rv maintenance and upgrades

Heading in my new direction

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I am officially an RVSA Certified RV Technician! We’ve been full-time RVers since September 2018, but only on the road since July 2019. Jen and I have been planning and working to fulfill our dream of full-time RV travel. Making this transition meant letting go of the career that had sustained me up to this point. I spent much of the last 20+ years working as a operations and equipment maintenance supervisor in the manufacturing industry. I was very good at my job but I was fed up and burned out. The politics, dehumanizing management, and frustrating environments meant each day was a soul-sucking blender. We budgeted, scrimped, and saved in order to help make the transition possible. I have always been a hands-on person and enjoy fixing and making things. My favorite job was the three years I spent working as a residential electrician before going back to school …

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RV Surge Protectors, and a Positive Experience When One Failed!

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A surge protector for your RV is a must, because you never know what you’re going to get when traveling from one RV park to the next. One bad surge could fry everything in your RV, or just one very expensive thing (like an air conditioner), which is more than enough inconvenience, should you be so unlucky!

We picked up the Progressive Industries SSP-50XL surge protector with the weather cover (they make 30-amp versions too), because it was reasonably priced and came highly recommended by other long-time RVers. We’ve been really happy with it– we plug it into the pole when we park, make sure the power’s good, and then plug the rig in. It’s easy and painless, and once we’re hooked up, we’ve got the peace of mind that we’re protected.

When we plugged into a new site a few weeks ago, the protector indicated that we had good power, but no surge protection. To our knowledge, we’ve never had any surge events, and the plug was still in good condition. There are two sets of LEDs for redundancy, and since both were out, we had to assume we’d lost our surge protection entirely, for whatever reason.

A surge protector with only the blue "good power" lights lit, when the green "surge protector" lights should also be lit.

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Sanitizing Our Fresh Water System

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How long has it been since you sanitized your fresh water system in your RV? Did you know your fresh water system needs to be sanitized on a regular basis? Even with a good filter, algae, debris, and bacteria can build up in the fresh water tank and plumbing.

The sanitation process can take several hours, and will require access to a fresh water supply.

We have a Keystone Laredo travel trailer with a 43 gallon fresh water tank, and our water cabinet includes the fresh water fill inlet, fresh water tank vent to prevent overfilling, valve for switching between onboard water and city water, black water flush inlet, outside shower port, and the cable TV connections.

View of the fresh water fill cabinet on our Keystone Laredo travel trailer

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Doubling Our Usable Kitchen Drawer Space

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I borrowed this idea from my father. My dad added several pull-out storage areas in their kitchen pantries as well as interior drawers similar to this project. This additional pull-out storage made much better use of the space, making the contents neater and easier to access.

Our utensil drawer is definitely in need of a space utilization improvement project. The standard silverware organizer does do the job, but the drawer itself was never more than half full.

View of the utensil drawer before the project to add an interior drawer started

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Making Gray Tank Valves Easier to Reach

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Waste water tanks are not high on the list of fun things to do while RVing. We have two gray tanks, and the way the manufacturer installed our kitchen gray tank’s dump valve does not make the process any more fun. Basically, they were installed “backwards.” In order to open the gate valve you have to climb under the edge of the slide floor and electrical cables, and the valve must pulled away from you in order to open it.

View of the kitchen waste water tank dump valve with the handle facing away from the viewer
This is the easiest angle to approach the gray tank. Why is the handle on the opposite side?

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RV life with cats: cattifying your RV for maximum feline happiness

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A black and gray cat, sitting on his low back with his belly and big feet facing the camera, looking off to the side.
What people think we do all day when we tell them we’re full-time RVers.

Before we moved into our RV, we spent about 3 months cattifying it so our four-legged family members would have an easier time adjusting to living in a tiny home. They’d always had larger apartments (and most recently, a 3 bedroom house), where they used more of the space than we humans did. They had shelves and many cat condos to climb, and we were going from about 1500 square feet to about 250 square feet (give or take).

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Everybody poops! Or alternately: Full-time RVing with cats, and where the heck did we put the litter boxes?

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We have four cats and live in a 35-foot RV. Where do our cats poop? Not gonna lie: this was at the top of our priority list when we were RV shopping. It is extremely important to have a clean and safe area for cats to go to the bathroom, because without that, it can cause all kinds of behavioral problems that could lead to anything from aggression to physical illness.

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Why is our ceiling wet?

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Humidity can a real problem while living in an RV. We have been traveling east, officially leaving the dry desert and entering bayou country. On the first night of 90% humidity, we wondered when we would be dealing with complications of humidity in our RV life.

The next morning, while making my morning tea, I noticed a six inch round spot on the ceiling with condensation forming.

view of condensation formed on the ceiling with an a/c vent close by

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