Don't Like Your RV's Faucets? Change Them!

As you might have guessed, RV manufactures do not use the best or the most expensive faucets when building your RV.  You might just love your sticks and bricks faucets and hate your RV faucets. What can you do with those RV faucets?  Replace them with new faucets.  You can use regular sticks and bricks faucets.  The only thing you need to do is measure the spacing between the handle holes.

Faucet Hole Spacing

Be sure to turn off the water to the RV and relieve the pressure (if any) in the hot water tank. Then turn on the hot and cold handles of the faucet you want to replace.  Clean out the stuff underneath the sink. Get a flashlight and look up underneath the sink and see how the water lines are hooked to the current faucet. You may have to get yourself up under the sink bottom to see what is going on. But you should see something like the photo below.

Faucet Water Connection Under The Sink

Sometimes a red plastic pipe is used for hot water and a blue or white plastic pipe is used for cold.

The fittings should only be hand tight.  If they are on the faucet stem harder than hand tight use a Channel Lock Pliers 

Channel Lock Pliers 

and carefully loosen the fittings. Now you should see two black or blue flat plastic nuts with wings sticking out. See photo above for the flat nuts above the white water line.  Use you channel lock pliers to loosen and then remove these nuts.  What you have left should look like below.

Bottom of faucet shafts without water lines or black plastic wing nuts

Now you can pull the faucet out from the top.  Clean off the area where the old faucet was and get ready to install the new one.

For the kitchen faucet you can use. (Low Cost Kitchen Faucet )

Low Cost Kitchen Faucet 

You can also use a kitchen faucet with an integrated sprayer. (Kitchen Built-in Sprayer Faucet)

Kitchen Built-in Sprayer Faucet

You should double check the water feed line spacing before you make your purchase.

Here is a chance to put the faucet of your choice in the color and style you want into your kitchen.

So how do you put everything back together? Clean the area that the old faucet sat on with your favorite cleaner.  You want to make sure there is nothing on the top of the sink where the new faucet will be going.

Put the new faucet together according to the manufacturer's instructions.   Then apply some Kitchen and Bathroom Caulk

Kitchen and Bathroom Caulk

around the bottom of the faucet (unless the faucet manufacturer says not to.)

and put the water stems into the holes in the top of the sink.

Bottom of faucet shafts without water lines or black plastic wing nuts

Put the black flat nuts back on and tighten them down tight.  You can use your pliers to tighten the black nuts down to be sure they are tight.  Then put the water lines back on.  

Faucet Water Connection Under The Sink

Caution If the faucet stems are metal you may need to use plumbers tape.

Plumbers Tape

Just wrapped the tape around the metal stem before you screw the plastic water line back on.  If the faucet stem is plastic you should not need the plumbers tape. Make sure the new faucet is turned off and then turn on your RV water CHECK FOR LEAKS and enjoy your new faucet.

For the bathroom sink you can just follow the above instructions for that sink as well.  The bathroom sink is where you can get fancy and make something that is really yours.

Bathroom Faucet

Brass Bathroom Faucet

Until next time.

Severe Weather -- It Happens

When you are asleep do you worry about this,

or maybe this

or even this?

 Well I did!!



At the beginning of camping season and at the end of camping season are the most dangerous times for storms expected, or not.  And if predictions are correct and this is an El Niño year then things could get really bad or not. 

What  is an El Niño?  El Niño is an ocean-atmosphere climate phenomenon that is linked to the periodic warming of waters across the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean. This warming is part of the natural climate system. On average, an El Niño event occurs every 2 to 7 years and typically lasts about 9 to 18 months. 

So why should you worry or even be concerned about an El Niño ?  During periods of El Niño  warm water builds up off the South American coast and this sends more than the normal waves of moisture into the US.  These waves of moisture can, and do cause more storms, some of which are more severe than storms in a non El Niño year.  This translates into more severe thunderstorms and more than normal tornado's

While you can use your phone most of the time for weather alerts and weather radar, when you are out camping your phone may not get a signal or changing weather conditions may suddenly make your phone not work.  And the basement of a 5er is not a safe place to be.  So what is a person to do?

During the check-in process to get your RV site, you should ask, where do we go in case of severe weather and do you have a method of alerting the campground of approaching bad weather?

In most cases the park will have a severe weather location, like a cement block bath house or  underground facilities.  But most will not have a warning system.  It is left up to you to know when bad weather is approaching and it is time to take cover.

So now your phone has no bars and the park has no way to tell you that a large thunderstorm is approaching your RV site.  Now what are you going to do to keep you and your family safe?  Buy a weather radio with built-in weather alert.  Our government built, many years ago, a National Alert System to let citizens know about disasters before they happen.  That was the old weather radio that went off (with its built-in siren) all the time for just about any reason (some good, mostly bad).  After a lot of citizen complaints over many years a new system of alerting people was developed by the government that had a better built-in method of stopping false alerts and added text messages to each alerts displayed on a screen on the new generation of weather radios.

RadioShack SAME Weather Radio / Dual Alarm Clock / AM-FM Radio

I could go into detail on how this type of radio works but this is not a DIY Blog. This type of radio can be programed simply, thanks to SAME(Specific Area Message Encoding) technology you will only receive alerts for the locations that you have entered into the radio and you won't have to worry about false triggers or deal with an event that has nothing to do with your area. Also some weather radios like the ones pictured (above and below) you can customize some of the alert types, so it only alerts you to the alert types that you have selected.  For example, if the National Weather Service issues a thunderstorm watch and you have only thunderstorm warning selected. The radio wont alert you unless a  thunderstorm warning alert is sent. Most of these radios have battery back-up and you can attach your HDTV antenna to them to extend the pick-up range of this type of weather radio. You should never leave home to go camping with out one of these special SAME radios.

RadioShack 7-Channel Handheld Weather Radio with SAME

 Here is one that operates on just batteries and can be carried on the hiking trail or just outside around the campground.

No matter which one, or maybe both, you choose like a smoke detector or gas detector your RV is not complete and you are not fully protected nor safe until you have one.

Until Next Time.

The Open Range Owners is a Facebook Group on RVing with Hints & Tips. A group for the Full-timer as well as the Newbie. In case U can't find us "Facebook.com/groups/Open Range Owners " we are here hoping you will join us!

To Lube Or Not To Lube That Is The Question

Answer: To Lube.  Most RVers lube the hitch and maybe the ball of the pull-a-long with Reese Hitch and Ball Grease

Reese Hitch and Ball Grease

that is what I use.  But is that all there is?  Does lubrication of the RV stop there?  I am afraid not.  Let's see what else needs to be lubed and with what type of lubrication to make RVing fun and safe for you and your family.







Ok we have covered the ball and hitch but what about the tongue jack and shaft for the front foot?  Most of us do not even remember the last time that was lubed do we?  Well you're in luck.  Most of the time no lubrication will be required.  Just clean the part that goes up and down to remove the grime that may be there and you are good to go.  However if while turning the handle and the crank tightens up you should squirt some White Lithium Grease in the top gear area.

White Lithium Grease

This is good for a quick field repair but for a better fix keep reading.

Yours may differ but you get the idea, right?

 Access to this gear area can be found by a small hole just below the handle on the tube or you may have to remove the handle and lift up the top cover to expose the gear area or in some cases the top cover just above the crank will pop off and allow you to add some grease.  Some of the newer tongue jacks  come with a Zerk fitting that you can use a grease gun to pump grease into the tongue jack.
I'll bet some of you are lucky enough to have one of those 12 volt power tongue jacks that raise and lower the RV with the push of a button.  (I am saving for one of those myself.)  Cleaning of the pipe that goes up and down is fine, but beyond that follow the manufacturer's instructions for maintenance and if the tube hangs up be sure to take the unit in for service.
 Next comes the stabilizer jacks.  The ones on my KZ Spree are manual crank down so there is a lot to lube.

First clean off the screw, getting the threads good and clean.  Then apply spray white grease to the threads, watch for drips.  Next lube the driver area in the front of the jack with T-9 Lube Spray

T-9 Lube Spray

it is the best spray for outdoor lubrication I have found.  While you have the spray out get all the pivot points on the jack.  You may have to crank the jack up and down a few times to find them all.

Then we have the folding entrance steps.

As each trailer step is a bit different it is best just to tell you to locate the folding points and use your T-9 or spray white grease to lube those points  It is important to not allow the pivot points of the steps to rust or be bent by forcing the steps open.
Be sure to check the door hinges of the RV to be sure that they are smooth operating opening and closing and that the handle and lock operate smoothly.  T-9 here is the best choice.

Every two years or 5000 mile which ever occurs first you should have the wheel bearings checked and repacked with grease.  You don't want the tires to fall off the axles do you?  Anyway, while the Technician is there repacking the wheels have him check the brakes as well.






Until next time.



The Waste Treatment Tank

I do not plan on explaining how to dump the grey and black tanks on your RV.  What I would like to do is to explain how to stay out of trouble in dumping your tanks and dis-spell some of myths on when to dump your tanks.







So what is the main differences between a sticks and bricks waste disposal and your RV.  First there is no worry about getting rid of the waste at your sticks and bricks.  You let water splash into the sink and it just disappears down the drain.  No matter how much water you put into the sink.  You flush the toilet you never have to worry about sewer smell coming back-up  and if the toilet gets clogged up you just plunge a few times and presto the waste is gone.
None of the above is true for your RV.  If you put too much water down your sink, you will over fill the grey water tank and the waste water will flow into your bathtub or shower.  If you leave your waste slinky hose hooked up with the open/close valve on you RV open you will invite sewer gas from the campground into your RV.  Because your toilet is on top of your black water tank there is a limit to how much waste you can put down there as well.  Also if it gets plugged up, plunging it will not help!
So what to do.  For the smell problem that might occur in the grey water tank I use Grey Water Tank Smell Killer.  It works.

Grey Water Tank Smell Killer

As for the water back-up you should dump your grey tank every two days while camping or sooner if the water starts to back up.  This is the tank you can dump before you leave for home.
The grey water tank should be the last tank you dump before you head for home.  After dumping it you need to add approximately 1 gallon of clean water back into it and one of the grey water tank smell killers and you are good to go.

BLACK WATER TANK

Now the black water tank the scourge of RV camping.  There are a lot of does  and don't about this tank so let's get started.
No matter what you hear or read most all of the sensors that are supposed to tell you how full the black water tank is, do not work.  I have been told and it has been proven that the sensors mounted on the outside of the tank do seem to do a better job than those sensors that are inside the blackwater tank.  Most of the crazy ideas floating around about how to make the sensors inside the black water tank work also do not work.  To fix the problem of , how full is the blackwater tank.  So how do you know when it is time to dump the tank?  Look down inside the toilet and if you see blackwater, hear gurgling, and stuff floating, it's time to dump the tank.  So what can you do to improve how the black water tank works.
Use only quick dissolving toilet paper in this tank.  Toilet paper made just for RV is fine such as RV 2ply Toilet Paper or septic tank safe toilet paper.  But you can use just about any toilet paper that will quickly dissolve.  To test any brand of toilet paper to see if it can be used,  take a glass jar with a lid.  Fill the jar about 3/4 full and add a single sheet of your toilet paper to be tested.  Put on the lid and give the jar three quick shakes.  If most of the sheet of toilet paper is broken up and coming apart you are ok to use the toilet paper tested.
Check here for more details RV Toilet Paper Safe .

We have safe paper what next?  How about something to get rid of the smell and help break down the waste. I would suggest Black Holding Tank Deodorizer and Dissolver

Black Holding Tank Deodorizer and Dissolver

This should be added to your black water tank regularly.  I add one tablet after each time I dump my black water tank and another during hot weather if there is a smell problem.

Oxy-Kem 

Here is another possible black tank treatment Oxy-Kem that comes highly recommended.  I have not tried it so I can't comment on how well it works, but I do plan to and will let you know.

Here is an all natural black tank cleaner that really cleans the tank as well as the sensors.  I have not tried it myself but all of the reports I am getting say it works.Unique Black Tank Cleaner

Unique Black Tank Cleaner

Do not dump your tank unless it is full or near full.  I know what you must be thinking but we never fill it over a weekend trip.  I realize that maybe the case but, you need to fill it up manually and dump it before you leave the park.  You do not need a hose or make this a big deal just flush the toilet and insert one of these things.
 Johnny Chock

Johnny Chock

          

Let the toilet run for approximately 10 to 15 minutes depending on how full your tank is.  If you can see the water in the black tank from the toilet that is full enough.  Remove the Johnny Chock and store.  Now dump the black tank like you usually do.  Add about a gallon or more of water (you can run the toilet with the Johnny Chock for 2 to 3 minutes and that should do it.  Drop in one of your black tank tablets and you are ready for the next outing.

Never leave the black tank drain valve open.  You are just asking for the smells of your neighbor's sewer to come up into your RV.  If you dump your holding tank to frequently you will have a build up of solid waste called the black pyramid of death (just an expression).  This is a problem you do not want and could cause an very expensive repair.  To prevent the "pyramid of death" you need to flush your black tank when it is at least 3/4 full and refill it so that there is some water splashing inside as you  drive back home.

One of the things you hear and I have tried is to add one cup of cheap dish washer liquid soap to break-up waste and Calgon to lube the inside of the tank.  Does it work?  I have been using it and have not seen much of an improvement.  I plan on using this in the grey water tank next to see if it makes a difference to that tank.

Quick Guide To Waste Tank Dumping

1. Grey Water Tank can be dumped anytime.
2. Use a tank treatment when needed. (to reduce smell and add microbes)
3. Dump Black Tank when at least 3/4 full.
4. Add small amount of water to both tanks after dumping. (up to 2 gallons)
5. Use the grey water to flush out sewer hoses.

Until Next Time.



The Open Range Owners is a Facebook Group on RVing with Hints & Tips. A group for the Full-timer as well as the Newbie. In case U can't find us "Facebook.com/groups/Open Range Owners " we are here hoping you will join us!