Is it safe to walk on your RV roof? While there are some things you can use to get an idea if it’s safe or not however I would always recommend you check with your manufacturer and or owners manual to determine whether or not your RV roof can support your weight. This goes for travel trailers campers RVs fifth wheels class a campers class B campers class C campers. All may or may not have roofs designed to support your weight. If you’re unsure check with your manufacturer before walking on your roof so you don’t cause any on necessary damage.
If you determine that it’s not safe to walk on your RV roof however repairs need to be made I recommend you leave those repairs to a professional. However, if you have a ladder attached to your RV then that’s a pretty good telltale sign that your camper can hold the weight of a person walking on the roof. While this is not a definite for all camper types if there is no louder than most likely it is not safe to walk on your RV or travel trailer roof. Once again if you’re unsure double check with your campers manufacturer.
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If you’re going camping there is always a need for more space. About how well we pack or cut back on the things we think we need there is never enough room but in this video, to show you an easy solution if you have a tow hitch receiver available to you. So as you can see this is nothing more than a hitch receiver storage unit with an additional storage box bolted on. You certainly don’t need the storage box if you don’t want it however it makes it nice for keeping things dry and locked up. If you don’t have a hitch receiver you could always have one added on if your vehicle is capable of it. But if you’re vehicle has one and this is a quick easy simple solution to add some significant storage to your RV. So go ahead packed the things you need in the undercarriage storage and your cabinets throughout your RV and when you run out of space put on a hitch receiver storage unit to pick up the slack.
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If you like camping but hate dealing with bugs in your RV than today watch this video and I give you four tips to help dramatically reduce how many bugs you dealing with inside your camper. First of all the best thing to do is to try to keep the door closed as much as possible. The screen doors are good however bugs always seem to find a way to get around them the matter how tight they seem to be. Sometimes this is not a very convenient option so if you plan on leaving your door open here are three tips, the first tip beyond keep in the door close would be to shut off your outside light. If you can’t do that at least switch it over to a bug light to help reduce the number of bugs that congregate around it.
The next tip would be to make sure there are no lights on inside your RV near or around the door once again this will help cut down on the number of bugs congregating in that area. Keep in mind that if there bugs around the outside light or the door because they’re seeing light from within the camper, when you open that door just from the airflow of that process many bugs will be sucked into your RV.
So if you have your door closed and lights on the exterior near the door off and no light in the area of your camper door inside to attract bugs that alone will help cut down on your bug problem but there is one more additional thing you can do and that is to put a light on inside your RV as far away from the door as you can. This will give you some well-needed light outside your RV however it’ll cause the bugs to congregate around that window and not near your door.
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What water repellent should you buy? Today I put to the test three different water repellents. If you plan on spending any amount of time outside camping no doubt sooner or later you will be dealing with rain. So in this video, I’m going to test three water repellents on my hats to see which one repels water the best. I have two made by camp dry and another one this a silicone water repellent. After doing this video I was shocked to find out that the heavy duty camp dry water repellant did not perform as good as their standard camp dry water repellent.
But the Atsko I was using worked the best even after continuous spurts of water on the hat it continued to beat up and roll right off. I applied all three as instructed by the manufacturer the best that I could and the non-camp dry version was a clear winner.
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Today we are talking about insect repellent. I live here in southern Maine and in the spring and summer, black flies and mosquitoes can get out of control. In this video, I just want to show you some options you have to help deal with these pesky little bugs. I’m not actually reviewing any of these particular products and there are a lot more options out there for you. But this will give you some food for thought. First of all, you can deal with the bugs with the typical aerosol can spray, they are produced by many different brands different sizes and different scents as well as some difference in ingredients.
A very common ingredient found in many bug repellents is deet. There’s a lot of talk on the health issues surrounding this ingredient however it does work extremely well for repelling insects. So as I was saying you can apply this product with an aerosol can however if you don’t typically purchase products in aerosol form there are other options for example we have the pump spray, you would apply this note differently than the aerosol cans other than the fact you have to physically pump the sprayer to dispatch the product.
You also have wet wipes available that have insect repellent product on them so if you don’t want to spray or pump you can just wipe the repellent on you and your clothing to help deal with mosquito control. Now there are some people that would prefer not applying any type of chemical to their body and for them, we have the clip-on insect repellent option. This uses a battery to run a fan and it is also refillable so it can be used over and over again.
I put a few links in the description up top to get you started on a few different options that may work for you. I also talk a little bit about another variety of test control and that is bees, aunts and a few others there are many options for this as well. I show four of them here but again the products are almost limitless depending on your situation. Hopefully, you can enjoy your outdoor camping experience with little aggravation from the insects. Hopefully, you found something in this video to help you the next time you plan on spending time outside and enjoying mother nature.
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Today I want to talk about four things that you should check minimally on the tires. Number one you want to do a visual inspection for any kind of damage, this could be bulging were marks or weather cracking. Make sure you check all sides of the tires being careful with your hands just in case there are some steel belts protruding through the rubber. These could easily slice your hand open it would not make for a good day.
You also want to check the tread depth now they may be variations as to what’s legal throughout the country, so find out that information that pertains to you where you are located. Once you’ve done that do an inspection of all tires making sure you check in multiple areas of the tread. It is possible to have a situation where one area looks good and will completely pass however another area on the same tire could be showing canvas. You would generally see this on front tires when and if they are out of alignment however can be possible on any of the tires and you want to know ahead of time.
So assuming is no visual damage and the tread depth is good and now you’ve confirmed is no canvas or extreme aware on any of the tires the next thing to check would be the date of manufacturing. It’s a good idea to know how old the tires are. Now there is no hard and fast rule as to when attire should be replaced based on its age however the general consensus is right around six years. Even if the tread looks good and the tire still is generally in good condition you may want to consider replacing them if they are old due to possible on noticeable dry rot or other deterioration of the rubber that cannot be seen.
The question is how do you know how old the tire is, will the first thing you want to do is look at the sidewall of the tire and find the acronym DOT this stands for Department of transportation now typically following that you will see a series of letters and/or numbers what you are looking for is a set of four numbers is standalone and typically are slightly recessed in the tire from the casting method they use. Most of the time it is after the DOT and on lettering but occasionally can be found before the acronym DOT. Now that you found the four numbers what do they stand for? Well, the first to represent the week of the year that the tire was produced and the second to represent the year of production.
Now that you have that information you can decide whether or not you believe these tires should be replaced based on the age alone and this also could play a role in the amount you offer for an RV if it has several large tires that are going to need to be replaced. This could be a significant cost that you may not be anticipated if you had not known how old the tires were. Hopefully, you find this information helpful please like common and subscribe.
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Today I want to show you some important things you should check on the roof of an RV or travel trailer if you’re considering purchasing it used. As you can see right off the bat this RV was covered however in a way that it was collecting water and snow melt, this is not good because of those in a lot of additional weight on the roof for an extended length of time which potentially could cause damage to the roof structure. Once we made it up on the roof we did a quick visual inspection and then started to dig in and you’ll notice there are many issues on this particular RV roof. Lots of the caulking and sealant around most if not all of the roof mounted items have been compromised and will no longer hold out water. So you’ll want to take the time to check everything and reseal where needed.
In this case, in my opinion, the whole roof would need to be cleaned scraped and then completely recoded and also reseal around all roof items. After that, we were looking at some of the seams of the roof which also were in need of repair and re-ceiling.
Don’t forget to take the time while you’re up there to look at the fins on the back of the air conditioning unit if these are all bent and twisted the unit will no longer work efficiently. There is also trim on the edge of this RV that has been compromised in fact is pretty much completely gone so the screws are exposed to the elements and will rust in eventually will allow water to seep in and rot out the wood structure. Another thing to check is the roof vent covers obviously if there is clear damage still need to be replaced but also they could be just very old and brittle and could break off very easily in the case of this RV that is one thing I would replace even if it did not have the hole in it that you saw.
Another easy thing to check from the roof is exterior marker lights and in this RV they certainly have had leak issues because you can see that all of them on the front has been re-coded and sealed with silicone sealant. If you see this it’s a clear sign that most likely water penetrated behind these and potentially cause damage to the structure. So these would definitely need to be removed cleaned resealed and replaced properly. Hopefully, if you’re looking at a used RV you don’t have these issues or at least this many but this worked out well for the video because you got to see many things that could go wrong on the roof of an RV. Like I said in the video in this particular situation
I probably would not purchase the RV just because there are so many issues with the roof alone. With that said it certainly could be used as a hunting camp or something like that without too much issue if you took the time just to slap on some thick sealant on the roof. Hopefully, you got something out of this video it will prevent you or help protect you from purchasing an RV or travel trailer that has extensive issues. The bottom line is it’s up to you to do the inspection to make sure you know what you are purchasing or what to offer based on the conditions that you are seeing.
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If you have a travel trailer one thing that easily gets neglected is the hitch system. Today I want to show you some basic things that you can do to help minimize wear and tear on your ball and trailer hitch. The main thing you want to do is keep the ball and the hitch of the trailer clean of debris especially grit and sand. As this can act like sandpaper and cause premature wear on the components.
What I do is put a small layer of grease on the ball itself and some up inside the receiver on the trailer. There are several grease options out there and some are better than others the main thing to make sure is before you hook up to remove any grit or grime from the ball and reapply a thin layer of grease if needed. Another thing you’ll want to do from time to time is oil your tongue Jack assembly. In this case, it’s a hand-crank Jack and has a whole way you apply a small amount of oil however many power jacks also have points to be oiled to help aid in lubrication and prevent premature failure of the worm gears inside. Also, I advise that you remove the hitch from your tow vehicle when not in use. As extended times left in the receiver can cause them to rust and become next to impossible to get apart. The hitch shaft itself is another area I would apply a light amount of grease. Again making sure that no grit or sand is stuck to the grease when you put them together as this is just as bad as putting a piece of sandpaper in there. It just gonna cause early where, of the components. Once again I would clean these thoroughly and reapply grease prior to mounting the hitch into the hitch receiver.
If you follow these few simple steps you can help eliminate early failure and possible problems on the road. So take the time and do some general hitch maintenance. Now I know everybody probably has a can of WD-40 lying around while this is a great lubricant to breaks free rusty and stuck components is a very poor product for lubricating the ball and hitch of your travel trailer long-term. Only use this type of product to free up rusty components and then apply the proper lubricant such as Greece and oil.
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Today I wanted to test out this Coleman folding camp stove/oven. My initial review out of the box is I like it, it’s a very simple to set up and it fits quite nicely on my Coleman camp stove. The real question is how well does it work and will it maintain temperature given the fact that it has sin metal walls. Of course, there is going to be significant heat loss because of that however can it maintain temperature long enough to cook it without burning up an excessive amount of fuel. I decided to bake a small cinnamon muffin/cake mix. The bake time for this particular item was 20 to 25 minutes. I also decided to do this test in the house on my propane stove mainly because I did not have enough propane in my bottle for the Coleman camp stove.
Now I know some will say that this is not a fair review and you could be right and maybe in the future, I will cook using this on my Coleman camp stove however it would definitely give us an idea as to whether this would hold the heat at a steady enough temperature to properly bake something. So I brought in the house set it up on my stove and prepared to test it out. It turns out that it had no problem maintaining the temperature at all. However, I did have to adjust the heat on the burner a few times but this is no different than what your automatic oven would do when it reached temperature and/or started to cool off the differences you would have to make these adjustments yourself. I found it quite easy to do and by the end, I was able to tune in the temperature to drastically minimize how many times I had to make adjustment in order to maintain the proper temperature.
So we baked our cinnamon cake and it came out fantastic and pretty much the appropriate time recommended on the packaging for the cake. At the end you see we tested the cake a few times and had to add a few minutes but in my opinion, this is no different than a regular oven. You would do the same thing before you pulled out a cake. Testing it and making sure it’s complete and adding time if necessary. In the end, I definitely recommend this product if you plan on doing any type of oven cooking or baking while traveling and don’t want to use your large RV oven and just want to spend more time outside. I did notice some distortion in the metal cover while using it however and never jeopardize the function or safety in my opinion and once the unit cooled it went back to its original shape.
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Tandem axle wheel locks anyone can make. Today I’m gonna show you a set of tandem trailer wheel locks that you can easily make to help stabilize your travel trailer. Now if you go camping in a travel trailer chances are you do have to stabilize jacks on board.
While these are fantastic and make a big difference in keeping your camper still while you move around there are additional steps you can take to help stabilize your rig even more. For example, using some sort of tandem wheel jacks or locks. You can pick up a set of these from anywhere from $25 and up. However, you can make them yourself for little or nothing just the cost of a few pieces of hardware. There are several options available out there on the market the kind I made in this particular video go-between your wheels and clamp down from the top and the bottom locking your wheels still. Also, you will notice that mine are different than most of the other ones you see out there of this style and that is one of my blocks are much longer than the other. The reason for this is I found that it is much more of a stable system with the longer block clamping down much higher on the tires and at a wider point they are a much more stable product.
There are several ways you can make these and I’ve tried different options and I found that this set up works the best as far as the homemade versions. I do not have experience with commercial wheel jacks however I’m sure they work very well and I would definitely recommend them if you don’t have the means to make your own. Not only will they help stabilize your rig when you are parked and camping but when you store your travel trailer you can use it to help make sure that it does not move around. They are particularly useful if you are parked on even ground where there is a chance your rig could roll. They also make it more difficult for someone to hook onto your travel trailer and pulled away quickly they would have to first take the time to remove the lock from your tandem axle. Now if you’re any lightweight travel trailer with a single axle then I would still use basic wheel chocks to help minimize movement. In the end, I definitely recommend some sort of wheel locks to help stabilize and minimize the movement of your rig while camping whether you buy a pair or make them yourself take the time to do your research and have some on hand for when you need them.
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