Drew Callahan

The Forest River FR3’s rooftop AC unit carries a known weak spot: the Dometic run capacitor (part 3312195.000) fails faster on these rigs than on comparable Class C builds, and too many owners mistake a dead capacitor for a compressor that’s shot. I’ve pulled into campgrounds where someone’s already ordered a whole new rooftop unit—$3,000 … Read more

Tiffin’s Allegro coaches are solid builds, but there’s something the factory service bulletins and owner’s manuals gloss over: the Dometic rooftop AC units on these rigs have a lifespan that’s almost entirely dictated by one small, cheap component that nobody thinks about until it’s already gone bad. The run capacitor degrades quietly through heat cycles, … Read more

I was sitting in the cab one November morning, thermostat cranked to heat, when I heard it: that rapid metallic clicking, like something inside the furnace was trying to spark but couldn’t quite catch. A second later—nothing. Dead silence. I knew that sound. It meant the igniter was either burned out completely or the control … Read more

Most RV owners walk into an AC failure thinking the whole cooling system is shot—compressor’s dead, refrigerant’s gone, time to call a mobile tech. That assumption costs them money and time they don’t have. The truth is simpler: nine times out of ten when a Coachmen Mirada’s AC unit hums but pushes no cold air, … Read more

I’ve got my workbench set up in the shade behind bay two, and this is where I spend half my summer — sitting on a stool with a clamp and a multimeter, pulling dead capacitors out of Thor Freedom Travelers one after another. The pattern never changes: owner calls, says the AC hummed once and … Read more

Skip replacing a bad igniter in your Mirada and you’ll be shivering in an unheated rig before the week’s out — possibly stranded if temperatures drop fast. I’ve spent enough time under Mirada furnace panels to recognize the pattern: the Suburban 232286 igniter fails predictably in these units, and when it goes, it takes your … Read more

I’ve got a Dometic capacitor sitting on my bench right now—pulled from a Ventana last week—and the aluminum casing tells the whole story. It’s swollen on one end like it took a punch, the solder joints around the terminals are black and crusty, and if you listen close you can hear the dried electrolyte sloshing … Read more

“Drew, my Ventana’s furnace clicks but won’t catch. I replaced the igniter last year—does that go bad again that fast?” That question landed in my inbox twice in one week, and both times the real culprit wasn’t a dead igniter—it was the control board running weak voltage and burning out a perfectly good new igniter. … Read more

I’ve got the access door open on this Thor Freedom Traveler’s furnace cabinet, and I’m staring at the igniter assembly—a thin ceramic rod sitting inside a metal housing that’s supposed to glow hot enough to light propane, except it isn’t doing either. The thermostat’s been calling for heat for the last three minutes. The blower’s … Read more

A Dometic rooftop AC capacitor on an Entegra Aspire typically runs $40 to $60 online, but a dealership service call to replace it lands you a $180 to $220 labor bill for work that takes less than twenty minutes once you know where to look. When you’re living full-time in your rig, that gap between … Read more