It seems like there are about 200 “home remodeling” shows on TV these days.  It’s totally a gimmick shot, but the one staple you’re absolutely guaranteed to find in every single one of these shows is a homeowner taking a sledgehammer to a sheetrock wall.  I would have done the tear-out gimmick myself – just because – but there’s no room to swing a sledgehammer in a Class B.  So you’ll have to settle for my video, which has none of that:

 

I did use a regular sized hammer and pry bar though.  Removing everything from the cabinet was tougher than I had expected.  Most RV construction is screws or “stick and staple”, but when dealing with an absorption fridge, there’s a “chimney” in the back of it that has to be sealed off, airtight, from the living space.  This is necessary to keep carbon monoxide, engine exhaust, and who-knows-what-could-happen-if your-“ammonia-boiler”-breaks fumes out of the living area.  So there was a rather large passageway behind the fridge that was glued together with copious amounts of very tough, impermeable sealant.

Add this to my list of reasons to dislike absorption refrigeration.

That sealant made it very slow going in removing the far back reaches of the cabinet.  But I got it done, and in the process I discovered a second function that my Fein Multimaster tool excels at.  It has an attachment that turns it into (basically) an electric putty knife on steroids!  If I ever have to remove all the tile from a bathroom or something, you can bet I’ll use this tool for it.

I had originally wanted to take Lance in to an auto body shop and have them weld covers and paint over the dopey refrigerator vent holes so that it looked like they never happened.  I even had a welder lined up who said he could do it.  Unfortunately, when I got things torn apart, I could see that the aft ends of the holes actually extended further rearward past the cabinets I was tearing out.  Basically, unless I tore apart even more of the cabinetry, we probably would have set the RV on fire.

So instead, I sealed the vent openings where they were.  To do this, I used some half inch sheet material: Type 1 PVC.  This stuff is awesome!  It works with regular woodworking tools, it holds screws, and it’s completely weather proof.  The downside, naturally, is that it’s expensive.  Let’s just say it’s a good thing I only needed a couple small pieces.  At any rate, I got those pieces screwed into place and then I sealed the whole affair up with liberal amounts of Loctite PL S30 sealant.  It’s a polyurethane sealant, it sticks to anything, it’s cheaper than a lot of specialty RV sealants, and it won’t peel off in 6 months like silicone.  The only downside is that it cures pretty slowly.  Like – about 3mm of depth per day.  So for about a week, I have to be careful where I put my hands in there.  But other than that, I love the stuff.

Well, beyond that, the video pretty much explains itself.  The music you hear is some old stuff from a band I was in a long time ago, complete with a guitarist who likes to turn himself up too much during solos.  And if you watch closely, you’ll see cameo appearances from the grandkids and even (very briefly) the cat!