Sunday, August 2, 2009

Our Residential Vehicle

We found a 1989 Georgie Boy IMPULSE class A motorhome on eBay in May of 2009. The bid was tempting so we placed our bid not expecting to win at all. Fate had other plans for us and gave us the winning bid. At that point we knew the motorhome would be ours come what may.

Was it the smartest decision we ever made, by all means no! Could we have done worse, we would have to answer yes to that one.

Let us start at the beginning. What were we looking for and for what reason.

What we wanted:
1. Full or Queen size bed.
2. Toilet not close to our bed.
3. Booth or table.
4. Enough room for both computers.
5. Gas engine
6. 32 foot or longer
7. Under $10,000

Reason we wanted a Class A Motorhome.
1. Downsize our cost of living.
2. Do some traveling.
3. Save on fuel cost when not traveling.

Back to the 1989 Georgie Boy IMPULSE class A motorhome. It wasn't as described however those conditions were not known until it was ours and over 1600 miles down the road. The motorhome was in Reading PA and we were in New Mexico.

Upon purchase the first thing that happened were the front brakes had blown out the brake lines. We were lucky that it was being driven by the person we bought it from when that event happened. The seller paid for the repairs.

The next thing that happened one of the fan belts broke and caused the rest of the fan belts to brake. This cause the engine to overheat and blew both head gaskets. This happened right in front of a KOA campground near Elk City OK. We were able to make it from the interstate highway into the KOA campground without further damage. At this point we were just 250 from getting it home. 15 days and $3700 later the motorhome was finally parked in our back yard.

Now with the motorhome in hand we were ready to put our plan in action. The first thing was to check out the motorhome to find what was working and what needed repairs. We found that the motorhome had not been winterized as stated. The hot water heater had frozen and split across the top. There went another $549 and change to buy a new one.

We removed the two swivel chairs and the small table between them and installed a 6 foot long table top for our computers. We also washed all the cushions that are on the couch and booth. Painted the stove hood and replaced the vacuum cleaner system. Repaired several places on the roof that were leaking. Repaired leaks in the water lines to the kitchen sink and toilet.

We moved the items we wanted to keep in to the motorhome and waited for the day to come when we would actually move in. That day was July 22, 2009. We drove the motorhome across town to a nice campground where we could pay by the month.

On August 1, 2009 we auctioned off our house and all the contents. Smart move on our part, why pay a house note when you don't have to.

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