Tuesday, September 24, 2019
Welcome to another edition of RV Travel’s Daily Tips newsletter. Here you’ll find helpful RV-related and living tips from the pros, travel advice, a handy website of the day, tips on our favorite RVing-related products and, of course, a good laugh. Thanks for joining us. We appreciate you. Please tell your friends about us.
Page Contents
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Today’s thought
“Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.” ―
Need an excuse to celebrate? Today is National Punctuation Day.!?,&:#;
Tip of the Day
Another take on silencing smoke detectors
It seems a lot of our readers are annoyed when the smoke detector pipes up when a meal is being cooked. Here’s another approach to finding peace, this one from Glen Shindler. To Glen, covering the detector with something may lead to forgetting to remove the cover. Taking the alarm down could damage the mounting brackets. So what’s left? “Some detectors have a hinged lid which can be unlatched allowing the cover to hang down, making it very obvious. Then, the 9 V battery can be pulled back a fraction of an inch to disconnect it while cooking.” Thanks, Glen!
Space heater uses less than two amps! RVtravel.com has one, loves it! More.
Can you afford to snowbird?
Are you an RVer tired of the cold winter weather and ready to become a snowbird? Worried you can’t afford it? Here from Russ and Tiña De Maris are a few things to help you figure out whether or not you can fit the snowbird lifestyle into your financial limits. Learn more.
Reader poll
Get rid of your RV’s P-trap. Look here.
An honest RV dealer (and one of our sponsors). Click to learn more.
Heartland addresses RV quality issues with new program
At RVtravel.com, we celebrate each new development in the RV industry that aims to help improve the quality of new RVs that are sold to RVers, much too often with serious defects. We routinely hear from RVers whose new RVs were in the shop for months on end during their first year. So, it’s good news that Heartland RV has announced a plan to introduce a new pre-delivery inspection (PDI) program. Learn more.
Helpful resources
• NATIONAL TRAFFIC AND ROAD CLOSURE INFORMATION.
• ROAD AND TRAFFIC CONDITIONS ACROSS THE NATION.
• WEATHER ALERTS FROM THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE.
• CURRENT WILDFIRE REPORT.
• LATEST RV RECALLS.
Quick Tip
Quick TipDryer lint is a great fire starter
Dryer lint inside a cardboard toilet paper or paper towel roll is a great fire starter. Take the cardboard roll, stuff it with dryer lint, wrap it in a piece of wax paper (twisting the ends like a tootsie roll), light it and start a huge, roaring fire. Great to keep in the laundry room in case of any emergencies. From Sadie Seasongoods.
Random RV Thought
Card games are cheap entertainment. In the campground, a deck or two can provide hours of fun without the use of extra power. And when not being used, they take up virtually no storage space.
*The RVtravel.com staff loves these card games: Uno, Spot It! (this is a great way to improve your attention span, and this particular version is camping themed!) and Mad Gab (you’ll laugh your head off while playing Mad Gab).
Website of the day
RV Water Filter store
It’s true that you can buy just about anything and everything on the Web. Here’s a store that only sells RV water filters. And what a selection!
You can buy the cutest micro-trailer you’ve ever seen for less than $13. Click here to read about it.
And the Survey Says…
We’ve polled RVtravel.com readers more than 1,500 times in recent years. Here are a few things we’ve learned about them:
• Forty-three percent never or almost never stay in a campground without an electric hookup.
• Thirty percent do not plan to ever buy another RV.
• Eighteen percent have no slideouts on their RV.
SAVE MONEY! Most RVers rely on battery-powered devices while on the road, whether flashlights, radios or cameras. But sometimes you just can’t tell how much life a battery has remaining so you toss it to “be sure.” This small tester, for about $8, will alert you in an instant to the condition of your batteries, saving you money from needlessly tossing ones with plenty of life left! Works on AA, AAA, C, D and 9V and button-type batteries. Learn more or order.Trivia
Trivia
Alma, Arkansas, holds an annual spinach festival in April. The town of 4,700 proclaims itself the “spinach capital of the world.” Its Popeye Park includes a statue of Popeye. Unfortunately, Olive Oyl is nowhere in sight.
Leave here with a laugh
Before you marry a person, you should first make them use a computer with slow Internet service to see who they really are. ―Will Ferrell
Today’s Daily Deals at Amazon.com
Best-selling RV products and Accessories at Amazon.com. UPDATED HOURLY.
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RV Daily Tips Staff
Editor and Publisher: Chuck Woodbury. Managing editor: Diane McGovern. Senior editor: Emily Woodbury. Marketing director: Jessica Sarvis. Financial affairs director: Gail Meyring. IT wrangler: Kim Christiansen.
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Everything in this newsletter is true to the best of our knowledge. But we occasionally get something wrong. We’re just human! So don’t go spending $10,000 on something we said was good simply because we said so, or fixing something according to what we suggested (check with your own technician first). Maybe we made a mistake. Tips and/or comments in this newsletter are those of the authors and may not reflect the views of RVtravel.com or this newsletter.
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This newsletter is copyright 2019 by RVtravel.com
The stove vent fan and ceiling fan help a lot, but sometimes aren’t quite enough even though both have been upgraded. Also, the amount of ventilation may be limited if it is cold out. I just replaced our RV smoke detector with one that has a silence button. It is yet to be determined how well that works. The smoke alarm silence button in our stationary home is much appreciated.
All my “cruises” were @ 50K’ above the ocean, courtesy of the USAF….
I really think that your piece on Heartland ramping up there PDI (Post Dealer Inspection) program is pretty funny. They along with all other manufacturers should have had and been doing the same program for as long as they have been producing RV’s. I was an RV transporter for 5 years and it always amazed me the crap that these manufacturers were trying to ship to dealers that was defective at the place it was built. And they wonder why people question buying a new RV????
Four meditation cruise’s and four Caribbean,one arctic circle,and one Indian Ocean and still the wife makes me go on cruise’s.
But at least on these I can enjoy an adult beverage and not have to work 12 on and 12 off.
Oh, I almost forgot.
After four months without seeing so much as a tree, the U.S.Navy did issue me two cans of beer at 80°.
My ocean cruise was in 1969 courtesy of the United States Marine Corps. War games at Camp Pendleton, California. Spent a week at sea, saw flying fish and a lot of water. Cigarettes were cheap and that is about all I remember about it.
Several Naval deployments do they count as a cruise?
MANY cruises on the Pacific courtesy of the U S COAST GUARD.
My wife and I quit doing big ship cruises years ago. Now we do small ship river cruises. Our last two week Amsterdam to Budapest cruise had 84 passengers, very knowledgeable tour guides and incredible service. We could never go back to a big ship cruise after experiencing the small river cruises. I highly recommend them.
Dryer lint with a little of vaseline add work really good. Put it in a plastic ziplock bag in your go to emergency 💼bag. 👍
Should shock absorbers be added to our 24 foot Kodiak travel trailer? Does anyone have experience adding these to their trailer?
Does crossing the Atlantic on a troop ship count??
Triple points for that!
Yes, I forgot the trip to Japan on the Star of India in 1949.
RE: Dryer Lint
Based on what I’ve read, the best dryer lint is from new cotton towels. Lots of it and the fibers are long. Wool lint is also good. Lint with polyester isn’t recommended. Supposedly doesn’t burn as well as cotton plus the fumes.
I haven’t done my own experiments but there’s lots of online advice.
I had a few Pacific cruise call WesPac care of the US Navy in my 4 years with them.
If you watch the Harbour Freight ads, you can often find multi meters in their “free with any purchase” coupons. The meter is not the best, but can check DC, AC, continuity, resistance and amperage. I keep several around and try to get them when I need more gloves for the wet bay. They also have free led flashlights on a regular basis.
Hating to listen to that pesky alarm, we finally found the way around it (for us, anyway). When preparing food that we KNOW is going to kick it off, we take it down and put it under a pillow on our bed. It’s in plain sight at the foot of the bed so when we’re done we just re-install it. We don’t often use the range vent because we ‘lock’ it closed on the outside to keep it from flapping in the breeze (usually at night when we’re trying to sleep).
I don’t have the problem listening to the alarm. Most of my food is done outside or making coffee or simply boiling on the inside. I don’t fry in the camper ever so if anyone wants eggs and bacon it’s done outside. I want my alarm to be free to go off if need be. Several years ago my husband and I sailed our boat up from the Florida Keys and anchored at Elliot Key in Biscayne Bay for the night. I noticed a good size Bertram not far from our boat anchored and was all closed up. The next day we pulled up the anchor and set sail. The Bertram was still there and still closed up. Sadly, we heard the next day that a couple and their dog died from carbon monoxide in that boat. Hep!! I sure do love my alarm. Especially when I have the furnace on when it’s cold.
I have been on many, many cruises with the Navy during my 20 years. No commercial cruises though.
Much safer than taking the batteries out of a smoke detector is to turn on the stove hood vent fan when cooking, open a window and/or turn on ceiling fan. I cook anything that may set off the detector, stir fry, browning meat, on the back burner of the stove and turn on the range hood fan. No more flapping magazines at the detector like a mad chicken!
I answered no to the poll because I have never been on a commercial cruise. However, I spent 20 years in the Navy, does that count?
My late wife always talked about taking a cruise, I told her when she finds one that stays within 50 yds of the shore I’d go, that way if it was sinking I’d know which way to swim and I could probably swim that far. My new wife, I love her dearly, doesn’t have any desire to cruise except in our motorhome. Lol
I don’t unplug batteries in smoke detectors, or recommend anyone do that. The problem is that people do not turn on the exhaust fan and open a window across from it, allowing air to flow those nasty vapors cleanly out the exhaust. This is also true at your house. Detectors are doing there job by letting you know there is hazardous smoke or vapors in the air. Disconnecting them can be dangerous and can even cause death, if forgotten.