Drew Callahan

I show up at RV sites to fix things that have stopped working, and there’s a pattern to which jobs pile up on my calendar. It’s not that these rigs leave the factory broken — it’s that certain systems get treated the same way by careless owners, time and time again. Take the furnace in … Read more

How much heat can you afford to lose on a freezing night when your Cornerstone’s furnace won’t ignite? That’s the question staring you down right now—and the answer is none. I’ve pulled into campgrounds in January where the only thing between a comfortable night and hypothermia was a working furnace. On the Entegra Cornerstone, when … Read more

I was three weeks into a late-August trip down through Arizona when I noticed the rooftop AC on my Cornerstone wasn’t doing much of anything. The compressor would click on, the refrigerant lines would get cold—I could feel it—but the condenser fan on top just sat there. No spin, no hum, nothing. Within five minutes … Read more

Walk into any RV dealer service department and they’ll tell you that furnace problems on a Holiday Rambler Navigator almost always point to a bad igniter—replace that $40 part and you’re done. But spend five minutes in an RV forum, and you’ll hear a different story: plenty of owners swapped the igniter, got nothing but … Read more

Holiday Rambler Navigators have a specific weak point that catches most owners off guard: the run capacitor on the rooftop AC unit fails silently, and by the time you realize something’s wrong, the fan motor is already being starved of the electrical support it needs to function properly. You’ll notice the cooling takes longer, or … Read more

Your Jayco Alante’s owner’s manual won’t mention it, and the service department charging you $400 in labor won’t explain it either: the rooftop AC unit’s most common failure has nothing to do with refrigerant or compressor wear. It’s a capacitor—a small cylindrical component that costs less than a tank of propane but makes the difference … Read more

It was November, maybe fifty-two degrees outside, and I’d cranked the thermostat to heat mode expecting the familiar low rumble of the Jayco’s furnace catching. Instead: click. Click. Click. Then nothing. No roar, no warmth building in the ducts, just that hollow, repeating tick that told me the igniter was cycling without actually firing the … Read more

Most Winnebago Forza owners assume their rooftop AC will soldier on indefinitely—that it’s built to last as long as the diesel engine underneath. That assumption costs people money, comfort, and peace of mind. The truth is simpler and harder: Winnebago, like every other manufacturer writing a spec sheet and a price, cuts corners on climate … Read more

I’ve got my workbench set up in the shade behind bay two, and sitting on it right now is a Dometic AC shroud I pulled off a Thor Palazzo last week. The owner called me at 2 PM on a Saturday—kids playing in the background, wife asking what was wrong—because the unit had quit mid-afternoon. … Read more

Lose your furnace igniter or control board on a Winnebago Forza when you’re parked alone in November temps, and you’re not just uncomfortable—you’re in genuine danger. A furnace that won’t light is a furnace that won’t keep you alive if things go sideways. I’ve spent enough nights in remote spots to know the difference between … Read more