RV Podcast Episode 220: Safely and securely storing your RV for the season

Is your RV in storage? Whether out in your driveway, parked around back or kept at one of those storage lots that charge a monthly fee there’s a lot more involved in safely and securely storing your RV for the season than simply locking the doors and walking away until it’s camping season again. We’ll discuss thus in the interview if the week, coming up a little later in the podcast. But we also have your RV questions, traveling technology tips and a great off the beaten path report. Show Notes for Episode #220 Nov 28, 2018 of Roadtreking - The RV Podcast: WHAT MIKE AND JENNIFER ARE UP TO THIS WEEK Here’s a housekeeping item. Throughout the podcast, you will often hear us say that you can find links or resources about the topics we are discussing on our shownotes. For those of you who just listen to us on an app or by download, those shownotes can be found on our RV Lifestyle travel blog. We call that blog Roadtreking and every Wednesday when we release a new podcast, we also publish shownotes for the episode. It’s not a full transcript but a very complete outline that contains those links and extra resources. To find it, just go to Roadtreking.com and then a forward slash followed by the episode number of the podcast. For example, to find the shownotes for this episode, you’d type Roadtreking-dot-com-slash-220 and that would take you directly there. We talk about our whereabouts this week and our plans for the next few weeks. Jennifer and I have put together a free 25-page guide you can grab of our Christmas Gift Suggestions for RVers. These are the products and accessories we like and use the most. It's absolutely free! Just go to https://rvlifestyle.com/christmas and you can instantly download it. It is like a catalogue and is arranged by various topics - camping/outdoor gifts, RV technology ideas, pet gifts for RVers, RV kitchen gifts, fun gifts and more. We hope you enjoy it and feel free to share it with your RVing friends. RV LIFESTYLE NEWS OF THE WEEK JENNIFER Story highlights overuse of American national parks An interesting article was jointly reported and published in several publications last week detailing how the national parks are being loved to death. The excellent article highlighted two-mile long bison spotting traffic jams at Yellowstone, fist fights over parking spots in the parks, and once unknown sites being overwhelmed by tourists after becoming famous on social media - as we talked on the podcast a few weeks back. The article is worth a read, and is familiar material to many of us who are out there and have witnessed much of what is described. We put a link to it in the showbites at Roadtreking-dot-com-slash-220. MIKE Seasoned RVers, and those who never RVed, buying motor homes and trailers to give to fire victims Heartbreaking stories about the devastation caused by the California wildfires has dominated the news recently, but last week there were a number of inspirational tales of strangers helping strangers. One that caught my eye was of a Denver, Colorado, man who took a week off work, bought an RV, filled it with supplies, and drove it with his 6-year-old daughter to Chico, California, to donate it to a family left homeless from the fires. And he wasn't the only one to do this. Others even made a caravan to donate campers and RVs to those left homeless by the fires. JENNIFER National Park Service announced its 2019 enter for free days If you like to plan your camping around deals, you might be interested in knowing that the 2019 five admission-free days in the U.S. National Parks was recently announced. The days are Jan. 21, April 20, Aug. 25, Sept. 28 and Nov. 11. On these days admission to the national parks is free, but other charges like tour or camping costs still apply. To read more click here. MIKE Florida couple who claim RV dealer sold them faulty vehicle denied request to keep lawsuit in Florida A story out of Florida last week is a good example of the importance of reading and understanding ALL of the fine print when buying an RV. A couple bought a three-year-old used RV at a dealership in Florida as is, with no warranty, and said within 600 miles major items broke. The couple sued the dealer for bad business practices, but in the purchase agreement the elderly couple signed, all lawsuits must be tried in Michigan, where the RV dealer was headquartered. The couple apparently did not understand this when they signed the contract, and do not have the financial means to hire a Michigan attorney and try the case so far from their home, so they filed a court request to keep the case in Florida, where they bought the vehicle. A judge denied that request. The RV dealer said they couple bought the RV as is, with no warranty, and they signed paperwork that clearly spelled out lawsuits would be tried in another state. The story is another example about the importance of the buying decision and its one reason we write a new ebook, RV Buying Secrets. It tells you how to shop for and negotiate the best deal and service for your RV. You can learn more about that at https://rvlifestyle.com/buy JENNIFER Trekking around Cuba in a camper van now possible Cuba is one of those countries that has always captured my imagination. Perhaps that is why I enjoyed reading a story out last week from a British publication about a man who explored the island on vacation in a Fiat Ducato 3000 van. Those are European vans that, if sold in North America, would be a Class B RV. Cuba is now permitting tourists to rent them, and venture around the country camping. There are about 20 different campsites available on the island with electric hookups and boondocking is available pretty much everywhere. This part of the podcast is brought to you by RadPower Bikes ,an electric bike manufacturer offering direct to consumer pricing on powerful premium electric bikes. Now with free shipping. To see our Rad Power Bikes in action, just click here. RV QUESTIONS OF THE WEEK Questions we answer this week: Listener Becky asks about carrying a spare Sepentine belt for her Sprinter RV. Here’s a link to the information we shared - https://rvlifestyle.com/jennifers-tip-carry-extra-serpentine-belt/ Listener Warren asks about buying an older RV and what new innovations he would be giving up And we answer this email question from a reader named Michael: I have a question I hope you can confirm or point me to a reliable source. I have my Roadtrek in for service) and while there I asked about wheel alignment and the service advisor said that "with the weight of the RV, "normal Sprinter settings don't work so well". From your video and other blogs, I never heard this. I thought I read that Roadtrek does NOT align the units as they leave the factory - that they rely on the customer to have that checked. I did check on MB Sprinter and found a order-able configuration for a GVWR of 11300, just like my rig. If that is available from MB, why wouldn't their specs work? Thanks for your consideration and thoughts! RV INTERVIEW OF THE WEEK This week, we talk about storing your RV for the season. Here’s a video of the interview: Here’s a transcript of the interview: Mike Wendland: Joining us right now from National Indoor RV Centers is Jordan Kunz. Jordan is going to help us understand what's involved in storing an RV. Jordan, first of all, thank you very much for being a part of the podcast and the interview of the week this week. Jordan Kunz: Thank you so much. It's a pleasure. I appreciate it. Mike Wendland: Let me start off by talking about some of the things that people need to realize when they put their RV in storage. Now, a lot of people, they'll just keep it in the back of their lot, their driveway or maybe a neighbor's friend out in the country or maybe one of those outdoor centers. So let's talk about storing it outdoors first of all. What are some of the things they need to be sure about? You just don't want to walk away and leave that RV out there for long periods of time. Help us understand. Jordan Kunz: Right, yeah. So depending on where you're at in the country, some people do have to winterize it, make sure all the water, everything is drained out of it so you don't have any problems there. Here in Las Vegas, we have extreme heat so a lot of people will have to put covers on and cover the tires, disconnect batteries. There's a whole lot of work, make sure mice aren't getting in it or anything like that. So there's a decent amount that goes into making sure your RV is protected, security, 24/7 surveillance, all that fun stuff. Mike Wendland: So outdoors, most of the people are dealing with cold weather right about now. Of course that saps the batteries and do they need to put a charge on those batteries? Do they need to disconnect them? What do you do about that? Jordan Kunz: Yeah. So batteries, I mean, a lot of people, batteries should last five to six years but I think one of the common things that people replace on their RVs are batteries every one to two years, it's because there's a lot of maintenance, a lot of upkeep that goes to the batteries. If they die, you lose a lot of life from that and making sure that they're not in the cold weather, that they're warm conditions and that they're charged. If they go below a certain charge, it will kill the life of the battery. Mike Wendland: So if you keep your battery out in a vacant lot someplace and it's cold, I mean, I'm looking at, as I'm recording this in Michigan, the temperature's going down into the teens tonight. Out there for a long time, what should you do to your battery? If you can't plug it in, do you disconnect it then? Jordan Kunz: Yeah, you should disconnect it. Take it somewhere where it's going to be warm, maybe inside you own garage or inside your house or something like that to protect it. Depending on the battery,