Issue 967 • September 10, 2018
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QUICK TIPS
Overheated hubs
If you will be using an infrared thermometer – or just hand-touch the hub – don’t do that after using the brakes, as the brake shoes will heat up the drum and give you a false reading. Somewhere where you have lots of room, like a highway pull-off or rest area, pull in slowly after downshifting and pretty much let the RV come to a stop without much of a brake application. Then you will get a more accurate reading.” Thanks to George Bliss.
Time to defrost the fridge?
RV refrigerator seemingly not as cold as it should be? Open the fridge door and examine the cooling fins at the back of the compartment. If they’re coated with ice, it’s time to defrost. Shut off the fridge, remove the food to an ice chest with ice, insert a pan of hot water and close door. Prepare to mop up the meltdown. Reload and restart.
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Today’s brain teaser (answer below): What are the next three letters in this combination? O T T F F S S
STAY WARM: Cold weather is coming soon. Need a portable space heater? Click here.
MORE QUICK TIPS
Easy tip to help back up the trailer
Trouble backing up your fifth wheel or travel trailer? You know that you need to turn the wheel the opposite direction of where you want the trailer tail to go, but training yourself is the hard part. Hold the steering wheel at the bottom with your hand – whichever way you move your hand when there, the trailer tail will follow.
Savin’ for the breakdown
by Jerry Minchey
With most insurance policies you can either pay your insurance all in one annual payment or you can pay monthly. That’s the way to look at RV maintenance expenses. Things may go bad a little bit at a time, but you usually don’t know it until all of a sudden when something totally fails. In other words, most maintenance problems hit you all at once but put some money in your maintenance account each month, and when something expensive happens, you’ve already paid for it. Of course, this money is in addition to your emergency fund, which should be for a true emergency and not just for predictable expenses. Every mile you drive you’re using up your gasoline (or diesel fuel). You’re also using up your tires, but you pay for tires every few years not a little for every trip. Even if you took a 500-mile trip and didn’t have to spend anything on maintenance, that doesn’t mean you didn’t get that much closer to having to spend some money on repairs. One RVer told me that every time he puts $100 worth of gas in his rig he also puts $100 in an envelope that he keeps for maintenance expenses. My maintenance doesn’t run to nearly that much, but his technique may not be a bad idea.
From “RVing: Less Hassle—More Joy: Secrets of Having More Fun with Your RV—Even on a Limited Budget.” Available here.
Do you have a tip? Send it to Russ (at) rvtravel.com
Finally! A Solution for Smaller RV Sinks!
Road & Home™ is your go-to for your RV faucet needs. With a selection of styles designed specifically for the smaller blueprint of an RV, we have just what you need to get the job done! To shop the Road & Home selection of kitchen and bath faucets, click here.
WEBSITES OF THE DAY
National Parks maintenance
Use this tool, based on NPS data, to learn more about deferred maintenance at NPS sites across the county, in your state, and at your favorite park. Find out how the NPS prioritizes maintenance work, and the estimated cost of the repairs. You can also find information about the road conditions at each park site, which is always useful for the RV.
The best mystery books of 2017
There’s nothing like curling up in the RV at night with a good book. Here’s a list of gripping mystery books to keep you readin’!
Check out the long list of great RVing-related websites from RVtravel.com.
Facebook Groups You May like
•Fleetwood RV Owners Group.
•Solar Powered RVs and Boondocking.
•Free BLM and National Forest Camping.
Best-selling vent cover!
Keep rain out and fresh air inside your RV
Few add-ons are more enthusiastically endorsed by RVers as MaxxAir vents. This is the original and best-selling model. Install this over your RV vents, then keep them open in any weather. On rainy days, air from inside your RV can exit without a single drop of rain coming inside. Keep your vents open during storage and while driving. Learn more or order.
Answer to today’s brain teaser: E N T. Each letter represents the first letter in the written numbers: One, Two, Three, Four, Five, etc.
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.)
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LEAVE HERE WITH A LAUGH
Becoming a vegetarian is a big missed steak.
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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 love all the survey questions and the brain teasers! Keep them coming!
Keep the survey questions for RV related interests, please, toss the general life stuff like parents living.
Thanks.
More than 2,000 of our readers have responded to the survey question since yesterday, Stan, so I guess not all of them are opposed to our asking about “general life stuff.” RVers are, after all, people who are involved in “general life stuff” which relates to everyone. —Diane at RVtravel.com
There’s no need to remove the food or use hot water. Turn the refrigerator off for 4 hours. The food won’t even start to warm, but the fins will warm enough for the ice to separate. Then use a plastic knife to push the ice down into the drip tray. Defrost the freezer with a plastic scraper. You don’t need to get all the ice off the back wall
The best thing I ever did to defrost my fridge was to line the sides and bottom with the plastic cutting boards you can purchase at Walmart. These can be easily cut or trimmed to make them fit. When it is time to defrost, simply remove these and 90% of the ice build up will pop right off.
I always grew up being taught to “expect the unexpected,” so “if it’s not broken today, expect it will be soon.” As an extension to the “envelope” method of budgeting for repairs, you can use auto-pay (free at most banks) to reserve a repair fund continuously. Just open a separate savings account and have your bank move $100 a week (or whatever you average) into that account.
I know people who run a half-dozen such auto-accounts for themselves as a way of keeping finances on track with their conscious spending intentions (vacation fund, repair fund, emergency medical fund, weekly-into-monthly mortgage fund, etc…) By leaving very little in the “source” account, it’s harder to misdirect it by feeling like they can afford impulse buys (unless of course one account is for “mad money”).
I like the tip to add money to savings every time I buy gasoline. I, too, have automatic transfers from checking to savings twice a month. But I take it a step further. I transfer whatever is left in my checking account the day before my next auto deposit of income to savings, leaving only $1 in my checking account. It is very hard for me to justify transferring money back into checking to buy the next RV accessory that tickles my fancy.
I installed two small fan on the cooling fins in the refrigerator compartment. They tap into the hot wire for the light. They eliminate frost build up.
https://www.amazon.com/Deluxe-RV-Refrigerator-Evaporator-Grill/dp/B0725HQ9BN/ref=sr_1_6?s=automotive&ie=UTF8&qid=1536595828&sr=1-6&keywords=rv+refrigerator+fan
On your tip to defrost a gas refrigerator, as a former gas refrigerator service man, never put a pan of hot water in the refrigerator to sped up defrosting, doing so can cause problems, the easiest way to defrost your gas refrigerator is to turn it on low and in a while check the fins to see if the ice will release using a small ice scraper being careful not to damage the thermostat wire, remove the ice, then return turn your refrigerator back to the original setting. Do not let the ice build up, it’s very easy to defrost if the ice isn’t thick!
I was going to say similar — defrosting is an exponential job the worse you let it get. I have a commercial freezer for my beef at home (I buy entire animals), which can be defrosted in minutes if you catch it just starting, or several hours if you don’t. It’s a lot easier to move the contents of an RV freezer than an 800lb solid beefcicle! Make it a monthly (as much as weekly in high-humidity areas) task, and you won’t spend a day chiseling your freezer.