what I mean.

Sometimes furnaces can be odd, but that's not an everyday thing.

And sometimes a problem with the furnace, you get it working on your bench.

If you pull it out, you put it back in, it doesn't work.

Something's wrong.

It's probably something you did.

It's probably not the furnace.

So keep that in mind.

And another thing too is if you're pulling out your furnace and you're going to do any repairs on it, regardless of what a furnace needs, always replace the sail switch.

It's just an inexpensive item that fails regularly or semi regularly.

And sometimes when you take a furnace out, that sail switch will be fine.

You put it back in and the furnace doesn't work.

And all the signs point to the sail switch.

Sail switches can be very sensitive.

They're a micro switch basically, with a long arm and gets fat at the end, so it looks like a sail.

So when the air moves, when the blower is moving air, it pushes that switch.

But even lint sometimes, or something moves in that switch, it can get it to malfunction.

So just always put in a new sail switch or micro switch as they're called sometimes.

Okay, so that's kind of the basics to get us rolling here.

Remember to always turn off the propane before you disconnect the furnace.

Disconnect the battery.

I said that.

But let's just reemphasize that now.

I'm going to go through the sequence of normal operation.

And this is from Suburban's, one of their owner's manuals.

And basically a furnace is a furnace.

Most of them work exactly the same.

The sequence like on some, I think it's hydroflame or Atwood furnaces.

The power goes through the sail switch and then it goes through the high temperature switch on the back of it that shuts off power if it gets too hot.

It can go one of two ways, but the functionality is basically the same.

And all of this information, these manuals, these sequence of operation type things I'm going to have on our website.

It's not every manual.

I'm probably not going to have your furnace's manual up there.

I have no intention of doing that.

What I'm trying to do is provide the basic things.

Because even if your furnace is a little bit different, let's say it has a time delay relay, the functionality is the same.

But actually I'm going to have that covered up there so you'll be able to diagnose that one properly.

Time delay relays are on older furnaces, but they're still out there.

So nonetheless, let's go through this and keep in mind a furnace is a furnace for the most part.

So it might not be your model number, but it'll probably exactly how your furnace works.

But the theory is the same.

So everything depends on the blower motor.

So when you flip the thermostat on in the rv, the blower motor turns on usually sometimes right away, but it's usually a 12 to 18 second delay.

Thermostat turns on, that's providing the thermostat is good.

If the thermostat is not good, then the motor is not going to turn on.

So this is all based on the thermostat being good, whether it's an analog thermostat or a digital thermostat.

You turn the thermostat on, you have that delay.

Let's just say after 15 seconds, the motor starts turning.

So the motor starts spinning.

And once it gets to about 75% of its normal operation, normal RPM, that's enough airflow for the sail switch to work.

So the motor spins, the sail switch is right next to it or the micro switch, whichever you want to call it.

But we're going to call it sail switch.

So the sail switch now is engaged because the blower motor spinning, the wind of that hits the sail, the sail closes, the switch is engaged and now it's going to complete a 12 volt circuit through the limit Switch and then that goes to the circuit board.

So it's a circle, if you will.

Imagine that it's just a circle going from the.

The blower starts spinning, the sail switch gets engaged, goes through the limit switch and then through the circuit board, and then that just keeps going.

That's just a perpetual loop.

As long as the furnace is on, that 12 volt supply is just running there.

So now the circuit board says the sail switch is engaged.

The limit switch is working fine.

I've got power from it.

So now I'm going to open up the gas valve and then I'm going to start sending a spark to the electrode.

So now at the same time, the circuit board opens up the gas valve and sends a spark to the electrode.

And if everything's working fine, the gas valve opens, propane comes out, the electrodes start sparking, and boom, you got flame.

Now the furnace or the heat?

Yeah, the furnace is working.

Everything's good.

The combustion chamber is filled up with heat.

Heat's coming out of the vents throughout the RV and you're good to go.

So it's a pretty basic process here, right?

So now things can go wrong here.

When things go wrong again, the circuit board kicks in.

The circuit board is the brains of the operation.

All the other things on there are just helping the circuit board to make decisions.

So it's like, okay, I got this, I got that.

So this is good.

So I'm going to make this work.

So now let's say you turn on the thermostat, set it to 80 degrees and the blower comes on.

You hear the igniter going, and it's igniter, not the circuit board.

A lot of circuit boards make the same sound and they even have a little light on that shows you if it's light sparking, but there's no flame.

Okay, so what is that?

Is that the sail switch?

Is it the circuit board?

Is it the gas valve?

Is it the igniter?

The igniter could be sparking, but it could actually be out of adjustment.

So now you have to diagnose that.

And that's where that voltmeter comes in.

The blower motor spinning.

And the minute the blower motor spins and gets up to speed, the sail switch should have power on both sides of it.

It's two wires going to it.

Each side of that wire or the sail switch should have 12 volts.

If both sides have 12 volts, then the sail switch is working.

And then you go to the limit switch.

If both sides of it has 12 volts, it's working.

So now you go to the circuit board and you should be able to follow that wire right to the circuit board.

You got 12 volts there.

Then that loop is complete.

You got power running through it like it should.

So now the circuit board has a problem with something else.

So maybe it says, okay, this is all good.

The limit switch, the sail switch, they're working.

And so I'm sending power to the gas valve and the electrode now.

Now the gas valve, generally when they're working, you can have your finger on it.

Sometimes you can hear it as well, but it makes like a clunk or feels like a clunk opening.

And that would let out propane.

Now, maybe you don't feel that clunk, maybe you don't hear it.

But if you check it for voltage, when the circuit board is in ignition mode, it's only in ignition mode for seconds.

It's not the entire time the blower is on.

You have that delay before the blower comes on, and then it starts to spark.

When it starts to spark, you should have 12 volts at the gas valve.

I hope you're following this long.

I know it's kind of difficult to imagine this, but when you check for 12 volts of the gas valve while it's in ignition mode and you have 12 volts there, but the gas valve isn't opening, then the gas valve is bad.

Now, if you don't have 12 volts at the gas valve, you're more than likely the circuit board is going to be bad.

But you could have the opposite, where the gas valve opens for a few seconds, but there's no ignition going through the electrode.

It's not sparking.

So now you go back to the circuit board or the igniter.

Is there a problem there?

Now, most shops, I would imagine, would check your circuit board for free.

We do it at our place.

You bring it in, we check it.

Don't bring in the furnace, just bring in the gas valve.

And we will check it.

I mean, the circuit board, we will check it.

Now, even it checks not always 100%, but what it does do is it tells you if the gas valve is working or if the circuit board is opening or sending power to the gas valve and if it's sending power to the electrode.

So that's a simple little test.

And it's not always a circuit board.

Believe it or not, we sell more sail switches and electrodes that than we do circuit boards.

Now, we still sell a fair amount of circuit boards.

Believe me, they do go bad.

Hopefully they're Bad when people replace them if they diagnose them properly.

But what we're trying to do here is get you to understand how the furnace works.

Like I said, all this information is going to be on our website under do it yourself articles.

And what makes this easy is the fact that it's just a few basic parts.

It's not a complex deal.

And these articles also have a lot more information about maintenance and your annual maintenance, six month whatever it might be.

Most people don't do anything with their furnace.

They just let it sit.

And the vents can get filled up with dust or pet hair around the furnace in that area.

Sometimes they get just packed with pet hair.

I mean, you've got to get in there and vacuum it out.

Even if it's not real bad, you want to just make sure everything's working as good as possible.

I kind of jumped a point here.

The furnace more than likely is going to try to ignite three times and then it's going to go into lockout mode.

So if your furnace isn't working, let's say you turn on the thermostat, the blower comes on, you hear the furnace sparking, then it stops.

Then 15 seconds it does it again, same thing, spark, but doesn't ignite.

And then it does it again after 15 second delay.

And these delays are to clean out any propane in the combustion chamber so it doesn't build up that fan, keeps going and pushes all that vent or any propane in there that hasn't been ignited outside.

So that way you don't have a little explosion inside your furnace.

So it's a safety feature.

In fact, that's what a sail switch is.

And the limit switch, they're safety features to keep your furnace from blowing up.

Your rv, getting too much propane there and all of a sudden ignites.

That's why they're there.

So it's important that you keep that in mind because sometimes if your sail switch has failed, one easy way doesn't have voltage on both sides, but you want to make sure you could connect those wires together with a jumper.

Bypass the sail switch and the furnace will work normally if the sail switch is defective.

And as I say that, keep in mind the blower has to be spinning before you jump those wires.

If you jump it beforehand, the blower won't even come on.

So it has to be turning first.

Now, you're not going to find that in the owner's manual, but you can do that.

You can jump a limit switch.

But keep in mind, don't leave it jumped.

It's a safety issue.

So the lockout mode, if you get into lockout mode, that's it.

The furnace isn't going to come back on again until you turn the thermostat off.

That cuts the 12 volts to the furnace, and then you turn it back on and it provides 12 volts again.

In the meantime, the furnace clears its memory or the circuit board does.

Some furnaces that are accessible from the outside of an RV have what is called a reset switch.

It's basically an on off switch.

Hit reset, then back on, and it just cuts power for, you know, as long as you have it off, then you turn it back on and everything starts again.

And also on your circuit board, there's always a light on them.

I shouldn't say always.

You know, about 98% of the time there's a light and it flashes and it has various codes that is flashing.

And those codes sometimes aren't exactly going to solve the problem for you, but they might send you in the right direction.

I'm looking for the codes here.

I don't recall what they all are.

There's only four of them.

You know, one of them is a hard fail where the circuit board supposedly has gone bad.

And that's, you know, it's right quite often, not 100% of the time, but it is there.

And then there's one about airflow.

So.

But anyway, the codes are not like the end all.

They just give you an idea.

In fact, the codes are on your furnace.

Generally they're right there on the furnace.

So you don't have to go looking anywhere else.

In fact, there's a lot of information on your furnace, like the wiring diagram.

You know, you might not understand electrical or electronics, but.

But when you can follow a wiring diagram, it kind of gives you an idea.

It shows the sequence.

It's not going to help you 100%, but it'll definitely give you an idea that's kind of the basics of a furnace not igniting.

Now, sometimes a blower motor will start making noise.

Typically the bearings are going bad.

You can check the.

They call it the squirrel cage or the fan on it.

You know, for a bunch of buildup in there, sometimes it'll make a.

An odd noise.

It gets out of balance that that fan or the squirrel cage might be hitting the frame or the housing of the furnace because there's so much buildup on there.

Sometimes it's mud dauber, sometimes it's just dust and dirt.

Furnaces should be blown out with air get all that debris out of there or vacuum them out really good, it can make that fan motor a little off balance, so that can be an issue.

So these are all the basics, I guess, to walk you through this.

But keep in mind you got a circuit board, a gas valve, an electrode, a sail switch, and a high limit switch.

Those are basically it, with five components there to make up the furnace, how it works, the brains of the operation, if you will.

So this isn't anything that you can't fix on your own usually.

But what I recommend is not just buying parts and throwing them at the furnace, but a sail switch is one part that you want to buy and, and throw it your furnace whenever you have it out for repair.

I mean, unless you're taking in and out trying to diagnose a problem, you're having a problem doing that, then that might be a different story.

You're not going to buy it three times in a week, which I know you want to do that, but I do have to say that, right?

And furnaces typically don't have shutoff valves for the propane to them.

Occasionally one might have it, some older ones.

So make sure that shutoff valve is in the on position, make sure you have propane, make sure the battery voltage is up.

I hear it quite often when plugged into shore power.

And these people sound so bad.

These people, the RVers, they insist that it's not a battery issue, when in actuality it was.

The converter is not charging the battery and the furnace is just running off the battery.

And so it's not getting replenished or there's a problem with the converter period.

So there's little things, even the circuit board.

In some of these converters that have the power centers, the circuit board can be an issue.

So it's not always the furnace.

And so you have to eliminate some of these other things.

Propane being on.

That sounds so silly.

But you know what?

Sometimes we space out.

We think we turned it on and we didn't.

We went out to the propane tank to turn it on.

Someone calls our name, our phone rings, we get distracted, then we just forget we're even there and we go back in and start at the thermostat.

Uh oh, still not working.

And we didn't even turn the propane on.

Another thing too is I brought up the thermostat several times.

So depending on what type of air conditioning system you have, will change the thermostat.

If you have a dometic air conditioner, you can jump the Thermostat or bypass it at the furnace much easier than you can.

Well, some of the thermostats you're not going to be able to do it on dometic ones.

At the thermostat, you'd actually have to drop the ceiling assembly down for the air conditioner.

There's two furnace wires there going into a box that those would have to be jumped.

Sometimes you can just take the plastic cover off the AC and access it.

Sometimes you can't.

Depending on the age of the rv, I prefer to do it right at the furnace.

So if you turn on the thermostat and nothing happens, you know, it seems like the electrodes are working or it's.

With digital thermostats, you're not going to know that.

So you're going to go, okay, so the content, let's say it's an anticipator, digital or an analog thermostat.

You flip the little lever, slide it over like in the house used to be, you kind of feel it, but nothing happens at the furnace.

Then at that thermostat, you could actually jump it at the thermostat usually.

But digital ones, you can't.

So if you go right to the furnace, there's usually two blue wires.

Most of them have two blue wires.

If not, your wiring diagram will show you exactly which two wires to jump.

They're the two wires for the thermostat.

You put them together.

And the furnace, if it comes on, that means your thermostat is bad.

Very basic test.

And that's the test that quite often no one wants to do.

They just buy the thermostat and it turns out it was a fuse because we forgot to check the fuse, which I didn't say that.

But as we walk through this, you know, these things come to mind.

So checking the 12 volt fuse, make sure it's not blown.

You know, most places aren't going to take a thermostat back.

You know, they're not something you can buy just to try to fix your rv.

And furnace or thermostats are kind of durable, but they still can get ruined.

You hook them up wrong.

Who knows what someone might do to one they want to return it.

It doesn't work that way.

So I think we've kind of beat this to a.

Beat it enough.

So everything will be on our website.

It will be available to you so you can diagnose your furnace.

And of course you can call me 406-961-8688.

I will help you with this.

I have no problem doing that.

And no, I'm not going to charge you per phone call.

We're here to help.

We want you to be successful in being able to repair your rv.

So now that's going to take us to the next stop portion of our show today.

And today in our next stop, we're going to visit Madison, Wisconsin.

Now Madison, Wisconsin is a very unique place.

Maybe some of you have been there, maybe some of you haven't, but Madison, Wisconsin is in Wisconsin, right?

So it's a unique little town.

It's got that small town feel.

It's got all the amenities that you would need.

It has everything, even has a university.

It's got outdoor adventures.

But it's a cool place and we're talking about it today because it's very unique.

It's actually on an isthmus.

So it's a small little piece of land between two lakes and that makes it very unique into itself, right?

How many little tiny little fingers of land you have between two lakes.

You got lake on the right, lake on the left.

And so it's a very unique town.

It has a lot of spirit about, you know, let's just be active, let's be a town, let's be a community.

It has a very positive cultural scene.

The outdoor lifestyle is just part of Madison, Wisconsin.

It's built into the fabric of the town.

So it ranks as one of the best places to live in the United States.

Think about that.

One of the best places to live.

So that sounds pretty cool in itself.

Now sometimes these best places to live come with more complications to live there than some of us want to deal with.

Maybe it's cold weather, unique weather, unique obstacles, right?

Living on an isthmus, although, you know, you're not lake locked or landlocked, you can go about, but it's just different, right?

You might worry about flooding, maybe that's your thing.

But if you're considering going to Wisconsin, Madison is definitely a place you'd want to visit.

Like I said, it's the capital of Wisconsin and it's on the isthmus.

So that makes it pretty cool in itself.

Doesn't make it the best place in the world to visit just because of that, but it certainly adds to it, right?

Madison has something for every season.

It's a year round location.

Winter, summer, spring, fall, they got you covered.

Culture, music, arts.

And of course there's food and drinks, there's places to eat.

You know, we wouldn't do a, a next stop without some, you know, if it doesn't have food there, good food, quality food, or that everyday Americana type food.

So Madison or.

Yeah, Madison, Wisconsin definitely is a place you'd want to go.

You know, these little towns, we bring them up.

And Madison is not a massive town.

It's still on the smaller side of towns, as it were.

But we bring them up and we've said it before, I'll say it again, gets you thinking.

You start looking on maps and you're going to go places.

And Madison's a very dynamic town.

It's the state capital.

And if I'm not mistaken, their state capitol was kind of modeled after the United States Capitol.

Looks the same, Built the same, maybe not exact.

So that in itself would make it worth seeing, you know, definitely.

If you've seen the United States Capitol in Washington, you know, in the past, you can compare between two lakes, which.

That in itself makes it very unique.

It has a university there, if that means anything to you.

It's a town of innovation, creativity.

It's been around for a long time, so it has rich history.

You can ride a bicycle through the town, many scenic trails.

There's just tons of stuff to do there.

We suggest, or I suggest to go there, check it out.

Another small town, small town adventure.

And if you live in the area, maybe you've been there.

But hey, maybe it's time to go back, right?

Check out something different.

So that's Madison, Wisconsin.

And now we're going to take a trip to Cambridge, Wisconsin, and shadows of the past, towns that once were.

Now, normally we do a reading here.

I guess you could call it a dramatic reading, but that's not happening today.

Today is just a unique day.

This week has been a long week.

My wife broke her foot this week.

It's kind of thrown things in turmoil here.

She's a key player in the business we have, and she does so much stuff here.

And a broken foot just kind of changed it all.

Time just wasn't on my side.

So there's not going to be a reading today, but I really wanted to include Cambridge, Wisconsin, since we already had the information on it.

We just didn't get the script built yet to do a reading.

Now that could change.

I mean, we, we publish these podcasts, you know, usually a week, two, three weeks in advance.

And so sometimes we can go in and change stuff.

So we'll see.

But don't get your hopes up if you like those readings.

It is such a unique place.

Cambridge is very cool.

It's been around for a long time.

Got that small Town charm, but it's got rich history.

And being in Wisconsin, in that general area of Madison I think is 20 miles away.

It has a lot of outdoor recreation.

So there's a lot of potential there to do things.

It's a very unique town.

The tree lined street, so it's got that Mayberry feel to it.

It's just a place with endless advent.

So there's 1500 people approximately live there.

So it's not a massive town, it's very small.

So it's a nice peaceful escape from the big city or wherever it might be.

So you can park along the water, you can enjoy the water, you can explore the rich history.

The town was created in the 1800s, I believe, early 1800s.

So you know, it did all sorts of things there.

You had a tight knit village back then.

You do today, craftsmen, they were creating things, building things, sawmills, feed mills.

Kind of that typical small town that we talk about, except it was in a different place.

It was in Wisconsin, not in the west or the Midwest.

You know, I guess Wisconsin can be considered the Midwest, but I mean Kentucky, Oklahoma, someplace like that.

Little more hardscape than greenscape.

Highly recommend it.

It's a beautiful place.

Looking at it, it definitely fits our shadows of the past.

But portion of the show, it's one of these cool old towns that's still here today.

Still has a lot of that natural beauty it had way back in the 1800s.

Isn't it interesting that these towns were created and the charm of them, the style of them, whether it was the old west, you know, someplace on the east coast, you know, along the, the Gulf coast, it doesn't matter when they were created in the 1700s, 1800s and they make it today.

We don't want to see a modern town, we want to see these older towns get a taste of Americana.

And I know Americana is disappearing rapidly right now.

There's some people that just don't like it.

They don't want to see Americana.

But Americana is awesome.

It takes us back to a time when things were different, when they are better.

Check it out and we'll keep providing these towns places to go so it can feed your traveling appetite.

That's going to take us to RV Envy and again the next stop.

And the Shadows of the Past is available on our website, the smartrver.com it will be there and you can enjoy it and there's always links there.

A little bit more than what we get here on the podcast.

Definitely a lot more actually because you get the full article here.

We're just picking point now in RV envy.

Today we are going to Discuss keeping those 110 cords and adapters in top shape, tip top shape, let's say.

So these cords that we have sticking out of RV that we plug into the receptacles at RV parks or our house, you know, they have a tendency of getting beat up, neglected, walked on, stepped on, dropped on the ground.

They're left in the dirt, left in the water.

They are 100% like a redheaded stepchild, ignored.

And they can't be.

You know, when you plug in your power cord, what does it do?

It provides power to your entire rv.

You know, it comes alive.

You know, everything starts clicking on, things are happening.

That RV's got power.

Now, if it's 100 degrees outside, you can go in there, turn on the air conditioner and boom, you got cold air now.

Oh, it's so nice.

Refrigerator can run on 110.

Not using your propane, your converter's working, pushing power through all the outlets.

The battery's getting recharged.

All your 12 volt appliances, lights, et cetera are working.

Everything's working great.

It's a lifesaver, but yet we don't treat it like a lifesaver.

And like I said, I mean, Most of the RVs that come in here, the power cores are at home.

Horrible shape, horrible shape.

So here's what we need to do.

You need to take that power cord and we're talking about the end that plugs into your house or shore power.

Whatever you plug it into, it's either 30amp or 50amp.

So it either has three prongs or four prongs.

And generally, if your RV has the twist connect type cord where it plugs inside of your rv, those twist connects always seem to be in much better shape.

They're not getting dropped and kicked.

But you do want to inspect that, make sure that both sides of it are nice and clean.

Now, cleaning these things can be kind of a chore.

You can't always get like Q tip or something into the adapters to try to clean them out.

So you have to get very small wire brushes and be patient.

And don't use gasoline, don't use paint thinner.

You don't want to use WD40.

You really don't want to use a whole lot of ingot unless it conducts electricity.

Now there's a product called Corrosion X that would be good for cleaning it because it does conduct electricity.

It's not going to ruin that, that connection.

And you don't want to ruin the connection.

So actually just keeping them nice and clean without any on them is probably going to the easiest and best way to go.

Now there's, I know there's going to be some people saying, well, you need to use this product, you need to use that product.

I'd love to hear about those products because there's a lot of products out there that make it sound like they'll work for this, but they won't.

They sound like they'll work, but when you start reading the instructions, they don't.

There's not a lot of products made for this.

So the best thing to do for an RVer is just keep the cord clean.

When I say the cord, I mean the end of the cord.

So let's say you have a 50amp cord and the end of it's all corroded.

Some of the posts or the posts have been bent, you know, and you've straightened them out.

Or maybe just shove it into the shore power outlet and it straightens them out.

Well, straighten those things out.

Get a wire brush, clean off the corrosion.

If it has arc spots on it, clean those off, file them down, sand them down, get it to where it's in good shape, nice and shiny and keep it that way.

Once you get it there, it'll typically stay there and you might be able to just wipe it off with a rag every time you go to use it.

Just wipe the prongs off, keep it clean.

Then you know, on the 50amp outlet.

Now you got to think about this.

Think hard.

You got to stay focused.

If it's a 50amp outlet or service your RV has or 30amp, it doesn't matter.

You're plugging into, let's say shore powered in an RV park or maybe an outlet your home.

And if you're using an adapter going to 15amps, the psychology has to be the same.

Do not stick something into that outlet.

At the park.

The shore power your house without being absolutely 100% sure you've turned the power off.

Don't get a little tiny micro wire brush and start sticking it in there thinking you're going to clean it.

All sudden you get electrocuted.

You need to make absolute sure the power's off.

So you flip the breakers off.

Then you double check it with your volt meter and you make sure that voltmeter is working.

And then you make sure there's no power there.

Then you can clean out those receptacles.

I say that because the inclination is set down the cord and Go right there and start cleaning without really thinking about it, especially if this is a new routine for you.

So whatever you're plugging into the power has to be off.

But those receptacles should be clean.

Now, when you're plugging in your shore power from your RV to shore power or an extension cord, whatever it might be, and it starts arcing out, that could mean that something inside the RV is drawing a lot of power.

Like you left the air conditioner on.

Make sure there's nothing on in the RV that's going to draw power as you're plugging it into shore power.

Sometimes an arc is normal.

Maybe the converter kicks on the minute it fills that power because the 12 volt battery is low enough.

Don't let it sit there and arc.

Just push it in and get it done.

Don't let it keep doing that.

And it might do it.

Sometimes, like I said, the converter could be on.

So that's going to be drawing power and it'll cause that.

It's not the end of the world.

Now what some people do is they turn off the breaker at the shore power or their house, they plug in the rv, then they turn the breaker on.

That eliminates all the arcing out whatsoever.

And that makes sense.

I like that idea.

But sometimes it's not always convenient.

But it's definitely worth exploring each time you plug in your rv.

Because most shore power RV parks have a breaker right there at the shore power.

So keeping those cords nice and clean is going to extend the life of the end.

Because once you cut off that molded end and put on an aftermarket end, well, that cord is just not the same anymore.

You know, even though it's done right, you know you've done it, you had a shop do it.

It's more likely the cord will pull out of the end over time.

You have to be a little more delicate with them.

The molded end is just the way to go.

So protect that molded end.

But when the time comes where you have to cut it off, just cut it off.

Don't make drag it on, just do it.

It's not one of your hands or your feet or something.

So that's going to make everything work better.

Less problems.

You know, you're not going to have a cord that's overheating.

A circuit breaker is not going to be blowing at or in your RV because the cord's getting hot.

You do not want 110 volt items overheating or breakers overheating and causing other problems.

And they can, they can be subtle problems.

They can be problems that are building.

The air conditioner might not be getting the power it needs or the amps that it needs.

It can be problematic.

Now one thing to keep in mind too, when you go to RV parks, typically a 50amp outlet at a park is always in better shape than the 30amp outlets.

Those 30amp outlets get used and abused.

I typically plug into the 50amp outlet with an adapter adapter and go from 50 to 30.

Because my RV is a 30amp service.

Those 50amps fit much tighter, they don't get used as often and they don't wear out the same as the 30amps do.

That's just what I do.

You don't have to do that.

And I still run my surge protector.

All that good stuff on there.

My Hughes auto former.

Everything's still in line except I just use that 50amp leg, which is okay.

Your RV will still work the same.

It won't even know the difference, believe me.

So that's what I do.

Now, like I said, if you have some special way you do this or a product you recommend, please let me know.

You can use the contact us page at the Smart RVer.

You can call me 406-961-8688.

We have no problem giving out our phone number.

We do not hate it when you guys call us.

We get a lot of phone calls every day and it's just part of what we do.

We help people out.

Okay everybody, we have come to the end of the show today.

Did I get it all?

Did I miss anything other than hey, a reminder.

Check out our YouTube channel.

Like and subscribe, share our podcast.

Check us out on social media, x, Facebook, Instagram.

We're posting videos there.

We have things happening.

We're working more and more on the social media.

We're looking at different ways to go.

We'd like to start a community.

So we're trying to do things.

It's just hard growing sometimes a small, small podcaster.

Although we are listened to around the world, so I guess we're not that small.

We're still on the top 10 list.

Can't think of the name of the podcast channel.

Now I'm gonna have to look at that because you can find us anywhere on any podcast channel.

You can find us on YouTube.

We are available.

You can find us at our location of Victor, Montana, Monday through Friday 8 to 5.

See, we're a real company.

We answer the phone, respond emails and text messages.

And by the way, that phone number you can text to that as well.

So if you have a question about something and a picture is going to help, send us a picture, your name and phone number and what's going on and we will be in touch.

So hey everybody, I really appreciate you stopping by today, listening to the podcast, checking out the video on YouTube.

We love it.

We love your support.

We love being part of your community.

This is absolutely awesome.

Be able to own an RV and travel and see the United States at our leisure.

So let's keep doing it.

This is Eric Stark with the Smart RVer podcast, your go to guide for smarter RVing and unforgettable adventures on the open road.

So we will see you next time.