Drew Callahan

Most RV owners don’t realize their Forest River Solera’s AC unit is dying until it’s too late — and by then, they’re sitting in 110-degree heat waiting for a mobile tech who won’t show up for a week. I learned this the hard way at mile marker 847 through the Mojave, watching the rooftop unit … Read more

Thor Outlaw owners tend to notice the problem in stages: first, the AC cycles on but the fan barely moves. Then it hums without cooling. Then it won’t start at all. The culprit sits inside your rooftop Dometic unit and costs less than a tank of propane to replace—but only if you catch it before … Read more

Thor Outlaw furnace failures sit in a blind spot that dealer service bulletins and most owner’s manuals gloss right over. The igniter electrode and its control board don’t fail gracefully — they fail hard, and they fail in ways that leave owners stranded in cold weather thinking the whole furnace assembly is shot when it’s … Read more

It started with a sound—that low grinding noise underneath the AC compressor, the kind that makes you go quiet for a second and listen harder. I was parked outside Flagstaff in a Forest River Sunseeker, mid-August, running the rooftop unit hard enough to actually stay comfortable in the heat. The grinding got worse over two … Read more

Most RV owners assume their furnace igniter is a sealed, bulletproof component — fire it up fifty times a season and it’ll keep working until the rig is sold. That assumption costs people a lot of cold nights. The truth is more granular: Forest River Solera furnaces fail at the igniter and control board with … Read more

I’ve got my work bench set up in bay three of my usual spot, tools laid out in the exact order I reach for them — and right now I’m staring at a Thor Quantum AC unit that came off a rig last week. The owner called in mid-August, somewhere outside Phoenix, saying the unit … Read more

Let a Sunseeker furnace sit dormant through a cold snap with a failed igniter, and you won’t be thinking about the repair cost — you’ll be thinking about how fast hypothermia sets in inside a rig that can’t hold 50 degrees. That’s not hyperbole if you’re parked at elevation in January or anywhere the mercury … Read more

I’ve got the capacitor sitting right here on my bench—cracked housing, one terminal corroded black, the whole plastic shell brittle enough that it crumbles if you press it. This one came out of an Entegra Odyssey that had been baking in Arizona heat for six weeks straight. The owner called me in early August saying … Read more

“Drew, I’ve got a Thor Quantum that won’t light the furnace. It’s clicking, the blower’s running, but there’s no ignition. What am I looking at?” That’s the message I got from a guy selling his rig last month, and it’s almost word-for-word what I hear every fall when the temperature drops and people suddenly remember … Read more

I’m bent over the Entegra’s furnace compartment with my phone’s flashlight wedged against the wall, staring at the igniter electrode. It’s supposed to glow orange when the control board sends 24V across it — that’s the spark that lights the gas. Right now, nothing. No glow, no click, no ignition attempt at all. The owner’s … Read more