Bloopers and Oopsies

RV living is definitely a learning curve and things learned along the way are sometimes comical, sometimes not. All in all, our winter experience was a great one, although not without its share of bloopers and oopsies, things we wish we'd known first off, and things that only experience can teach. Mom has wanted to write this post for a long time but decided to wait till the end of our winter excursion so she could include them all.

Door railing latches over
the door during transit

The first thing we learned was to make sure all doors are latched securely for travel. The door in the rear (main entry door) has a hand rail next to it that latches over the door to provide extra security so the door doesn't open during travel. The other door nearer the truck doesn't, so it depends on just being locked. We were traveling down the highway in the middle lane and a semi pulled up on the passenger side, beeped his horn, then proceeded to point to the trailer. We realized he must be trying to warn us of something so we pulled over in the break down lane to see what the problem was. That front door was open. Since it leads to the bedroom there wasn't anything that could have fallen out, but we discovered it needed the extra security of a bungee cord wrapped around the handle on the door and the handle on the RV, in addition to being locked. Lesson - make sure everything is securely latched and secured before travel.

Most of the time the temperature inside the RV can be controlled just like a normal house. When it's cold, turn on the heat. When it's hot, turn on the air conditioner. In between just open the windows. Since heat rises there are also roof vents, sort of like skylights, that can be opened to let heat escape and to provide more ventilation. However, you must remember to close them when it rains! Yup, you guessed it. Apparently Dad opened the roof vent in the bedroom one warm afternoon. Mom didn't realize it was open when she went to bed, and Dad had forgotten all about it. In the middle of the night Mom awoke to soaked bed covers. Since I wasn't totally house trained yet I was the first to get blamed. But I didn't pee on the bed. Promise. It was raining and the wind was blowing the rain in through the roof vent, dripping right down onto the middle of the bed. A quick change of blankets got us right back to sleep and the next day we visited a laundromat to use the dryers. Lesson - remember to close roof vents at night, and by extension, before travel.

At the hitch where the RV attaches to the truck for towing there are stabilizer bars which help to prevent swaying during travel. A mounting bar pries them into place by lifting them up and over a bracket. Putting this bar down on the trailer tongue briefly while you finish hooking up may lead to forgetting to place it back in the truck. Next time Dad needed the bar he couldn't find it because it had fallen off during travel. Dad found a crow bar does the same job which was easier to locate at just about any store. Lesson - never put anything down temporarily, and check and double check everything before travel.

When we park the RV on unlevel ground there are leveler jacks that are deployed so the RV is, well, level. Our RV is supposed to have automatic levelers. Just push a button and the onboard computer levels automatically. Great idea, right? Wrong. The first time Dad pushed that button it worked perfectly. And that was the last time it worked perfectly. We took it to a dealership and they supposedly fixed it but said it was considered maintenance, not warranty work, and so charged us for the "repair". Next time Dad tried to used the automatic levelers it didn't work, again. Fortunately, the electronic levelers worked even though Dad had to level each corner separately. We will be taking it back to the dealership where we bought it this summer to get it fixed. And you can bet he will insist it be fixed under warranty! Lesson - don't pay extra for automatic levelers. It's just one more thing that can, and did, go wrong.

Speaking of leveling -  The bathroom door closed as all doors should. Then Dad leveled the RV and the door got stuck in the closed position. We had to take the knob off to get the door open. Lesson - make sure doors that have door knobs and latches are open when leveling so that if they don't close correctly after, it would take only a minor adjustment rather than taking the whole knob apart.

The refrigerator has a setting that it can either work on propane, or electric if you're hooked up to power. When we brought the RV in to the dealer for the auto leveling problem it never occurred to us they would shut off the propane at the tank while working on it. They had the trailer overnight and when we picked it up the next day we simply headed out to our next destination. After setting everything up Mom went about making supper. Imagine her surprise when she opened the freezer and discovered the ice cream had melted all over everything. It had been cool enough overnight that nothing in the refrigerator part was spoiled, but not cold enough to keep the freezer part frozen. Lesson - make sure when taking the RV in for service you remove anything perishable and put it in coolers with ice. Eat the ice cream. Sammy and I would be more than willing to help with that.

Mom always turns the heat down to 55 at night because she likes it cool when sleeping. I don't mind because I crawl in under the covers with her. But one morning when she got up it was 40 inside the RV. She turned the heat up to 65 and it didn't come on. OK, time to wake Dad up, who doesn't usually open his eyes till the crack of 10:00. He looked it all over, tried several things, but still couldn't get it running. Our RV has an electric fireplace that Mom thought was just for ambiance. The fireplace needs electric power to work, while most of the RV runs on the 12V batteries. Fortunately we were at an RV campground that had full hookup, which means we were plugged in to power. Mom asked an RV FB group about the problem and everyone said it was a sail switch failure. Apparently it's a common problem. Wish the dealership had advised us to carry a spare as it would have saved us a lot of time and aggravation trying to figure it out. Lesson - when purchasing an RV ask the dealership what items should be carried as spares, and always carry a spare sail switch.

Along those same lines, when picking up your RV, the dealership takes you on a walk-about to explain the workings of it. Make sure you try everything out - stove, refrigerator, heat, and so on. Our RV has an outside gas grill that we found out later wasn't hooked up to the propane. Wasn't much of a problem because Dad quickly had it figured out, but still. Lesson - check and double check everything while still at the dealership.

An RV not only has a tank for fresh water, but one or more gray tanks for waste water from the sink and shower, and a black tank for toilet waste. These tanks must be emptied occasionally when the sensors indicate they're full. One day Mom was taking a shower and she noticed she was standing in water rather that it draining as it should. She called to Dad who went out to empty the holding tank. Voila! Water drained correctly. A similar thing happened when she was washing dishes - sink began filling with water. Again, tank was full. Fortunately, both times we were at an RV campground with full hookups and it was a simple matter of turning a valve to empty the tanks. Lesson - keep a better eye on the sensors.

When those tanks need to be emptied and you're not at a campground, you need to search out a place that has an RV dump, which is basically a big septic tank with a fixture on top that hooks up to the hose from your RV. This hose hopefully stays attached while draining the tanks, and everything functions properly, especially when emptying the black water tank. There's an inner valve and an outer cap. They are both supposed to be closed. The hose gets attached to the drain hookup on the sewer, then you remove the outer cap and attach the hose, then open the inner valve to start the flow out of the tank. The first time Dad hooked everything up to drain the black water he attached the hose to the sewer connection, then went to remove the cap so he could attach the hose to the RV. Unbeknownst to him, the dealer hadn't closed the inner valve. When he removed the cap the "water" burst out and bathed him in poop! He quickly shut the valve, but not quick enough. Even I thought it stunk! He got everything working correctly, drained the black water, then the gray water which rinses the drain hose. Then cleaned himself up and changed his clothes. Lesson - always make sure everything is as it should be BEFORE removing that cap!

Another time Dad was emptying the tanks the handles broke off. He had the dealership replace them when the RV was in for the leveler repair (see above). Not sure what the lesson is here except maybe have some extra handles on hand as well as sail switches.

Our RV has an awing that extends and retracts with the push of a button. It has a slide-out that does the same. We stopped at a gas station to fill up and Mom noticed the awning wasn't quite retracted all the way. Fortunately no damage was done from the wind while traveling, but apparently when you retract the slide-out and awning, then retract the levelers, there's sometimes a little more they can retract to make them as tight as possible against the RV. Lesson - retract both slide out and awning, then after the trailer is ready for travel, push the button again to make sure they're retracted all the way.

Black panel on front is actually a window

There's a large window over the head of the bed on the front of the RV. It doesn't open but does let in quite a bit of light during the day. It's inset into a window well. An RV is basically a tin can on wheels and is pretty air tight, which means condensation from cooking, showers, and just breathing can accumulate on the windows, especially when it's warm inside and cold outside. One day Dad noticed condensation of that front window, then noticed a sizable puddle in the window well which had been created from condensation dripping down the window. Lesson - keep a towel in the well to absorb moisture and change it out when it gets wet.

Cabinets over bed

As I posted in a previous post Mom has been redecorating. If you missed it you can read it here. After she finished with the living room she started on the bedroom. Originally there were 2 tall cabinets on the sides and 2 shorter ones in the middle. There was no room under those taller cabinets to make the bed or even roll over without hitting your arms or head. So the side ones had to go. She wanted to keep the middle ones and build either cabinets on the ends to match, or open shelves for baskets. Dad decided to get to it one day and started to remove the taller side cupboards. Apparently, the center ones were attached to the side ones and came down with them. Oops! Time for Plan B. It's still in the process so I can't post a picture of what's going up in their place, but here's the lesson - always be flexible and have a Plan B or even C.


Finally, who, in their right mind, designs anything where the smoke alarm is over the cooking stove? Lesson - understand these things are built more by regulations than by what actually works.

There were other minor things along the way that aren't particularly worthy of mention. With all these bloopers and oopsies you might think we didn't enjoy our travels. Quite the contrary, we all had a great time, saw lots of interesting places, met many fantastic people, learned a lot about the RV lifestyle, and realized that life's problems are best handled with a positive outlook and a good sense of humor. We're already talking about next winter's adventures. My wish is that everyone could enjoy life as dogs do.

--Cruz