Issue 956 • August 21, 2018
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QUICK TIPS
No-stick vent lids
Tony King makes this suggestion: “Most lubricant you spray on vent cranks, etc., attracts dust, so keep that in mind. Sometimes cleaning it free of everything doesn’t attract anything and works just as good. Use a degreaser on a cloth to clean the rubber seal, let dry completely and then wipe talcum powder on to prevent lid from sticking.” Thanks for venting on this matter, Tony!
Not a fan of Grease? Tell me more, tell me more…
With electricity expert and veteran RVer Mike Sokol
My son Kevin, the pastry chef and teacher, came home the other day (don’t they always) looking for the bar of “yellow lye soap” to get a big grease stain out of his pants. I remember my grandmother using a yellow bar of Fels-Naptha lye soap on my grandfather’s work clothes (he was a coal miner), and on our skin if we got into the poison ivy. According to Chef Kevin, many kitchens and bakeries still keep a bar of Fels-Naptha soap handy for serious grease stain removal. Now they warn you not to get it in your eyes and limit skin contact, but it sure does cut the grease and seemed to be great at removing poison ivy toxins. I looked it up and it’s still available at a lot of grocery stores as well as online on Amazon (of course). Here’s a link if you can’t find it locally.
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Never Leave Home Without Two!
Everyone agrees a waste water hose is the most important item to have on board your RV, but what happens when your current one breaks? We recommend ALWAYS having a spare on hand in case you have cracks or leaks, or have forgotten to repack. Don’t let this minor repair slow you down! To shop your waste removal needs, click here.
Answer to today’s brain teaser: An echo
JOIN THE NEW FACEBOOK GROUP: RV Horror Stories (A place to share your story about a new RV you recently bought that is riddled with defects that your dealer or manufacturer can’t or won’t repair.)
Keep your entire RV safe with surge protection
Don’t take the chance of frying the appliances in your RV because of low or high voltage in your RV, or a nearby lightning strike that spikes the power sky high. And protect yourself, too. Every year RVers are shocked, even killed by what are called RV Hot Skin Conditions. Don’t be a victim. Check out the huge selection of surge protectors at Amazon.com.
MORE QUICK TIPS
BBQ grill flare suppressor
A plain water bottle with a small hole punched in the cap can dampen a flaring charcoal grill fire or campfire equally well. Squeeze the bottle to generate a high-pressure spray of water towards the base of the fire. From “100 RV Tips and Tricks (Mack’s RV Handbook).” Available on Amazon.com.
Black water dump trick for boondockers
“We were fulltimers for about 12 years, so I emptied many black tanks. A tip: After I drain, flush, and close the valve, I continue the flush for 30 to 60 seconds so the tank is not dry (usually up one dot on the tank meter). This lets me be stingy with my precious fresh water when boondocking.” —Thanks to Fred & Judy Ceppa
Do you have a tip? Send it to Russ (at) rvtravel.com
Keep gray tank odors awayAND MAKE MORE ROOM UNDER YOUR SINKS
WEBSITES OF THE DAY
Go RVing Canada
We’re sure you know about Go RVing, but do you know they have a Canadian site for all your moose-viewing, maple-syrup slurping adventures? There’s a whole other world up there – go explore it!
EarthCam
Want to know what the weather is like in New York right now? Want to see how many people are at the Eiffel Tower? EarthCam has live webcams all over the world to help you moderate some of your wanderlust.
Check out the long list of great RVing-related websites from RVtravel.com.
Top five most popular articles at RVtravel.com the past week
•Which cell photo service do you use?
•Readers talk about their Good Sam Club experiences.
•Driver pulling trailer held on vehicular homicide charge.
•Wife afraid of arriving at campground after dark; husband doesn’t learn.
•Camping World customer service poll deeply lopsided.
Today’s Coupons at Amazon.com
Do you love coupons, those handy things that save you lots o’ money? Did you know Amazon publishes a whole bunch of them every day? There are pages and pages of them on food products, clothing, sundries, toys, electronics, tools, even RV accessories. So go ahead, save some money! Check ’em out.
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LEAVE HERE WITH A LAUGH
This morning, my grandpa walked into my room with a young bearded guy wearing skinny jeans and a cool T-shirt. I said, “Who is this guy?” My grandpa replied, “My hip replacement.”
Today’s Daily Deals at Amazon.com
Best-selling RV products and Accessories at Amazon.com. UPDATED HOURLY.
Essential for big RVs!
2018 Rand McNally Motor Carriers’ Road Atlas
If you drive a big RV — extra long or extra tall — then this is for you. The truck driver’s road atlas shows all the highways you can drive without encountering a low bridge or getting stuck hanging over a cliff. This is an essential aid even if you have a GPS! Coverage: United States, Canada, and Mexico. Learn more or order.
RV Daily Tips Staff
Editor and Publisher: Chuck Woodbury. Managing editor: Diane McGovern. Staff writer: Emily Woodbury. Contributing writers: Russ De Maris, Bob Difley, Gary Bunzer, Roger Marble, Mike Sokol, Greg Illes, J.M. Montigel and Andrew Robinson. Advertising coordinator: Gail Meyring. Marketing director: Jessica Sarvis.
ADVERTISE on RVtravel.com and/or in this newsletter. Contact Gail Meyring at Gail(at)RVtravel.com .
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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I keep a water filled squirt gun handy when grilling, get’m from dollar store and easy to shoot that water where your aiming.
Spraying water on a grease fire doesnt seem wise… Since my grill is sealed on the bottom, the grease fires would just float in a messy pool of water…
Why pick on Nancy? That was our tip. Or was your comment aimed at the tip in general and just happened to end up in reply to Nancy’s tip? Maybe you should put some holes in the bottom of your grill, Wolfe. 😉 —Diane at RVtravel.com
YES, mine was a general comment on the tip. You don’t put out grease with water, and grills usually are grease fires.
In truth, I just let mine burn out. I use a portable grill in flare-safe locations, and the gas bottle can’t heat up from even a pretty aggressive flare. You could say i put out my fires with steak.
There are no holes in my grill bottom *because* it’s portable — you wouldn’t want to stow it inside the cabinet if it had a dribbling grease drain.
Ironically, I sometimes do the exact reverse of this tip, filling a small soda bottle with gasoline and drilling a 1-3/64 hole in the soda cap. Why? Besides being crazy and dangerous, I’m impatient starting campfires with damp wood in the rain. Squeeze the bottle for a tiny but effective flamethrower (generally too meager a stream to backtrack at all, and gasoline flames propogate much slower than you think). This probably isn’t an advisable tip unless you know what you’re doing, but its effective if you’re careful and freezing. Use the least gas that works – management takes no responsibility if you blow yourself up.
Thanks for the clarification, Wolfe (but probably not for your flamethrower tip). 😀 —Diane at RVtravel.com
About the waste hoses. We have a 10′ hose on one side of our hollow bumper and a 20′ hose on the other side. I still remember the first time I tried to dump . The 10′ hose had moved to the middle and naturally someone was waiting behind me. I ended up driving off without dumping.
This is for Mike- an electrical question. We have a 50 amp RV, we frequently stay at our home base, which is mostly 30 amp. We have a 50 amp surge protector. So…. do we plug in our 30/50 pigtail, then the 50 amp surge protector, then the RV 50 amp cord? Is this the best way to go? Thanks for your advice.
We carry gorilla glue with us for those pinholes we seem to get in the hose. Works great and cheaper than replacing the hose.
Gorilla doesnt always stick to plastics… You want to get a product called SealAll – glues ungluable thermoplastics underwater. Also good on roofs, vents, water bottles, hoses, etc… …so indispensible in an RV.
You can also find Fels Naptha at your local Ace Hardware!
I tried the link to the Amazon coupons yesterday and today, and it doesn’t lead to any coupons. It links to books about couponing, and a bunch of unrelated items to purchase. Could you fix it, please? Many of us would love to find these coupons. One of the Facebook pages, of which I am a member, frequently posts Amazon coupons for much-needed (or desired) RVing products and I have bought some through her site. But she won’t tell us how to find them for ourselves. . .
Try to Google: Amazon coupons @Amazon.com
Thanks! That’s the one I wanted. Your tip lead me to this for Prime members only also: https://www.amazon.com/Prime-Exclusive-Coupons/b?ie=UTF8&node=12235843011
Hi, Sherry. I just checked that link and it appears to me that those items listed on the page either have to do with couponing (as you mention) or have coupons or discounts for a particular item. In the brief description of the items on the right side (under the stars) some of them mention a coupon or discount — so I think that’s how Amazon sorts them into that category. However, in the process of looking at this, I’ve found a more appropriate page at Amazon for coupons so have changed the link in the newsletter: https://amzn.to/2N6EUNS . Thank you for calling this to our attention! 😀 —Diane at RVtravel.com
Thanks! Sharon Stoops gave me the search criteria to find this one. I also discovered this one to find coupons for Prime members only: https://www.amazon.com/Prime-Exclusive-Coupons/b?ie=UTF8&node=12235843011
Cool! Thanks, Sherry! 😀 —Diane at RVtravel.com
Sherry Dawson>This link worked for me for Amazon coupons:
https://www.amazon.com/Coupons/b?node=2231352011
The joke: yuk yuk yuk
For a Barbeque flare suppressor my dad always used beer. He didn’t normally drink it but he had a can open while grilling. It puts out the flareup and gives the food an extra bit of flavor.
Oh! ‘Hip’ replacement………. I get it *groan* LOL 🙂
It would be funnier if it was a hip young woman, and grandpa was talking to grandma about her replacement. It’s all in the setup.
Or vice versa, Wolfe. 😉 —Diane at RVtravel.com