An awning... and an electrical issue

First, some pictures on our lot with the awning out:

We were outside enjoying the shade from the awning, opening and reviewing 3 weeks of our mail that had arrived from Livingston on Saturday.

But... all is not wonderful... On our way back to Venture Out on Friday evening, Carl called on "Alexa" to give him some information, and there was no response. We both thought it was because we had taken the MiFi device out of the rig and she had "lost her brains". But... after we got parked, we found that, even after the MiFi was in place, she did not respond, and neither did the Google Home device, neither TV, fans that we had plugged into the wall... Other electrical things were working - lights, microwave, refrigerator, computer equipment -- but there was no power for certain things. We were tired, so decided to wait to do further debugging on Saturday.

On Saturday morning, we found that the issue was with certain outlets, specifically those in the back -- the bedroom and bathroom, and the ones in the very front -- the one behind the driver's seat (though passenger seat was okay), and the outlets for all the electronics in the front overhead area.

We can almost hear certain friends and family saying, "Oh no! what now?"

Carl checked the circuit breaker box and found a breaker for "Light" was flipped. He flipped it back, and then noticed that the inverter circuit breaker flipped. He flipped the inverter breaker back on. We decided to check the inverter to make sure that it did not have a breaker that was flipped (Dwayne and I had had that problem on the Safari Trek many years ago). We also checked for any GFI outlets that were tripped -- found no problems in the under bays.

Of course, getting to the inverter to check it involved taking multiple things out from under the coach and Carl climbing in to check.

So, back to the circuit breaker box -- this time, when Carl turned off the "Light" breaker and turned it back on, we saw that caused the inverter breaker to trip... hmmmm... he also noticed that, though he turned the "Light" breaker back on, it wasn't really going "on", it was "soft". Could the breaker have just gone bad? He decided to move the wire from the Lights breaker to the one next (after turning that "side" of the box off), and, when he turned the power back on, the "new" breaker immediately tripped. Looks like a "short" on that circuit somewhere.

Since we noticed it immediately after the installation of the awning, we have to believe the installation has something to do with it. We think that, in attaching the awning, there was a screw put in that went through both wires of the "Light" circuit causing a short. Theoretically, it should be easy to find -- back out each screw from the installation, testing the circuit each time, until the circuit works okay again (as long as only one screw caused the problem). Unfortunately, then they will need to make a bigger hole to fix the wire and then reattach the screw holding the awning.

Carl called and left a message with our service advisor right away on Saturday morning. He also called and left a message with the advisor on duty on Saturday asking if we should try to be there first thing on Monday morning. We didn't hear back from either of them, and so we have decided to stay in Mesa at least until Tuesday -- we have orders being delivered on Monday and Tuesday and would prefer to be here to collect them ourselves, although we have wonderful neighbors who have helped us out with picking up packages in the past. 

We are surviving without the items that no longer have power. 

We are extremely grateful that it was not the "Appliance" or "Refer" or "Front Air" or "Rear Air" circuit which was impacted, as those would have been very hard to live without. Or, even the "Washer" or "Dryer" or "Microwave" or "Cooktop" as we wouldn't have noticed until the first time we tried to use those appliances, and then would have probably tried to debug all sorts of other things before we ever thought of something caused by the awning installation. We have run an extension cord from the computer desk area to the front electronics cabinet so we were able to stream our church service on Sunday morning and other TV and entertainment options, and we're living without the fan and other items in the bedroom and bath.

It is frustrating, but... I guess God isn't finished with us being at NIRVC yet!