The water softener was a great addition to our coach. But it requires periodic maintenance, to regenerate it every couple of weeks, and backflush it quarterly.

Backflushing it requires reversing the connections, to have water go in the outlet, and dump out the inlet. When I first backflushed it, I used the plastic double-female connector that came with it, with a couple of my quick-connectors:

Thusly:

On the output side, I didn’t have a double male adapter, so I just held the hose to my sewer connector, which was a bit messy:

I thought I could do better, so I bought some brass double adapters, which together with my quick-connectors, works much better:

When a test strip indicates the water coming out of the softener is getting hard, it is time to regenerate it (typically every couple of weeks, depending on where we are). This is done by pouring two containers of table salt into the top of the softener (after turning off the water, of course), then I connect a special hose to a sewer rinse cap, that adapts the water hose to the sewer hose, ensuring I can flush out the salty water without making a mess:

Here’s a closer look at the sewer adapter:

Another couple of pics of regenerating:

I also replaced the hose between the filter and softener with a more flexible one, and added a clear sewer hose adapter so I could see the water flow rate:

(You can also see the cap off the water softener in that pic.)

I do enjoy my plumbing bits. It may seem overly complex, but all those quick connectors and adapters make this required maintenance much easier.

The door on the dryer in our coach (yes, we have a washer and dryer) tends to swing closed when open. So I attached a couple of strong magnets to the cupboard and dryer doors to keep it open.

Here are the magnets I used:

I attached them to the doors with Glue Dots:

I do have magnets with self-adhesive backs, but they aren’t as powerful, and I need opposite polarities for each magnet so they stick together, so using the glue dots on the magnets works better:

A magnet on the dryer door:

And a magnet on the enclosing cupboard door:

They meet and hold the door open:

RVs all come with a carbon monoxide detector, sometimes called a propane detector. Our coach is all-electric, so doesn’t have any propane on board, but such a detector is still useful.

These detectors are usually rated for 60 months from sale, which is five years. Our 2017 Tiffin Allegro Bus 40SP is six years old, so it wasn’t surprising that the detector in our bedroom recently started to give an end-of-life beep and light flash… at 2 in the morning, of course.

So it was time to replace it.

I ordered another model from Amazon, not doing a very good job of checking for suitability; I hadn’t noticed that the original unit is flush mounted, so a surface mount wouldn’t work (especially being a little smaller, so wouldn’t cover the hole in the wall).

So then I did what I probably should have done, and ordered a replacement of the same model as original from the Tiffin Parts Store, part number 5060082.

Here’s the old carbon monoxide detector:

Unscrewed from the wall:

It has the manufacture date stamped on the back:

The new detector from Tiffin:

It was manufactured in November:

Some tools to replace it; I got out both the wire caps and heat shrink connectors:

I decided to use the heat shrink connectors; here they are connected and crimped:

And using the heat gun to shrink them:

All done:

The light was blinking when I first connected it, which confused me as not one of the listed statuses, but it was just a startup sequence; after a few minutes it was a steady green. I pressed the button to test it, and all was well. Done!

Back in November 2021 I replaced some malfunctioning recessed LED lights in the kitchen / galley of our coach.

The half bath also had three lights that weren’t working properly, either very dim or flashing. We have a couple of motion-activated lights in there, and generally don’t use the ceiling lights, so it hasn’t been a high priority. But I finally got around to fixing them.

Here’s one of the old lights, with the cover removed:

A replacement light:

I replaced the first of the three lights with wire nuts, as I had for the previous replacements, but for the second I thought I’d try heat shrink wire connectors, since that is what Tiffin used throughout the coach:

I got a hot air gun to use with those:

The replaced light, using those connectors, before heat shrinking:

Done:

The third light was trickier. The wires were very short; too short to use those connectors:

But I came across a cunning technique: putting a wire cap in the end of a drill, to get more reach and leverage in twisting them on:

It wasn’t easy, but I got them connected using that technique:

The replaced light mounted:

And with the cover on:

All three replaced lights (the ones that are off didn’t need repairing; only the three vanity lights):

I’m glad to have that repair finally done.

Our coach has fabric awnings over the slide-outs, commonly called slide toppers. These are a feature of premium RVs to prevent debris and water from coming inside when bringing in the slides, among other benefits.

But one downside of slide toppers is that they can be noisy in strong winds, as wind gusts cause them to flap up and down. And in very strong winds one can get concerned that they could get damaged.

One solution for flapping slide toppers is to bring in the slides, perhaps only on the windward side. But that reduces the living space, so is a hassle. And we can’t sleep in our bed with all of the slides in, as the bed has to be raised up in this situation.

Another solution is to brace the slide toppers. There are a few ways to do that, but the easiest is to use a rope and bungees across the middle of the toppers.

While in Corpus Christi we had a forecast of nearly 50 MPH gusts, which is a bit more than I’m comfortable with, so I decided to try bracing the slide toppers.

I ordered some mini bungees and paracord for that purpose; I got crimson cord to match our coach:

To get the paracord over the top of the slides, I used the window awning pole:

I tied a loop in the end of the cord, then temporarily taped it to the hook on the end of the pole:

I attached the cord to the hydraulic beams underneath the slide via bungees, which let me adjust the tension as needed; it doesn’t need to be very tight, just enough to stop it flapping so much in the wind:

(In the future I think I’ll get some tent rope tensioners to make that even more flexible.)

You can see the cord over the slide topper:

For the rear slides, which don’t have the hydraulic beams, the bungee is just hooked onto the bottom of the slide track:

This worked really well. The slide toppers still flapped a little when that wind arrived, but nowhere near as much as they would have without the bracing. I’ll definitely do this again for future high winds.