We have officially been living the RV life full-time for 1 whole year!! And boy has it been fun, and exhausting, and humbling, and eventful! Knock on wood, but so far this has been the best investment we’ve ever made!
Not only does traveling full-time in an RV give us so much more freedom than before, but it also gives us routines, structure, and so much more comfort! However, traveling full-time in an RV also brings some uncertainty, stress, more planning, and lots of crap. Let’s be honest. It brings a lot of crap. Literally and figuratively.
But don’t let crap get you down, we are here to tell you what we have learned in the past year that might be helpful for new RV owners!
CREATE A CHECKLIST
One of the first pieces of advice we received when we bought the RV was to create a great checklist! A checklist that you will follow every time you are ready to venture out on the road, and every time you park. You may even consider creating a monthly checklist to keep up with routine maintenance. Either way, you want to be able to have a solid routine to create as few mistakes as possible and ensure that you are taking great care of your RV.
I would also suggest that if you are doing these checklists with a partner be sure that each of you knows how to do every item on the checklist. You never know when you may have to do everything yourself! It’s so important that every person knows exactly what to do when setting up and taking down the RV.
INVEST IN PRACTICAL APPLIANCES
The first month we owned the RV we were living on the coast of Georgia (hence why our RV is named Georgia). It was mid-summer and humid as ever! Because we live full-time in our RV, our drawers/closets are full of all of our belongings. After just a few days we noticed that some of the clothes in our closet felt damp. We had purchased Damp Rid and placed them throughout the RV to help collect any moisture, but it just wasn’t enough. We weren’t sure why or how the clothes were getting SO damp! After about a month of trying to fix the problem and not having any luck, we decided to purchase a dehumidifier.
DEHUMIDIFIER
A good dehumidifier isn’t cheap, nor small. BUT the results of having a dehumidifier were magnificent!! It was almost life-changing for us. The amount of moisture it collects throughout a day is unreal. Now if you live in a very dry area year-round you may not need to invest in one. But from our experiences, if you are living in very humid areas like Georgia, or areas that get LOTS of rain like Cape Cod, I would highly suggest one!
While living on the Cape we went through many rainstorms, hurricanes, and nor’easters and our dehumidifier gave us peace of mind knowing that if there was a leak or moisture in our RV at all we would be okay! I’m not saying that it’s a permanent fix if you have a leak, but at least you are able to get the area dry and fix the problem accordingly without permanent damage.
We also hang dry a lot of our clothes and there are a few campgrounds/RV parks that don’t allow you to hang clothes outside. Therefore, the clothes must be hung inside. With a dehumidifier, all of our clothes are dry within 24 hours, and we don’t have to worry about the musty smell that you might have to deal with without a dehumidifier!
Long story short, invest in a great dehumidifier!! When we are not using it, we just roll it under the kitchen table for storage! We are absolutely obsessed with ours! Check out the one we have here!
SPACE HEATER
Another appliance that I would recommend is a space heater! Our RV has heat that runs off propane. Our propane works great; however, propane eventually runs out. And you don’t want to be in the middle of winter and run out of propane. No propane=no heat. Sure, you can pack up the RV and take it somewhere to fill up the propane, but honestly, that’s a task that we just don’t want to do. Learn from our mistake! Buy a space heater. Check out the one we have here!
**Be sure to unplug these appliances when not in use for safety and energy efficiency**
CHECK REGULARLY FOR ANY LEAKS
My wife is an absolute nut when it comes to checking for leaks after heavy rainfalls! But thank God for it. After our first heavy rainfall in the RV, she noticed a pretty heavy leak coming in on the backside of the RV above our bedroom window. Because it was pouring we had to wait until morning to check it out. Turns out the rearview camera was not properly sealed and the screws originally used by the manufacturer were rusted out. Once resealed and screws were replaced, we no longer had a leak! At least in that spot.
The second leak was above our slide where the ceiling meets the wall. This one was harder to spot, but like I said my wife is a nut. She breaks out the flashlight and looks for any sign of water all throughout the RV. Luckily, we noticed it before letting it get really out of hand. Again, the problem was a screw on the outside of the RV that was rusted out and not sealed at all.
The third leak was on the wall under our microwave. My wife had just put a new backsplash behind the oven when not even a week later she had to rip it all out because there was water building up behind the backsplash. After a thorough inspection outside, we found that water was coming in through the top and sides of the oven vent, where the seal had diminished over time.
Leaks are going to happen. It’s inevitable. However, it doesn’t have to be costly or cause permanent damage as long as you are inspecting the RV regularly and doing routine maintenance as needed! Annnnd have a dehumidifier handy to quickly soak up any moisture that may get into the RV.
RESEAL EVERY YEAR
Leaks bring me to my next big point. It is very important that you are taking proper care of your RV, whether you live in it full-time or part-time. You need to be making sure that every year or even 6 months you are checking the roof and sides of the RV for cracks or any other problem areas. By neglecting the roof and sides, you could cause serious problems later on down the road, and that won’t be cheap to fix! But if you keep up with the proper maintenance that your roof and sides need you shouldn’t have any leaks to worry about!
The reason we had quite a few leaks, in the beginning, was because you could tell that the previous owners had not resealed the roof since they first purchased it. And all the caulking on the sides of the RV around the windows and doors were worn out and needed to be redone. When in doubt do some regular resealing and caulking where it’s needed.
GET TO KNOW YOUR RV
It is so important that you get to know your RV inside and out. When we first purchased the RV we had to do so much research. Whether that was trying to figure out how something worked, where to find something, etc. I would recommend doing as much research as you want/need to better know your RV. That way when a problem arises you can act fast!
SUGGESTIONS ON THINGS TO GET TO KNOW
- Understand what tank each water source leads to.
- Black: toilet and bathroom sink (normally)
- Gray: kitchen sink and shower
- How to access pipes in the bathroom/kitchen.
- Access from both inside and outside
- Control panel for water/tank heaters.
- Switching from electric to propane visa versa.
- Refrigerator
- Water heater
- Know where your breaker box is located.
- Ours is on the side of our bedframe
- Locate your carbon monoxide/smoke detectors and make sure they are working.
- Know what appliances can run only on shore power/generator.
USE LOTTTSSS OF WATER IN THE TOILET
Now let’s talk about crap. We are very familiar with crap. If you are about to purchase an RV and don’t want to get familiar with crap, don’t buy an RV. Crap doesn’t have to be bad though! As long as you have plenty of water you can enjoy crap! Okay, maybe that’s too far…
But seriously, use A LOT OF WATER! When we were reading up about how to use an RV toilet everyone was always like “Use water, use water, there’s never enough water.” I was like okayyyyy, I get it! Well, turns out, I didn’t get it. For the first 6 months, we had to spray and flush out our black tank multiple times because we would have piles of toilet paper sitting at the bottom that would eventually lead to a clogged toilet. We thought we were doing everything right! We use single-ply toilet paper and don’t flush any other products besides said toilet paper. And we use lots of water. Or so we thought.
Over the past few months, I think we finally figured it out! What we do is fill the toilet bowl full of water, do our business, then flush. Then fill the toilet bowl back up with water and flush again. This second bowl of water really seems to do the trick in flushing all of the toilet paper down to the bottom of the tank. The extra water also helps dissipate bad smells building up in the black tank. Therefore, use lottttsss of water! If you do start noticing some bad smells, it’s a good idea to occasionally flush down some enzyme toilet treatment. This rebalances the good and bad enzymes in the black tank to reduce bad smells when you flush.
BUY A WATER FILTER AND/OR BACKUP WATER JUG. ALWAYS HAVE WATER
Most of the campgrounds that we stay at long term do have full water hookups for us to use. However, not all water is made equal. We’ve found that many places across the country, especially those in dry, arid regions end up having many more minerals in the well water. We’ve been told that this water is still safe to drink; however, you will not want to.
The impurities in the campground waters often have an unpleasant taste, so we ALWAYS filter our water. First, we filter it right out of the spigot with an RV water filter. Then for any drinking water, we filter again through a water filter pitcher before drinking. We love our ZeroWater filter pitcher because it comes with a little testing meter that tells you the level of impurities detected and allows you to know when your filter needs to be replaced.
Even with these filters, if you are in an area with HEAVY minerals in the water, like in the Hill Country, Texas, these filters won’t last long with such heavy filtering responsibilities. The water in Texas worked through a ZeroWater filter in less than a week. Normally, the filter lasts up to a few months in other areas of the country. This is when we bought a water reservoir for drinking water instead.
In many places, like grocery stores, you’ll see water stations capable of delivering up to 5 gallons of pure, filtered water for cheap. Much cheaper than buying a new large jug of water from the store each time. With space being a concern in an RV, I wanted a lightweight, collapsible jug that, when not in use, could be easily stored. So, once again Walmart came in clutch in supplying us with a durable, collapsible 5-gallon water jug that was easy to refill and easy to use for our drinking water needs. And when we’re back in areas where our ZeroWater filter pitcher fulfills our filtering needs, we then have the collapsible, space-saving water jug for our camping needs! Overall, a very useful purchase!
OTHER MISCELLANEOUS RV LIFE TIPS
Here are several other quick tips for helping make your RV Life a success:
- NEVER leave your awning out in a storm. If you know there’s a storm or even wind coming in, bring your awning in. We’ve seen SO many broken awnings after a storm!
- If leaving the sink dripping in the winter, don’t use the bathroom sink. Many bathroom sinks drain into the black tank, which are smaller and run the risk of overflowing when full. (What happened to us). Therefore, drip the sink in the kitchen, which leads to a much bigger tank.
- Buy a heated water hose and/or hose insulator and heating cable for those cold winter nights!
- Never run 2 major electric appliances at once! For example, running our Keurig and the space heater at the same time will trip a breaker EVERY SINGLE TIME.
- If in a Class A or C RV, start the engine every so often to ensure the batteries are staying charged and everything is still running smoothly. We try to start ours every couple of weeks for ~10mins.
- The tank fullness detectors typically don’t work. If it is something you feel the need to have, then you may want to contact someone to help you fix that problem or try recalibrating it yourself.
- When planning out your road trips, download the Gas Buddy App to find truck stop friendly gas stations with easy pull-in access.
- If you have 2 AC Units, be careful of running both at the same time. In extreme heat, this may cause power overload and trip power breakers.
- In our RV: When the gray tank is full, you will start to get a foul odor and water coming up from the shower drain. When the black tank is full, the toilet will “burp”. Neither of these are pleasant. This is why we now consistently empty the gray tank after every 4 showers and the black tank every 4 days.
- Some people may leave their gray tanks continuously open. We do not do this so that we have plenty of water to flush out the hose after emptying the black tank.
EMBRACE THE RV LIFE
The RV life is meant to be about adventure and freedom! And a majority of the time, the RV will give you exactly that. And with the appropriate planning, routine maintenance, and tools/supplies needed, you will be able to spend more time making memories and enjoying these adventures versus putting extra time and money into fixing your RV. With RV living there’s always more to learn and I’m sure in the years to follow continuing to be “Full-Timers” in the RV, we’ll have even more to share. We’ve learned a lot from the friendly and helpful RV community and would love for you all to comment below or contact us and share what you have found vitally important to making your RV life a success. Check out our Instagram to follow along and for plenty of travel and adventure ideas!