Tuesday, January 28, 2020
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.
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Today’s thought
“I was never really insane except upon occasions when my heart was touched.” ―
Need an excuse to celebrate? Today is National Kazoo Day!
New group will help you save money on the road
We’ve launched a new Facebook group “Budget RV Travel.” If you’re a member of Facebook and are looking for ways to stretch a limited income as you travel, you should pick up some great advice here. And please weigh in with your own suggestions. Sign up for the group.
Tip of the Day
Watch your rear!
“Here is a tip I use while driving down the highway. I installed a Fresnel lens on the rear window of my 31-foot Class C motorhome to enable me to see close to the rear of the rig. Doing this gives me the added advantage of being able to know when I’ve passed another vehicle and it’s far enough behind to allow me to change lanes. When I can see the headlights of the overtaken vehicle in the Fresnel lens, it’s safe to go. The normal rearview or side-view mirrors do not give a good estimate of how far ahead of the overtaken vehicle you are.” Thanks to Fred C.!
Do you have a tip? Submit it here.
Husband’s dream RV is wife’s “gas hog” nightmare
Dear RV Shrink:
We are looking at a 38-foot motorhome that is like a McMansion on wheels. It has all the creature comforts of home. It has been my husband’s dream for years. Don’t get me wrong. I love it too, but I can’t get over the poor gas mileage. I keep thinking every time we drive five miles it’s going to cost us whatever a gallon of gas costs. It seems absurd. Am I just thinking too hard? Are we nuts buying this gas hog? —Gas Math in Maitland
Read the RV Shrink’s response.
Yesterday’s featured article: Travel with a cat? Here’s A pussycat’s perspective
Reader poll
Quick Tip
Climb into a warm and cozy bed
Cold and damp out? If you’re in an RV park, use an electric heated mattress pad to pre-warm your bed. You’ll save LP from not having to crank up the heat. Inverter users beware: Not all mattress pads and electric blankets can “digest” inverter power.
The best book on RV electricity, hands down!
RV Travel contributor Mike Sokol is America’s leading expert on RV electricity. Mike has taken his 40+ years of experience to write this book about RV electricity that nearly anyone can understand. Covers the basics of Voltage, Amperage, Wattage and Grounding, with additional chapters on RV Hot-Skin testing, GFCI operation, portable generator hookups and troubleshooting RV electrical systems. This should be essential reading for all RVers. Learn more or order
Random RV Thought
It could be successfully argued that one of the most exhilarating parts of an RV trip is the week leading up to when it begins. The daydreaming is magnificent.
VIDEO: 14 luxury motorcoach resorts – What you need to know in 60 seconds.
Website of the day
Chronicles of Courage: Stories of Wartime and Innovation
If you or someone you know were/are in the military, this will probably be of interest to you. This is a groundbreaking project begun more than 15 years ago by the late philanthropist Paul G. Allen, co-founder of Microsoft. “Chronicles of Courage” is the largest project of its kind in the world. The ambitious endeavor was initiated as Allen began to hear about the passing of famous wartime pilots. He then asked what could be done to capture and keep the stories of fliers, soldiers, and sailors before they were gone. Then Chronicles of Courage was born. It captures the powerful first-person perspectives of more than 340 men and women from opposing sides of conflicts and “will take you on an immersive journey into the heart of wartime,” including insight into some of the most iconic military aircraft. The archive went live on December 7, 2016, Pearl Harbor Day.
Easily clean those stubborn bugs off your RV
The Microfiber Mesh Bug and Tar Sponge has millions of tiny fibers embedded in the microfiber cloth that grabs and holds the dust and dirt. It is so effective it even cleans without chemicals, saving both time and money. The secret of this sponge lies in its unique, double-layer microfiber mesh. Older nylon bug sponges can harm your clear coat, but this one is completely paint safe. Learn more or order.
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:
• 5 percent have had to pay $10,000 or more on one bill to repair their RV.
• 46 percent of our readers tow their RV.
• 85 percent would bend over to pick up a nickel.
Recent poll: Full-timers, what type of RV do you travel with? Tell us here.
Trivia
According to the Farmers’ Almanac, early American farmers used corncobs as toilet paper. They write, “Dried corncobs were plentiful and quite efficient at cleaning. They were also softer on tender areas than you might think. Even after toilet paper became available, some people in Western states still preferred corncobs when using the outhouse.”
What language do pilots speak? We told you yesterday.
Huge selection of RV tires at terrific prices. Click here.
Leave here with a laugh
An older gentleman named Robert answered the front door to find his friend standing there for a visit. His friend said, “Those are pretty flowers lining your walkway. What type are they?” Robert said, “Ya know. My memory is real bad these days. Flower type? Uh … you know, red … has thorns.” The friend said, “Rose?” Robert replied, “Yes that’s it, Rose. Hey, Rose! What kind of flowers are those lining the walkway?” —Thanks to Guy George!
Today’s Daily Deals at Amazon.com
Best-selling RV products and Accessories at Amazon.com. UPDATED HOURLY!
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Fresnel lens don’t work very well, can’t see
RE: Corn cobs. Wont they clog up your black water tank? Or do you have to buy a special cleaner for that?
😆 —Diane at RVtravel.com
My father recently passed away at the age of 91. Growing up on a farm in Iowa, they often had a bucket of corn cobs in the outhouse. He loved to say that they used a red cob first, then a white cob, to see if they needed another red cob. 😂
As others have said proper adjustments of
mirrors is key but if adding a fresnel lens to improve your safe driving then I’m all for you doing that.
Why on earth can an electric blanket not “digest” inverter power? Is this part of the “true RMS” mythology? An electric blanket is a simple resistor, the simplest component in electricity, and it will happily use any source of power (AC, DC, sine wave, square wave, any frequency) that does not significantly exceed its voltage rating, and that has an old-fashioned temperature control. I sure would like an explanation of what the author meant, as well as his qualifications to say it.
Sorry, Bill. I copied that from an old tip and put it into the newsletter. I don’t know where it originated. I’ve sent an email to electricity expert Mike Sokol to see if I should just remove the last sentence of the tip. Will update, if necessary, as soon as I hear from him — but he has a packed schedule so it might not be for awhile. But thank you for asking for clarification. —Diane at RVtravel.com
Now Bill, while I didn’t write this quick tip, I’m certainly qualified to comment on its accuracy. And while you’re correct that heating elements are resistors, and resistors are difficult to damage with power containing a lot of harmonic energy, you’re qualifying your statement with the assumption of an “old-fashioned” temperature control (most likely a bi-metallic strip). However, I’m guessing the nearly all modern electric blankets, heating pads, and everything except space heaters, do in fact use some kind of electronic control with a CPU of sorts. Yup, if there’s a timer on it to turn off after 10 hours, then there’s a CPU computer chip in the controller. And the switched-mode power supplies for those computer chips are prone to overheating from noisy modified sine wave power from cheap inverters.
Not all modified sine wave inverters are created equal, with some of them producing harmonic content upwards of 45% which could potentially cause enough overheating in an electric blanket temp controller circuit and “burn it out”. That effectively renders the electric blanket unusable even though its element is still operational.
Now pure sine inverters have far less harmonic content and are much easier on electronics and refrigerator compressor windings than modified/stepped sine inverters. Which is why I always recommend pure sine instead of modified sine inverters in RVs. There’s simply no good reason (except for an initial higher price) for using a modified sine inverter to power any kind of modern electronics.
So the bottom line is to watch for signs of overheating in any laptop power supply or electric blanket controller if you’re running from a modified sine inverter, but a pure sine inverter is often cleaner than home electricity from the power company.
For more reading on the various types of inverters, here’s one of my articles on the topic. https://www.rvtravel.com/rv-electricity-modified-stepped-inverter/
We have a fresnel lens on the back window of our Class B. It is useful but you have to be aware that it is extremely wide angle; things are closer than they appear.
Now I know what to do with all those leftover corn cobs.
???
RE: 14 Luxury Motorhome Resorts…I wonder what we’re talkin’ here as far as pricing goes LOL!
People in the East must be richer than the West. Nine of the resorts are in Florida and two others are nearby east of the Mississippi. The other four are along the Canadian border. It’s interesting that none are in the West or Southwest.
Darn, I’ve been using the rear view camera all these years to see when its safe to pull back in! I can’t see my back window anyways, folding mattress blocks the window.
Quick tip:
On electric mattress pads it was mentioned that not all mattress pads and electric blankets can “digest” inverter power. Don’t even know what that means? Any one know why?
Snoopy
When I used an inverter to run my electric mattress pad, it fried the digital controls.
Sine waves. Pure or not.
Some electric products do not like the power from an inverter and just not work or break.
Watch your rear, if your mirrors are adjusted right you know when you’ve gone far enough to pull back over. You all ready know what color the side of your vehicle is, at least I hope you do, so there is no reason to adjust your mirror so that any part of the vehicle is visible in the mirror. When properly adjusted a slight movement of your head will let you see where the side of the vehicle is. Truckers do this and they have no problem knowing where traffic is around them as their mirrors are looking straight back along side the trailer.
Bob p, you are so correct.
Anyone ANYONE, who hasn’t been trained sufficiently to judge where his rig sits in relation to others on the road using properly adjusted mirrors (just as professionally trained long haulers do) should NOT be on the road pulling anything!!!!!!!!!
How Recreational Vehicle owners have escaped mandatory/specific training in the care maintenance and more specifically the handling of some of the behemoths plying the highways and byways today is startling. The consequences are often life changing.
So how in gods name do I know anything about it?? Well I spent a lifetime repairing the wrecks that could be repaired. Then later as a quality controller listened to (and cried along with) those telling the tragic stories by the hundreds. I was often in the presence of incredible wrecks during and after those who clean up theses incredible disasters were certain all the parts that needed to go to the funeral home, and those that went on to become soup cans had been properly sorted.
I’ll live a full life wondering why a specific RV license has not been addressed, while the tragedies continue.
In the province of Alberta where I hang my hat you need a specific license to ride a scooter with a displacement larger than 50cc, but nothing for a huge motorhome with toad behind, or an 700 hp, Corvette, Camaro or Mustang- now how dam dumb is that????
Don’t forget there were red corn cobs and white corn cobs.Red for doing business and the whites were checkers to make sure the job was done.
I used many outhouses in my youth. None of them ever had corn cobs, Sears Roebuck catalogs were the wipe of choice (watch out for the color pages).
Corncobs-‘early American farmers’ Uh, define early. I can remember the pile of corncobs in my grandfather’s outhouse…and yes they worked. It was still a time when nothing went to waste. I also remember corncobs soaking in a can of kerosene where they could be used as excellent fire starters. Just to be clear, the two batches of cobs were never mixed. That would not have turned out well either way.
My grand also used them in the cook stove. The smoke would filter into the oven. It created a good color and taste to the roasted chickens; ummm!