Drew Callahan · May 3, 2026
Most RV owners assume their furnace will either work or it won’t — that it’s a binary thing, like a light switch. That assumption is dangerously wrong. A Highland Ridge Open Range furnace can fail in ways that look identical on the surface but demand completely different fixes: a dead igniter, a fried control board, … Read more
Drew Callahan · May 3, 2026
I’ve got my Crossroads Redwood sitting in a pull-through right now, and I’m looking at the furnace access panel I pulled off the sidewall about an hour ago. Inside that compartment lives two components that almost nobody thinks about until they fail: an igniter and a control board. Those two parts work in tandem, and … Read more
Drew Callahan · May 2, 2026
I’ve got a Riverstone control board sitting on my workbench right now — scorched at one corner, the solder joints cracked and discolored where the heating relay used to fire. That blackening tells you everything: a furnace that kept trying to ignite, kept failing, and left the board to absorb the electrical punishment until it … Read more
Drew Callahan · May 2, 2026
“Drew, my Cougar’s furnace won’t light at all. I’ve got heat in the morning or it shuts off mid-cycle. Dealer wants $1,400 to even look at it. Am I looking at a full furnace swap, or is this something I can actually fix?” That message came through on a Tuesday afternoon from a guy in … Read more
Drew Callahan · April 21, 2026
Most RV owners believe their air conditioner either works or it doesn’t—that it’s binary, simple, all-or-nothing. What they don’t realize is that the system can look like it’s running while the cooling half has already given up, and by the time they figure out what’s actually broken, a $30 component failure has cascaded into a … Read more
Drew Callahan · April 20, 2026
Let your Arctic Wolf’s AC capacitor fail and ignore it, and you won’t just lose cold air—you’ll fry the compressor and fan motor running starved and unbalanced until they seize completely. By then, you’re looking at a $1,200–$1,800 unit replacement instead of a $20 part swap. I’ve seen this movie play out dozens of times: … Read more
Drew Callahan · April 20, 2026
I’ve got a capacitor sitting on my workbench right now—pulled it from a 2019 Jayco North Point that quit cooling somewhere outside Yuma in late July. The thing’s visibly swollen at the top, the aluminum casing bulging outward in a way that tells you everything you need to know about what happens when 120-volt AC … Read more
Drew Callahan · April 20, 2026
“Drew, my Montana’s AC stopped blowing cold last week. The fan spins when I flip the switch, but the compressor won’t engage — I can hear it trying, but nothing happens. What am I looking at?” That’s the text I got from a full-timer in Arizona, and it’s the exact same symptom I’ve debugged a … Read more
Drew Callahan · April 19, 2026
I’ve got my head inside a Heartland Eddie Bauer Signature’s furnace compartment right now, and I’m staring at a control board that’s seen better days. The igniter clicked once, then nothing—no spark, no gas valve opening, no heat. I’ve already pulled the igniter (it’s fine), checked the sail switch (working), confirmed the gas valve isn’t … Read more
Drew Callahan · April 19, 2026
I had a Grand Design Solitude roll into the yard a couple summers back with an AC unit that wouldn’t kick in — shop quoted the owner $680 just to diagnose and replace the capacitor, plus labor. Sixty bucks for the part itself, nearly seven hundred out the door. That’s when I realized how many … Read more
