On the Moon, This Wouldn't Happen...

We will be driving the

Great Northern Circle Route

to Stewart, B.C. & crossing

into Hyder, Alaska.

Here's where we turn
to head south.

There's evidence of a fire

on the northern section of

the Stewart-Cassiar Highway.

What's that sound?  Eric, stop the motorhome.  Something is dragging.  Our batteries are pretty heavy and the floor under the batteries is apparently pretty weak. Not a great combination. A section of the RV floor (about 2 feet by 3 feet) gave way under the load of the batteries. That floor held up the 600 pounds of batteries for two years but it did get wet a couple times before we had the batteries installed. Maybe the floor was weakened and one bump too many caused it fail. 

Before:

Our basement compartment

with six batteries & the

inverter.

The battery cables held

 everything together.

Two battery cases were

scraped up.

Gravity is a cruel mistress...  No harm was done (except the floor itself). Eric removed the batteries and moved them to a different bay. 

He then took out our handy 20

foot extra wide tow strap & 

wove it back and forth to suspend 

the floor panel above the 

undercarriage of the RV. 

Two hours later, the tools were put away and we were on our way to Dawson Creek for repairs. It's a way to go, but the floor was temporarily secure, so we were OK.

This is the last photo taken

on the Stewart-Cassiar Highway.

I want to go to Hyder on

our next Alaskan trip.

The staff at the Fort St. John Visitor Center gave us a referral to Foster's RV and Trailer Sales in Dawson Creek.

Terry welded cross members

beneath the flooring.

He also added hanging straps,

anchored to the frame above.

The undamaged carpet was

re-glued onto the new floor.

The new floor installed at Foster's is twice as strong as the old floor when it was new.... maybe three times as strong. We can now put in as many batteries as we want and it will hold.

It was just a matter of time before the floor gave way. The Canada/Alaska roads are pretty rough in some spots, probably escalating the failure, but it would have happened eventually. Had we thought of it two years ago we would have had the floor braced then, but we thought the original design was strong enough. Who knows, if it hadn't been weakened from the two water intrusion accidents maybe it would still be good. Oh well, it's better than new now. Less the deductible, the insurance company paid for five nights in a campground while we waited for the repair, a night in a hotel while the work was being done and the repair.  So it was a good deal, all around.