Fried Batteries, Cable and Inverter - What Else Will Go Wrong?

"Do you believe in miracles?," our RV repairman-electrician Mr. Reece asked.

Those five beautiful words came just minutes after he announced that our Xantrex Freedom inverter was fried. And this coming after Mike, our first repairman, announced just days earlier, on our first afternoon in our very lovely RV park in the Smoky Mountains, that one of our electric plug posts and part of the cable was fried. Mike then walked around the RV and proceeded to point out that our four deep cycle batteries were also fried as he declared that they looked like they were original to the RV. I'd say that's doubtful since the rv is 20 years old, but I concede that the batteries are pretty old looking.

Four new deep cycle batteries, one repaired cable with new prongs, and one service fee equals dollar signs racking up to about $700, a load of stress and a bucketful of tears, but it does not equal an RV with working power. We hoped that all was well except for our bank account for about three days, despite the overload light on our inverter which kept flashing, just until the power from the batteries was drained and our electrical problems started anew.

At that point, after much prayer, we found Mr. Reece who was not only an RV repairman but also a licensed electrician. He's an RV fulltimer getting his business off the ground here in the Smokies, and luckily for us, he's also an honest man. So, after letting us know that our inverter was fried, he proceeded to look it over carefully. He couldn't find the issue until he took out his little mirror to check a hard-to-see spot on the inside, and boom, there it was -- one little wire that had become disconnected. So, to answer his question, "do you believe in miracles?" You bet I do, and not just because he saved us $1800.

Today I am very thankful for answered prayers, and I'm thankful for Mr. Reece's honesty. He could have taken advantage of the situation to make himself some extra dollars off our old inverter, but he was an honest person who walked away with a happy customer and a reasonable service fee. Hooray for working electricity!