How to treat specific text as numerical value

I don't think this should be too hard of a problem I would like excel to treat specific text values as a number.

For example: Doing weekly time sheets I sum up total hours but I would like to have it so I could put a "V" (for vacation) and have the sum treat it as 8. I figured out how to do this for specific cells but not a group.

I can do SUM(A1:A7)+IF(A1="V",8,0) but something like SUM(A1:A7)+IF(A1:A7="V",8,0) does not work. As it would be a pain to put in a formula every cell and there are multiple rules like this I would like.

I have found a few threads similar to this but not quite what I need.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank You

AMAZING

Exactly what I wanted. Thank you. I knew it wouldnt be too hard.

Again thank you.