The motorhome needs some attention.
Eric goes up on the roof to clean
the solar panels.
The solar panels are cleaned
with a damp cloth. Then,
Eric dries them off.
Watch out for the wires!
Mission accomplished....
in about five minutes.
Now for the more
challenging job.
A cord on one of the day/night
window shades is broken.
The RV Shade Repair Kit we
bought from The Dirty Blind Man
has a step by step instructional CD.
Eric follows the step by step
instructions. He's tying the
strings to the spring.
This is a two person project.
An extra hand is needed.
The spring is taped into place at
the top of the night shade bracket.
The strings easily thread through
the pleated night shades.
Here's a surprise. The strings
are crossed before threading
through the day shade section.
The brackets are carefully
slid back into place to connect the
night & day shades together.
Time to put the caps back
on the ends of the brackets.
The string goes through
the bottom cap.
The night/day shade has
been put back together.
After a motorhome wide search
(that took half an hour) I found
the bobbins we bought at
the Winnebago factory for
the project.
Time to attach the string
to the bobbins.
The bobbin is screwed into
a stand-off at the
bottom of the window frame.
The instructional CD stated that putting the window shade back together would take one to one and a half hours. It took over two hours.... This included the half hour search for the bobbins.
Attaching the window shade to the top of the valence and screwing the bobbins into place took about half an hour. This window shade is next to the couch and Eric needed me to hold the shade and a flashlight to complete the installation.
Congratulations on repairing your blind! We've had our rig now for two years and had to replace the cords on every single blind in our rig. I can tell you that it does get easier over time. One blogger mentioned that the strings are always over-tightened at the factory causing excess friction causing the string to break. We tried to loosen the existing blind strings, but DRV didn't leave enough excess string to allow much give. It is a delicate balance. You need enough tension to allow the blinds to stay up, but too much tension causes excess friction. We also soaped our strings to help them glide a little better. Isn't RVing fun?
ReplyDeleteWhat she said!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the tips! Eric & I are just at the beginning of the window shade odyssey. We currently have too much string on our repaired blind, because it's the shortest window in the rig. I'll soap our cords.... Not in a hurry to repeat the repair process. Electric blinds are on Eric's wish list... Maybe I'll take a second look at them.
ReplyDeleteHAHAHAH we did this job also ..Terry and Barb
ReplyDelete