Drew Callahan

The Alpine’s rooftop AC unit will show you one of three failing states before it quits entirely: the compressor hums but won’t engage, the fan spins solo with no cooling output, or the whole system cycles on and off every few seconds like it’s hunting for power. In most cases, it’s not the compressor dying … Read more

KZ Durango owners won’t find this in the manual: when your rooftop AC starts grinding, hesitating on startup, or cooling weakly, the problem sits in a part the size of a soda can that costs under $50 and fails more often than any other component in that unit. A run capacitor does the heavy electrical … Read more

The whine started in my ears before I even opened the roof hatch—a high-pitched grinding that shifted to a rattling buzz the moment the compressor tried to engage. I’d heard that sound enough times to know the story: the capacitor was already gone, the fan motor was pulling hard against a dead load, and if … Read more

Most RV owners walk away from their AC unit assuming it’s either going to work or it’s going to die—that there’s no in-between. They don’t know that a small, inexpensive component sitting inside that rooftop box can fail in ways that *mimic* a complete system breakdown, wasting hundreds of dollars and days of troubleshooting before … Read more

I’ve got my Crossroads Redwood parked in a pull-through right now, and I’m staring up at the rooftop AC unit—the same unit that’s kept me alive through Arizona summers and coastal humidity runs. When it works, it’s invisible. When the capacitor goes, you feel it within minutes: compressor humming its lungs out but never actually … Read more

Most RV owners wait until their furnace dies in subfreezing weather before they even think about the igniter or control board — and that’s when a $120 part becomes a $400 emergency call to a mobile tech who won’t arrive for two days. I learned that lesson the hard way. On Rockwood and Flagstaff units … Read more

I’m holding a New Horizons furnace control board in my hand right now — pulled it out of a rig last week — and the solder joints on the back are visibly cracked. You can see where the thermal stress finally won. That board spent years cycling through freeze-thaw-freeze in campgrounds from Colorado to Canada, … Read more

“Drew, my AC fan is making this grinding noise and the compressor barely kicks on anymore. Is that a capacitor thing, or am I looking at a whole new unit?” I get that question at least twice a month from Cougar owners, usually sometime in mid-summer when the heat’s already unbearable. Here’s the thing: it … Read more

I’m standing in front of a DRV Mobile Suites with the furnace panel already open, flashlight pointed at the circuit board mounted inside the combustion chamber housing. The board is discolored—not quite black, but stained the color of old coffee, with hairline cracks running through the solder joints. My finger traces the damage without touching … Read more

A dealership quoted me $1,200 to diagnose and replace a failed furnace igniter and control board on a Forest River Impression—labor alone eating up nearly half that bill. I decided to tackle it myself, which meant learning the hard way what actually fails in these furnace systems and why the diagnosis matters more than the … Read more