Stage Coach RV Park, Dodging a couple bullets.

May 5-31, 2012 Stage Coach RV Park, St. Augustine, Florida


We enjoyed our stay at Flamingo Lake RV Resort but we were ready for a more relaxing atmosphere free of the kids and constant turnover of a weekend resort. We packed up and moved on to our long term RV site at Stage Coarch RV Park off I-95 near St. Augustine and about 10 miles from our kids house.

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Site 6

We have now been here almost a month and have enjoyed the quiet and the shade trees. There are no amenities in this park with the exception of the laundry room attached to the bath house. We are paying around $400 for the month including full hook-ups and WiFi. Electricity is metered and paid separately.

View down our row.

We are at the east end of the park which seems to be one of the locations for long term guests. This suits us just fine as we have an empty field out our back window. 

view towards the office and park entrance.

You may recall that we replaced our main air conditioner while in Nevada a few months ago. Well, the first week we were here we experienced problems with the air conditioner tripping it's 20 amp breaker. I had noticed that the analogue volt meter I have indicated fluctuating voltage. I changed the circuit breaker and it still tripped once. However, it has been good for a couple of weeks. But, more on that later. We always turn on both air conditioners now when we leave the dogs alone.

Rico sitting in Maggie's bed

Unfortunately we had to say good-bye to our son-in-law as he was deployed with the Navy to Asia for the next 6 months. We will miss him. Our daughter has been able to connect with him via Skype almost daily, We hope to Skype with him a few times while he's away. 

A few days ago Tropical Storm Beryl roared through the Jacksonville area forcing us to rethink staying in the RV with 60 mile an hour winds expected. Ultimately we spent the worst night of the storm at our daughter's house. Thankfully upon returning we were lucky not to have had any damage or water intrusion from the wind driven rains. 

The next day, Joyce was vacuuming when she called for me to come inside. She smelled an electrical burning smell and I smelled it too. After some searching and sniffing, we determined the smell was coming from the basement. I pulled the furnace vent and looked down into the subbasement and could see the generator transfer switch box and a wisp of smoke coming from it. My Cameo came with a "generator prep" package which included this transfer switch but not the generator. I immediately shut off power to the rig and made sure the transfer switch box was no longer smoking. Because I don't have much electrical experience, I called a Mobile Technician. He wasn't available till the next morning. So, again we packed to spend another night with our daughter.

We are so thankful that we were home and awake when the box began smoking. The potential for the rig catching fire from the transfer switch box is just horrifying to imagine. 

The next day I returned to the rig and emptied the basement and removed the rear basement wall so the RV tech could get to the box. When he arrived he went to work and showed me the burnt wires in the Iota Transfer Switch box. He reported that he had just done the same repair the week before in another fifth wheel. In both cases he was surprised that the rigs hadn't caught fire. The technician re-wired our rig without the Transfer Switch which isn't necessary in our applications since we don't have a hardwired generator.  I explained to him the previously mentioned problem with the air conditioner tripping the 20 amp breaker and he indicated it may have been related to the Transfer Switch box problem which could have been causing a voltage drop and increased amperage draw. So $167 later we shouldn't ever have to worry about the Transfer Switch/ Relay box again.

I recently discovered from some of the RV forums that there are some recalls for Iota Transfer Switches due to the potential for fire.