Category Archives: Travel Trailer

Recliner Chairs for Our Travel Trailer!

Original chairs that came with the trailer

Our 2014 Milan travel trailer came with two swivel chairs. These chairs had two good attributes; the first is the material matched the sofa and dinette seating colors and patterns. But aesthetics do not mean excellent functionality.

The second positive, is they were somewhat small and fit into the seating area rather nicely.

After over 1,000 days/nights of camping, Joyce and I came to the realization that we didn’t like the chairs, color and patterns aside. Nine years of imperfect use was long enough to convince us.

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RV Maintenance: Holding Tank Monitor Replacement

Randy Quaid as Cousin Eddie in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation

Our travel trailer came with the typical, not very good, holding tank monitor system.

RV manufacturers install holding tank monitor systems, built by a handful of different vendors, but most don’t work well.

With ours, the Fresh Water Tank was always accurate, the Grey Water usually okay, and the Black Water tank very hit and miss. Normally, I could guess how much was in the Black Tank, by comparing the fresh water remaining, versus the level of the grey.

Given we often camp for a couple of weeks at a time in remote places, it is important for us to know how much water we have, and how much waste water is in the Black and the Grey Water tanks. If one gets full, and we are not ready to go home, we might have to drive 100 miles to find a sanitary dump station.

Anyway the Fresh Water readings went bonkers on our monitor panel. Time to diagnose.

But first, a conversation about RV maintenance. Continue reading RV Maintenance: Holding Tank Monitor Replacement

RV Maintenance: Zip Dee Chair Fabric Replacement

At 29 years and 6 months one of my Zip Dee Folding Camping Chairs had a fabric (actually a seam) failure. What a bummer! A few years ago I posted this review of the chair.  I figured the second chair might suffer the same demise. It was decision time.

I could buy a couple new Zip Dee chairs for $160 each. Given a 30 year life expectancy, based on the current chairs, that would be a dollar cost average of $5.33 per year. Keep in mind my two chairs have seen thousands of days in use.

Or I could buy a different brand of chair, which probably wouldn’t last as long, and wouldn’t fold down as compactly.

Or?

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Maintenance: Fresh Water Tank Fill Hose Replacement

I knew it was going to happen. It happened on our 2006 Fleetwood Niagara.

The fresh water tank fill hose started to leak. It was cracked from age.

It’s just a hose, right?

Go to the local hardware store and buy some new bulk hose of almost any kind, because the fill hose is not under pressure. Wrong. I went through this with our previous trailer, because I really didn’t want the same exact hose because, well because, it had failed.

There is one problem with this apparently simple solution —  hardware stores don’t sell this size hose. I was able to come up with something on the old trailer, which was expensive, but I needed something right away as we were in the  midst of leaving for a trip.

This time, time wasn’t a pressing issue.

So off to Amazon’s website I went . . .

 

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RV Maintenance: Leaking Water Heater Hose Connections

Recreational vehicles need a lot of maintenance. Seems like after every trip there is some little thing that needs repair. Talking to other people, even the humongous motor homes and top of the line Airstream travel trailers suffer the same malady.

On our last trip our water heater started leaking (again see this post about some of the repairs I’ve had to do over the years, including a similar water heater leak).

Removing the cabinet access panel inside the trailer to get to the water heater, I could see water coming out of the hose connection fittings to the water heater. Knowing the needed parts are not available in most hardware stores, we just shut off the water pump when not using water. I would have to source the parts (and spares) once we got home. Something I should have done a long time ago.

Here’s the fix and the parts you should probably keep on hand.

Continue reading RV Maintenance: Leaking Water Heater Hose Connections