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Repair UV damage quickly and easily

By Jim Twamley
Look around the RV park and you’ll see examples of UV radiation damage. Window frames, vents and corner pieces that have yellowed are abundant. These items are still serviceable, but they will eventually become brittle and crack, allowing moisture into your RV.
 
You can purchase new frames and vents (they are inexpensive parts), or you can remove them, give them a good cleaning, then spray paint them — they will look as good as new. You should also clean off the old caulking and reapply fresh caulking at this time.

If you choose to replace them with new parts, I would still paint them with a high-quality paint before replacing them. Paint will stand up better to UV radiation than the PVC-type material these are made from.

Use the right tools for a cheery (and safe) campfire

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By Greg Illes

Just about everyone loves a campfire. There’s even a word in Swahili that means “dreaming the fire,” it’s such a compelling experience. Perhaps the first “tool” you need is a deep sense of appreciation — of the beautiful spirit of the fire and of your responsibilities with it.

It’s certainly possible to gather a bunch of wood lying around, stack it up and set fire to it. That’sif you find some wood, if it’s the right size and length, if you have some decent kindling, and if you have a safe place to burn it. And there are pitfalls.

One time, long ago, I gathered up some forest-floor wood, an eclectic lot of sticks and branches. I put a too-long branch across a rock and stomped on it to break it in half. Ouch!!! That hurt, and I suffered a slight sprain for a few days. After that, I used the proper tools.

To gather and prepare wood for a campfire, you’ll need at least a small bow saw or long pruning saw. What about an axe? Yes, an axe will cut wood — with the proper skill and patience — and it’s still the least-safe method. But the saw will rip through a three-inch branch in one-fifth the time it would take you to chop it. You’ll find out that an axe is mostly useful for splitting, and for this task a specialty tool like the “Fireside Friend” is better and safer (Amazon, about $40). You can also use the saw (when permitted) to cut deadfall branches off of dead or downed trees. For the hyper-macho types, a small electric chain saw (Amazon) is lightweight and takes only a little juice from your inverter/battery setup. Quiet, too.

An absolutely awesome kindling product is the wax-impregnated sawdust that is sold under different brand names like Sure Start, Safe Lite, etc. (Find them at Amazon.) These will get small branches going with no paper or other help.

A general rule is that large wood needs large fires. If you split your wood into small diameters, you can nurse a small fire along for hours with much less wood consumed. It just depends on whether you want a bonfire or a hunter-trapper fire.

Now, let me say that I do know how to start a fire with matches, or even flint and steel. However, it’s a tedious and painstaking process, and once you’ve done it, you realize why the Bic was invented. Unfortunately, the little wimpy lighters for cigarettes and barbecues are often not up to the capricious winds at a typical camp. Instead, I use a disposable propane bottle with an instant-light burner (same kind used for sweating copper pipe joints). Okay, slam me, but I get those fires started right now.

Once it’s going, there are always one or more “fiddlers” around the fire — you know who you are. You just can’t resist tweaking the logs and embers, poking the fire into a different configuration, or just plain fiddling with it. The most proper tool for this is not a poker (although it will do), but a scissor tong that lets you pick up pieces of burning wood and reposition them. There are a variety of these (Amazon) for $20-$50 depending on size and quality.

There are also other tools you may take a fancy to: grills, dutch ovens, and other cooking-oriented tools can turn a campfire into a kitchen. Sadly, not enough space here to get into this category. (But you can check out campfire cooking equipment at Amazon.)

But frankly, the most important fireside tool is a shovel. The shovel is used to help prepare a fire pit, and, vitally, to help fight any unwanted flare-ups from flying sparks and embers. However, DO NOT use the shovel to put the fire out. It’s been proven time and time again that buried embers can survive for days, re-emerging later to ignite the woods when you are not there.

Use water to put out the fire. If you hate using your precious water, be sure to burn the fire down to cold ashes — ashes that you can touch. Then you can use the shovel to cover the ashes and keep them from blowing around and messing up the camp.

Be safe with your fire building and burning. There are a lot of ways to get hurt, so exercise attention and care to keep your campfires joyous.

Happy dreaming.

photo: pixabay / public domain

Greg Illes is a retired systems engineer who loves thinking up RV upgrades and modifications. When he’s not working on his motorhome, he’s traveling in it. You can follow his blog at www.divver-city.com/blog.

Use a cell phone booster to get a (more) solid connection


By Greg Illes

There are a lot of places to go in an RV, but sadly only a small percentage of them have decent cell phone coverage. Fewer areas have good data coverage (3G) and only a fraction of the U.S. has any 4G.

tower-736What this means to us wandering nomads is that we have regular difficulty in getting email, browsing the Internet, or even just calling friends and family to keep in touch.

There are products intended to help us out. They are generally called signal boosters, and they have widely variable reviews from five stars (“wonderful”) to one star (“and I wish I could give a zero”).

The most significant aspect of a booster is that it is allowed a much higher broadcast power than cell phones. With higher power, it’s more likely to stay in contact with a distant cell tower. This, combined with an efficient antenna, is why any booster works at all.

There are caveats. Here is what you can expect from a good booster product:

•It will “increase your bars” — signal strength will be improved.
•It will improve reliability — fewer dropouts and lost calls.
•It will NOT create something from nothing — if you have absolutely no signal, you will still have absolutely no signal.
•It will NOT create 3G from 1X, or 4G from 3G — you might get improved phone calls, but if there’s no data signal, you won’t get data.

Given these limitations, a $200 investment must be carefully evaluated. So far, I’ve found it to be useful — but not earthshaking.

In order to get the best performance, I combined a cell phone booster with a dual band antenna. I mounted the antenna on an aluminum pole to about six feet above my coach roof. It can all be deployed or stored in a couple of minutes.

Several places I’ve been have been ideal for this setup: only a bar or so of signal, no reliable connection, calls don’t connect or are dropped. With the booster, things work again. Not like being in downtown San Jose, but, yes, working.

As they say, YMMV (your mileage may vary) but it could be worth a look.

Internet RV selling tips

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By Steve Savage, Mobility RV Service

Selling RVs on the Internet has become the hot item. So hot that dealers are having a hard time keeping used units on their lots because rather than trade, owners are trying to sell their old units before or after purchasing new. If you find yourself in this category, here are a few ideas that just might help you find a buyer:

1. Be sure your ad is complete. That means you need to include the year, the manufacturer, the model, the length, the number of slides, and some statement regarding overall condition that accurately reflects what you are selling. Often buyers use filters to narrow the number of ads they have to review and failing to put in essential information can leave your RV off the list.

2. For heaven’s sake, include pictures. You don’t need 30 or 40, but you definitely need more than three or four, and be sure to include shots of both the inside and the outside of the RV.

3. Before you take pictures, clean up your RV so it looks its best and then put the clean-up equipment away. Potential buyers want to see your RV, not your mop and vacuum cleaner.

4. Make sure the pictures are oriented correctly and are clear. Small pictures taken with your phone are seldom good enough to show detail and do not match the quality of a good point-and-shoot pocket camera. Pictures that are posted sideways or upside down say you are a careless person, and buyers may assume this carries over to how you maintained your RV.

5. Don’t lie about what you are selling or leave the defect you mention in your advertisement out of the pictures. When I read one thing and see another, I move on to the next posting quickly.

6. Be realistic with your price. NADA prices are nearly meaningless other than it works negatively to go over the average retail. Most folks will be shooting for below the wholesale price. Remember anyone can buy almost any RV for somewhere between wholesale and retail, so you’d better have something really exceptional if you’re asking high dollar.

7. Adding standard equipment to your asking price is a mistake and is not how the NADA guide is designed to be used. Standard equipment is included in the base price and listing minutia wastes a reader’s time. Stick to the stuff that’s important and try to tell a story about your listing.

The goal of selling is to capture the reader’s attention without wasting their time and providing them with a sense of what makes the RV you are selling special.

photo: NASA

Pull out storage organizes RV galley

By Duane Curtis
Can’t find those things on the back of the deep shelves in your RV kitchen? Here’s our solution, right off the shelves at Lowe’s. At the big-box hardware store we ran across slide out containers.

These can be easily mounted with just four screws, and it’s amazing what you can put in them. Our fifth wheel has a five-shelf deep cabinet next to the refrigerator. We took three of these pull out wizards and mounted them in the spaces of three of the existing shelves. Fill ’em up and put ’em away. Need something? Roll out the container and you can easily access the contents. Here’s a plus: Even if your cabinet door pops open when traveling, the contents will stay put rather than blasting out onto the floor.

Our units mount to the bottom of the shelf and allow a little space to the side of the bin. You’ll not only find these at Lowe’s but also at other stores, including Bed Bath & Beyond.

Boil your eggs to the egg-sact desired doneness

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By Jim Twamley

Eggs are a big part of the RV lifestyle. How do I know? I asked you and, sure enough, you like eggs. You like them cooked dozens of ways. Ah, and for those who boil your eggs, let me tell you another way.

My brother-in-law has been using these Eggsact Eggtimers for a couple of years with great success, so I decided to get one to use in our RV. It’s very simple to use — just put it in a pot of warm water along with your eggs and cook. The timer begins to change color as the eggs cook. The color ring starts at the outside and works its way into the middle.

The indicator has several degrees of “doneness” to let you know when your eggs are just how you like them. In the picture it shows they are completely hard cooked. Once it cools down it changes back to its red color and it’s ready to use again.

You can pick these up at Amazon.com, Ace Hardware or practically any cooking store. Use it with any quantity of eggs and at any altitude. You could just use the microwave clock timer, but if you’re like me, you’ve ruined many eggs because you forgot to set the timer. It’s made from a hard resin and will take the rough-and-tumble ride in your RV’s utensil drawer.

Serving it up how you like it.

Temperature-controlled shower unit — high-end but so comfortable

By Greg Illes

Many modern homes enjoy the benefits of a temperature-controlled shower. No more hot and cold valves, but rather one handle for setting water temperature, and one handle for controlling the flow. Once hot water reaches the valve, the output temperature never varies and you never have to “fiddle” with the hot and cold knobs (in fact, there aren’t any) while you’re being frozen or scalded by a bad adjustment.

Different users of the shower simply remember their personal temperature setting and set the handle to that position before turning the flow on. Variations in hot or cold input water temperature are no longer a problem — the temperature controller compensates, and you still get your requested water temperature.

Unfortunately, most such valves take up a LOT of space behind the wall and are difficult to retrofit to an RV. Also, most valves incorporate a separate shower feed, which then requires a separate hole and fittings in the shower wall.

Enter the Grohe Grohtherm 2000 series of thermostatic control valves. These are available from plumbing supply houses and even from Amazon. It’s a well-made European product that works well for retrofit applications. This model has all of its control valving on the shower side of the wall — virtually no space is required behind the wall — and it will fit almost any existing RV. Furthermore, the Grohe also has a built-in shower hose connection, making it even more compatible.

In addition to providing guaranteed comfort, the temperature-controlled shower will also save water. You will not have to spend “water time” adjusting the temperature, nor will you have to wait that extra half-gallon to make sure the hot water is there. Since the valve has built-in backflow-prevention valves, there is no necessity for that water-wasting trickle when you shut off the water to soap up — you just turn the flow handle off. It even has a “soft-start” feature which prevents surges and temperature fluctuations.

Installation can be a three- to four-hour DIY project that costs around $400 or more. The valve is somewhat heavy, and you’ll want to add a reinforcing piece of plywood to the outside of your shower stall. A new backing plate can be made from a piece of half-inch white polyurethane.

Feedback on towing fifth wheels with half-tons – Part 1

By Steve Savage, Mobility RV Service

[Editor’s note: Steve’s original posting on this subject appeared in an RV Daily Tips newsletter. As you’ll see, he had a lot of feedback on the subject. This post is a little longer than our usual, but we felt it important to post it, more or less, intact.]

My earlier rambling about towing with half-ton-rated trucks brought me a good deal of email and I have promised some of those folks I would publish what they had to say along with my response, so here they are. Names have been omitted.

“There was really good information except one part. In most cases there is no way to take your truck and the trailer to a weigh station when you don’t have a Pin hitch installed in the bed. This may lead some people to think that you install a hitch. I fully agree that people need to think things out better before buying this size investment without doing good research.

“My son has a 3/4-ton Ford and a large 5th wheel, and now he is going to have to put air bags in the rear springs, or add more springs.

“The article was very good and informative.  Wish I had known more when I got my first tow trailer (19-foot, towed with a 6 cyl. GMC Jimmmy —  didn’t work too good.”

I do think, if you make a couple of passes through the friendly scale found at your local truck stop, you can get the weights of most towables. The most important point I was trying to make with my article was: It is important to think things through and not just blindly buy something and regret it later, as you noted in your email.

“I just read an article you wrote which was posted on the RVTravel.com daily newsletter entitled, ‘Tow a fiver with a half-ton?’ I thank you for it. I couldn’t agree more with two points of the message: Do your own calculations for what your truck can pull (and thank you for the nice formula to work that out) and, Why aren’t RVs designed better — especially giving forethought to repairs.

“My problem with the first point is that I didn’t read it two years ago. I’m not towing a fiver but a toy hauler. It is at the max weight my F150 can pull. I’m extremely on guard now that I know what I’ve learned since I bought the trailer.

“‘Oh, no problem! This trailer is perfect for your truck,’ puffed the salesman. Why didn’t I walk away and do my own calculations?!? If your article had been fresh in my mind I would not have the constant tension of trailer weight on my shoulders — figuratively speaking. I live in my trailer, so it’s on my mind approximately every two weeks when I break camp.

“The second point of your article is something I think about every time I read advice and complaints online from RVers. I guess too many of us are too accepting of the foibles of RV manufacturers or we think we have no choice. Things I’ve heard from salesmen or those who follow a salesman’s advice: Those tires are standard for this size RV; The floor is supposed to have some give; You can’t expect those plastic fittings to live forever…

“I could get right upset when I think of those excuses I’ve heard for shoddy workmanship or bad design or just plain cheapo junk being sold as good. I don’t know what has to change to get the RV industry to get its act together, but I do hope it happens. Maybe the powers that be will listen to the wisdom of RV techs and mechanics. Here’s hoping.”

As you have discovered, it is not very hard to find complaints online from RV owners. Sometimes I wish there was a way to locate more comments from satisfied owners to balance things out. At times, I receive comments suggesting things are the way they are because people are too cheap to spend what is necessary to obtain reliability or usability. My most common response is that it is simply easier to sell based on price, especially when many RV owners are not given the opportunity to gather solid information. They don’t ask the right questions because they don’t now what to ask.

It often seems amazing to me how much folks are willing to take for granted. Every time I have heard someone say that they had to accept this or that, I think to myself, “Apparently there is some confusion about whose pocket the checkbook is in.” The RV industry will change the second it has to, and not a second sooner. Get a hundred of your closest friends to write a letter about something and watch what happens.

“I believe you forgot to mention one very important thing — it is called stopping distance, especially in a panic stop. What would the difference be between the brake size of a half-ton versus a 3/4-ton or a 1-ton.”

This is an interesting comment that comes up a lot and I don’t know the answer. Technically, the brakes on the towable are capable of stopping the trailer or fiver, and if you have ever had a break-away pin pull by accident when you are underway, you will find yourself just about thrown through the windshield. When trailer or fiver brakes come on full force, the stopping power they create, if adjusted correctly, is anything but subtle. 

There are, however, other factors (man, wouldn’t it be great if it were simple?). If you are pulling a unit much heavier than your truck and depending on an electronic aftermarket controller which, in turn, depends on the rate of deceleration of your truck to activate, your stopping distance with a lighter truck may be greater. My thinking here is the trailer may push the truck more than it might with a heavier truck.

On the other hand, if you have a factory built-in controller which activates the trailer or fifth wheel brakes based on feedback from the pressure you put on the pedal, there may not be much difference between types of trucks because the trailer brakes are doing their fair share.

Mine is not an argument in favor of ignoring braking. I simply don’t think the answer here is as simple as it might appear. There also may be other factors I have not considered and, if there are, I am sure someone will write and let me know.

Steve (Mobility RV Service). You can reach me at mroeditor(at)chartertn.net. Please do not call me on the phone unless you are looking for service for your RV here in Tri-Cities, Tenn.

Click here for Part 2.

Feedback on towing fifth wheels with half-tons – Part 2

By Steve Savage, Mobility RV Service

[Editor’s note: Steve’s original posting on this subject appeared in an RV Daily Tips newsletter. He had a lot of feedback on the subject. This post is a little longer than our usual, but we felt it important to post it, more or less, intact. In case you missed it, click here for Part 1.]

My earlier rambling about towing with half-ton-rated trucks brought me a good deal of email and I have promised some of those folks I would publish what they had to say along with my response, and here is the last one. Names have been omitted.

Finally this email from a dealer.

“Commenting on someone’s opinion is something I do very little — but I had to cringe at your article about towing with a half-ton truck.

“I have been selling fifth wheels for over 40 years and many to half-ton trucks. I will caution people about looking at the UVW, the pin weight and gross combined weight. I also tell them that the gross weight (which is the maximum weight that the axles will support) cannot be too high, only too low. The GVWR is not what the unit will weigh when loaded. I do use the 1,000 lbs. added as a general rule of thumb.

“What bothers me most about your article is that you are giving off the impression that dealers and their salespeople are trying to hoodwink unsuspecting RVers into a dangerous situation. In 1985 I opened an RV dealership and my shop truck that we used was a F-150, in which I towed many fifth wheels. Even right now I have both a Ram 1500 and a 3500 to use for towing.

“What bothers me most is your first two paragraphs which states that dealers are ballyhooing and ready to trap the unwary. There are a lot of good dealers and salespeople out there that will educate a buyer on proper towing combinations and a lot of lightweight fifth wheels that can be safely towed with a half-ton.”

First of all, thank you very much for taking the time to email me.

Yes, there are a lot of very good dealerships and salespersons out there. When sales are good, almost all my work is for dealerships. The problem I have is there also are many dealerships for which I hold very little respect.

I think how much a truck can tow is spelled out by the manufacturer of the truck or tow vehicle, and as long as the RV owner stays within those limits I have no problem. Now here is where I have a real problem. In my opinion, the RV industry has gone too far with terms like Ultra-Light and half-ton towable. I understand the unstated goal with using these terms is to broaden the market and I have absolutely no problem with that. It actually works to my advantage by increasing my business. I do have a problem, however, if those terms or what they imply are used to suggest everything can be safely towed with half-tons and units are being sold to folks who have little or no experience with RVs. I also remember how hard the RV industry fought against weight labels.

Now, I ask you. If you were to visit a large dealership with a tag showing the empty box weight hanging on the pin of every fiver, what purpose would you say it was intended to serve? Not a single GVW rating in sight. Since my wife and I are avid RVers (when we are not fixing RVs), here’s an example. A month ago we were camped next to a young couple who proudly showed me their first fifth wheel. It as an ultra-light model with a GVW of 12,800 pounds. It was on the back of their new half-ton, and the half-ton was not an eco-boost. Was there not a problem with that if their truck was rated to handle 11,000 pounds? Last night I read a piece in one of the hard copies about the new lines of ultra-light fifth wheels. One of those listed had a GVW of 13,400 pounds and was nearly 34 feet long, by my recall. Maybe everything really is half-ton towable and I am just getting old and cranky.

Cutting to the chase, some dealers are terrific and do everything they can to educate buyers. My hat is off to them. Others, again in my opinion, are wheeler-dealers moving as much merchandise as they can by whatever means possible. In that regard, the RV industry is just like any other!

Buyers also play a role. Some truly are victimized and uneducated. Some are simply lazy or disinterested. They are of the ilk who will always blame someone else for what should have been their responsibility. In my experience, RV owners are no more honest or dishonest than RV dealerships.

Obviously I have a goal. My goal, in this case, is to call attention to what may be a problem for some shoppers. When someone purchases a towable RV, I want them to know they are choosing one within their tow vehicle’s ratings as provided by the manufacturer of their tow vehicle. I don’t care which model they choose. I don’t care which manufacturer made it. It just seems to me like this is one thing buyers, whether they be first-timers or long-time owners, should not have to think about when choosing an RV.

For buyers, given the array of information on the Internet, you can find whatever you need to know on your computer. Use it!

Steve (Mobility RV Service). You can reach me at mroeditor(at)chartertn.net. Please do not call me on the phone unless you are looking for service for your RV here in Tri-Cities, Tenn.

Organize your RV documents. Go paperless

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By Greg Illes
If you are like most of us, your RV has a huge collection of operating manuals, installation manuals, specifications and other literature. This stuff usually comes with all the appliances and accessories that are part of a trailer or motorhome, such as refrigerators, air conditioners, heaters, TVs, smoke alarms, generators, electrical panels, and on and on. The list sometimes seems endless, but (if you’re lucky) it’s all filed away in a box or a bag — somewhere.
 
Thing is, you never need this stuff until you really need it, as in when something fails or acts up. (So where was that fuse located? And what exactly was the reset procedure? And what was that oil type for my leveling jacks?)
 
None of us can remember all this stuff, so it’s written down and filed away, maybe — big maybe. If your RV is used, maybe you didn’t get the whole enchilada when you bought it? And if you (once upon a time) did have everything, do you still? And even if you do have all the docs, can you even find what you’re looking for in the pile? Different doc sizes, different fonts, sometimes faded with age.
 
After finding out that my personal collection of such documentation amounted to thousands of pages and at least 15 pounds of paper, I got the brilliant idea to “go paperless.” After all, I’d been doing this with my bills and statements, why not my product manuals?
 
Turns out, it’s really simple to take everything that documents an RV and make “soft copies” of it. This can be done with a scanner, or even a smart phone. What’s more, it’s very common for updated manuals and documentation to be available online; and if that’s the case you just download them to your RV folder. It all takes a few hours of diligence, but once done, it’s done.
 
Now that I’m paperless, other doors open. I can keep photos, manuals, even receipts and work records, all organized for quick access and easy identification. Right now, it’s all on my laptop, but I have a secure online backup service and I can access the files from any computer if I need to. It is also simple to burn a CD with all the contents of my RV folder.
 
To put icing on the cake, I also have simple, free software that allows editing of the PDF and JPG files, and I can make notes or edits to them.
 
Greg Illes is a retired systems engineer who loves thinking up RV upgrades and modifications. When he’s not working on his motorhome, he’s traveling in it. You can follow his blog at www.divver-city.com/blog.

Dry camping? Use smarts when charging your RV batteries

By Russ and Tiña De Maris

Some RVers rarely stray from an RV park and that’s a real shame. There’s a lot of beauty that can be reached only when “dry camping” or boondocking. If you’re new to the idea of RVing without hookups, this is a good reminder regarding battery life.

RV batteries take a LONG time to charge, particularly if you’re trying to charge them with the typical RV converter-charger. Here’s a scenario: “I’ve been out here a couple of days and my lights started going dim. So I fired up the generator and it’s been running for hours, but my battery is still low!”

The standard “factory equipped” converter-charger rarely sends more than 3 or 4 amps to the battery when “shore power” or generator power is available. At that rate it can take many, many hours to really charge up the RV battery. If you don’t have solar or wind power and don’t have a built-in high-current charging system, here’s how to make your RV generator help out:

Use a fairly high-current freestanding battery charger — like you’d pick up at an auto parts store — and hook it directly to the RV “house” battery — the one that operates your interior lights and water pump. If you need an extension cord, be sure to use a suitably “gauged” (heavy enough) cord for the charger.

Buying an RV without slideouts is a big mistake

by Steve Savage, Mobility RV Service

Considering the purchase of any type of RV without slideouts? Think again! I know, I know. You’re going to tell me slideouts are prone to water leaks — and I’ll tell you, you’re 100 percent correct. Slides have done more to destroy the structural integrity of RVs than any other single design change in recent memory. If left unattended with the slides extended, in my opinion, the majority of slideouts will experience water damage.

On the other hand, the simple truth is the overwhelming majority of buyers are in love with the added space slides offer and are not about to give them up. They cost more and they cause more problems, but folks can’t live without them.

So where does that leave you when it comes time to trade or sell? Hopefully, you saved big on the initial purchase because what you will find is the market for your used non-slide camper is thin to non-existent. That means you are going to take a huge hit on resale and it is going to take much longer to even find a buyer.

Best advice from this end is buy a unit with slides and maintain them. You will realize the wisdom of your choice when it comes time to resell.