I hate to admit it but this actually happened to me twice. I found and replaced the White-Rogers thermostat a few years ago and I forgot about it. When it happened the first time I bought a new digital thermostat the same one that FWC had changed to. https://www.amazon.c...0?ie=UTF8&psc=1 I did not install that new digital thermostat as it was run by a couple of AA batteries. I did get a new White-Rogers just like the old and everything was great for a couple more years until I got a call from the wife who had taken the camper out without me. Honey the heater won't work.
When I first installed the digital thermostat it didn't work. The batteries that came with it had gone bad from just sitting. I tried some from my supply at home, they worked for a couple of days and they also had sat around for to long. Finally a fresh pack of batteries and it has been over 6 months and I am now convinced that the digital thermostat is so much better.
With the old mechanical thermostat to use it we pretty much used it as a switch. If we wanted heat we would just give it a shove when we had enough heat we would shove it towards off. This was particularly true before getting up in the morning. We were just using the thermostat as a manual switch for the heater. All this shoving broke the wire in the thermostat TWICE.
With the new digital thermostat you push the button and it tells you the current temperature. With a couple of pushes you can add just a degree or two to the temperature and this works to keep the temperature under much more control than our previous method. I sure do like the digital thermostat so much better. My recommendation, change to a digital thermostat and carry a couple of fresh batteries.
