Beyond Hope

Special thanks to Sandy for the title. Apparently, it is a common joke that people on the West side of Hope are “beyond Hope”. We are West of Hope, but also South: we are returning home due to a serious mechanical failure.

One of the RV upgrades we got in Florida was to replace the propane heater with a diesel heater. With this, the vehicle no longer uses propane, which can be difficult to purchase in some remote areas like Alaska and Mexico. Unfortunately, the new Timberline heater has been extremely unreliable; it even failed on the first night we got it. When we were in Baja, Greg had several emails with Timberline technical support, and they agreed to replace the controllers under warranty. So on our return home after Baja, we stopped at Timberline near Portland OR, and they made the repairs. Over the last month, we tested the heater for days and it was working reliably - until last night. Last night, the temperature dropped to 42F (5C). Greg woke up at 3AM with very cold feet. The burner had failed and gave the error message above that the diesel glow plug had failed. The heater works fine on electricity (or Hydro, for those who celebrate). However, we plan to camp in remote locations without electricity. No heat and no hot water is a no-go for Alaska.

After a sleepless night, Greg spent the morning on the phone with Timberline and with several RV and boat repair shops in BC. We learned that this glow plug is a special-order part that could take 2 weeks to get to Canada. And even if we had the part in hand, most RV repair shops have no availability for several weeks. (This is unfortunately common). So Timberline is shipping the glow plug to our home overnight, and Greg will try to do the repair tomorrow.

Greg was too tired to drive, so Amy did the drive alone while Greg sat at the desk and studied the service manuals for the heater. We are now in Chilliwack, just off the Trans-Canada Highway. This is about 2.5 hours from home. Tonight, we will eat the chicken and fresh produce that we got from Granville Island. We don’t yet know how this will change our itinerary; we will figure it out once Humpty Dumpty is put together again.