It has been said that when it comes to Recreational Vehicles - or RVs, for short - there are two types of maintenance: Preventive and Crisis. This manual covers preventive maintenance, so you can avoid having to deal with "crisis" maintenance issues while on the road.

Woodall's RV Owner's Handbook covers all types of preventative maintenance tasks with easy-to-follow instructions to make sure you get it right the first time. There's also troubleshooting and repair steps to take care of all the major systems found on your RV including plumbing, electrical, appliances and seasonal maintenance.
This do-it-yourself RV repair guide covers all brands and types of RVs. The generalized instructions are clarified with hundreds of photos and detailed illustrations to help you locate systems and components on your RV. The simplified instructions make maintaining your recreational vehicle easy and inexpensive. This fabulous guide is now out-of-print, so get yours before it's too late.

NOTE: It was published in 2008 so you need to keep that in consideration but we believe this manual is still quite invaluable.

Book Excerpt

BATTERY BANKS

Not unlike any traditional financial banking institution, the conscientious RVer must make substantial deposits (of current) into the RV battery system in order to avoid becoming electrically bankrupt! If you take out more than you put in, well, you can do the math and easily determine the result; for both financial bank as well as what we refer to as the RV ?battery bank?. Every battery has a limit to just how much electrical current it can store at a full charge. With the electrical demands of today?s recreation vehicle, oftentimes it?s necessary to add more batteries to the same system in order to store enough current to be able to satisfy the DC power requirements for that RV. Anytime more than one battery is electrically connected to the same DC system, those batteries constitute the commonly used phrase, bank of batteries. In fact, the vast majority of recreation vehicles will come equipped from the factory with at least two, 12-volt batteries wired in parallel to double the capacity to store current rather than a single battery in the same system. In some cases, two 6-volt batteries are wired in series to provide double the capacity.

WATER HEATER

SEQUENCE OF OPERATION Though the two major RV water heater manufactures (Atwood and Suburban) utilize much of the same technology and methodology, each brand of water heater has some distinct variances in the order of operation. What follows are sequences of operation for each manufacturer. Both Atwood and Suburban start their sequences at the water heater switch located in the RV. This switch is equipped with a red lamp, commonly referred to as the "failure to ignite" lamp. The sequence begins by turning on this switch. Typically the lamp will light immediately and then go out during the attempt to ignite the burner. Once the burner ignites, the lamp stays extinguished. If it fails to ignite properly, or the flame blows out, the lamp is illuminated indicating a failure to the RVer. THE ATWOOD SEQUENCE

1. When water heater switch is activated, voltage is passed through thermostat.
2. The normally closed thermostat passes the voltage onto a thermal cutoff.
3. The thermal cutoff passes the voltage to the circuit board.
4. Once the board is energized, ignition spark is produced and voltage is passes to the ECO switch.
5. Voltage then passes through ECO to the gas valve, opening the valve.
6. LP is passed through the valve into the burner where it is ignited by the spark from the circuit board.
7. Once a flame is established, the flame sense circuit on the circuit board stops the sparking and the board keeps the gas valve open.
8. Once the designated water temperature is reached the thermostat opens the circuit and power is stopped and the flame goes out.

ABOUT the AUTHOR: Gary Bunzer has been active in the RV industry since 1968. Author of the popular question and answer column RV Doctor, he has been writing technical articles, service manuals and product installation instructions since the early 1970s. Subject: Transportation: Travel: Recreational Vehicles: Service: RV do-it-yourself maintenance and repair manual. ISBN-10: 076275141X | ISBN-13: 9780762751419 | Woodall's DOHB4