Archive for the ‘RV Quick Tips’ Category

When you’ve parked your RV in a new campsite and you’re hooking up your water hose, hook it up to the spigot first and run a fair amount of water through. This does several things, 1, it flushes your water hose, 2, lets you see what the water is like… could be rusty or dirty or smelly, 3, fills the hose with water which eliminates most of the sputtering at the RV’s sink faucets.

Instead of wasting it, water a nearby tree or the grass. If you’re parked in a ‘parking lot’ site and you don’t want to make a mess run the water into the sewer.

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An RVer recently wrote me with this question:
We have a 5th wheel on a seasonal site. Our toilet is always clogging up. What can we do to prevent this from happening again?

Here’s my answer:
Always leave the black tank dump valve closed unless you are dumping the tank

Never dump the tank unless it’s at least 2/3rds full. If you want to dump it sooner then add water to the tank.

After dumping, rinse the tank with either a toilet rinse wand or the built-in rinsing system if you have one. When the tank is flushed ‘clean’ close the valve and add enough water to cover the bottom of the tank.

When using the toilet use plenty of water when flushing… at least until the tank is about 1/4 full.

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Most every RV has a gravity fill port for fresh water tank. You just stick the end of a hose in the port and let it run till the tank is full.

Some rigs are also plumbed in a way that you can fill the fresh water tank through a valve when connected to a water source. There is no common location for the valve but it should be somewhere close to where the hose connects to the RV.
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• When you have to work outside in the cold at a task that requites some finger dexterity, gloves won’t always work for you. In that case, try surgical gloves like we wear when dealing with the black tank. They will keep the hands a little warmer than going bear handed, but still leave your hands free to work. Put them on in layers if needed.

• The recent FMCA magazine shows a tip for keeping plates in place while you drive. Go to the dime store and buy a small bag of simple balloons. Blow them up about three quarters full and pinch them in between stacked plates and the bottom of the shelf above. They provide a nice flexible cushion. Use different size balloons for different sizes and shapes of dishes, as needed.

• A lot of places won’t allow RVers to wash RVs in their parks. Too much water and mess. You can get a four tube pack of Clorox sanitary wipes and a 350 count box of Shop Towels at Sam’s for about $20.00. Put on some rubber gloves, set out a garbage bag and wipe away. Wipe with a cleaner cloth and dry/buff with the shop towels. The wipes will clean almost anything you encounter, including black streaks. Doing it this way, you can easily break the job up into a several day project, cleaning sections now and again until done. As a side benefit, you will find fewer bugs around your unit!

• The latest version of Microsoft Streets & Trips is very GPS friendly. You can get the software with a GPS sensor, or connect via a USB cable to most hand held GPS’s. This will give you a GPS with a screen as large as your laptop! The software even gives speech commands. Your naviguesser will love it!

• One of the more unsightly things on an RV can be rusty streaks from the cheap screws some manufacturers use. You can get a supply of small stainless screws at most hardware outlets. The chain Harbor Freight Tools sells a nifty pack of 300 assorted stainless screws. Just use these to replace the exterior screws on your RV and get rid of these unsightly blemishes.

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