RV Weekly Round-Up (June 27-July 3, 2009)

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our E-mail Digest or RSS Feed. We will then send you the stories that are posted each day in an e-mail digest. We use a service called Feedburner for delivery of these emails. You will receive an e-mail from Feedburner after you subscribe and you must click on that email to activate your subscription. Thanks for visiting and enjoy all the information! RV.Net Blog AdminCheck out these highlights of RV-related news, events and video from this past week. 1. Georgia Couple Wins Keystone Travel Trailer is First Phase of National Sweepstakes: A South Georgia couple, Mackie and Gail Daniels, have won a new $26,000 Keystone Springdale travel trailer in the first phase of Keystone’s Live Your Dreams Sweepstakes, through which Keystone RV Co. Inc. is giving away four towable RVs between June of 2009 and February of 2010. Signups are under way on Keystone’s website and at point-of-entry displays at Affinity Events shows for Phase #2 of the giveaway, when the winner of an Outback travel trailer will be announced Aug. 15 at Affinity’s Colorado RV & Boat Liquidation Super Sale. Learn more about the contest and how you can enter for the chance to win a new Keystone RV! 2. Safe Holiday Travel Tips: Tens of thousands of people die on the road each year in North America–drive smart and use caution to avoid becoming a statistic! Stay safe on the road this busy holiday weekend by remembering these RV driving tips from blogger Mark... Read more

The Low-Down on Drinking Water Filters

As an RVer, you can come across many different water sources in your travels. Most campgrounds and RV parks take care to ensure their water supply is free of contaminants by pre-filtering the water before it arrives at your RV. Often though, the water doesn’t taste very good either because it was improperly filtered or not filtered at all. Or maybe the chlorine levels are so high to prevent bacterial growth that you think you’re drinking pool water. There are several drinking water filter solutions you can easily modify your RV with to get the best tasting water possible. So here is the low-down on various types of filtration systems available. Read more Tell a Friend Read More →

RV Weekly Round-Up (June 20-26, 2009)

Check out these highlights of RV-related news, events and video from this past week. 1. Fleetwood Assets Auction Results: New York equity firm American Industrial Partners was the only bidder on most of Fleetwood’s RV business. For $53 million, less liabilities, the firm agreed to buy Fleetwood’s intellectual property and RV brands in addition to two motor home manufacturing plants, two motor home service centers and the company’s subsidiary Gold Shield supply, all located in Decatur, Ind. The offer was approved by the bankruptcy court and the deal is expected to close by July 10. See the PE story for details of the deal. 2. WIT Celebrates 40th Anniversary Rally with “WITStock” Celebration: Winnebago Industries, Inc. will celebrate the 40th anniversary of its Winnebago-Itasca Travelers (WIT) Club with club members at the Grand National Rally (GNR) scheduled July 19–July 24, 2009. It’s not too late to register!. 3. Maryland City Will Soon Limit Streetside RV Parking: Trailers, recreational and commercial vehicles are subject to $75 tickets in Montgomery County, MD, beginning July 1 if parked on most public roads. Recreational vehicles such as campers, motorhomes and boats will be allowed to park on county roads for 18 hours for loading and unloading, said Capt. Thomas Didone, commander of the 5th District police station. Read the full news release for more information. 4. Get Some Control Over Holding Tank Odors: Holding tank odors can be a real problem,... Read more

VIDEO: Gear to Get with Brian Brawdy - Xantrex PROwatt SW Inverter Series

Starting my second year as a full time RVer and boondocker, I needed to find a better way of accessing power. In that I’ve used my six solar panels and wind turbine to capture those natural enegies and store it in my six 100 AMP Kinetik Power Cells, I needed to learn how to let the genie out of the bottle. In searching for an affordable soultion to supply portable AC power for all my electric devices including video and still cameras, computers, cellphones, Duracell backup batteries and iPods, I turned to Xantrex. I first learned of Xantrex when I installed the RS3000 Sine Wave Inverter/Charger and C Series Charge Controller on the Green RV. In this video you will learn about the new Xantrex PROwatt SW Sine-Wave Inverter Series. _______ To learn more about Conservation thru Exploration and Greening your RV, visit BrianBrawdy.com Tell a Friend Read More →

New Converter and Charge Wizard upgrade!

Progressive Dynamics Converter 9160 and Charge Wizard Project After getting tired of adding water to my batteries and them never getting an actual full charge I decided on a change. After research I found that many 5′ers and travel trailers come with a “less expensive” basic converters. Many do not manage the charge to your batteries well in that when you are plugged in they constantly charge your batteries and never give them an actual full charge. In addition the constant charge means you have to often check and ad water to the batteries. With the Progressive Dynamics 9160 Converter combined with the Charge Wizard you get great DC power management along with proper battery charging and maintenance resulting in a managed charge to your batteries and less water loss. The install went pretty smooth and here is a link on such a project. A must see! The Charge Wizard is fantastic and you can read more on it here. Below are some pics of what I bought and installed. The new reconditioned converter and new charge Wizard were approx. $225 delivered to my door. This along with 2 new Trojan SCS 150 batteries I have plenty of power (over 200 amp hours) and my batteries are well maintained. Batteries were approx. $120 each. The batteries are fully charged in about 2 hours with my Honda 2000 generator. What a big difference in battery and power management! A couple years ago I spent nearly 6 weeks on a dry camping trip to test everything while I was dealing with a family... Read more

Get Some Control Over Holding Tank Odors

Holding tank odors can be a real problem, especially if you don’t know how to deal with them. If you are new to the RV scene, this issue is perhaps the most popular complaint (aside from dead batteries!). When purchasing a new RV, part of the delivery process is explaining how to empty and rinse your holding tanks, as well as preventing holding tank odors by using chemicals. But on a particularly hot day, even chemicals can’t stop the odoriferous emanations gagging you out of your RV. It’s the same problem porta-potties have which everyone has probably experienced at one time or another. So what can you do to assist in controlling tank odors? Do the Lil’ Stanker holding tank fan mod. Read more Tell a Friend Read More →

Step One in an RV Makeover

For over 16 months now I have lived full-time in my Lance Camper. 48 States and an odometer pushing 70,000 miles gave me a personal best. With a wee bit of celebration in mind, and to kick off the Summer of ’09, I wanted to treat myself right so I turned to Thetford. There is something about a porcelain toilet. Now, if you’ve never spent a year and a half on a factory installed plastic one, you’re probably thinking, “it’s not all that big of a deal.” Well, for me it was time for an upgrade, and a state-of-the-art one at that. Now when Nature calls I’ll be answering with a new toilet. Read more Tell a Friend Read More →

GM truck handling upgrades

For those of you that follow my posts, you may have noticed that I have been gone from RV.Net for a while. For reasons both personal and professional, I haven’t had the time to sit down and write anything, and for that, I apologize. The good news is that business has been picking up at Henderson’s Line-Up and SuperSteer, and we have a lot of exciting news to share. First and foremost, we are in the process of developing a new website that is much easier to navigate and will feature our own blog page, where you can come in, sign on and post questions or comments (I’ll still be posting here, too).  The new site will also feature an e-store, where you can purchase our products directly. The site is literally days away at this point, and as soon as it is up and running, I’ll be sure and let you know. We also have our new catalogs in, and a supplement that covers our product line designed specifically for trucks. These will be available for free download when the site is completed, but in the mean time you are welcome to call and ask for one, and we’ll mail one out. The new supplement has many new products in it, such as our SS 28559 tie rod for ‘01-current GM 2500 and 3500 series trucks (shown here). The stock tie rod in these applications has a tendency to bend or even break under extreme conditions, such has heavy loading, off-road driving, or both. Our new tie rod offers numerous improvements to the stock part. First and foremost, it is a full... Read more

Installing a 3″ dump valve in a blue tote, life made easy.

This blog pretty much goes hand in hand with my last blog titled “Boondocking and Dry Camping Solutions here. A real money saver and effortless dumping! Dry camping has become such a breeze for me with the purchase and use of the macerator pump as I simply pump my tanks into my two blue boy totes. I have a 22 and 15 gallon type giving me a total of 37 gallons I can dump each trip to a dump station. Of course the benefit of this is you never have to hitch up go to a dump station, return and re-setup the trailer, and so easy. My problem was when at the dump station I would have to get up into the bed of the truck and lift the heavy totes up to dump them. With my bad wrist this was becoming a chore. I had decided to invest the money ($250 or more) to buy a 32 gallon tote with the dump valve on it so all I had to do is hook the hose to it, pull the valve and done! Rinsing with the same method this also eliminates you having to tow the totes through a campground to the dump station as well and especially if the dump station was off site and a mile or two away. After speaking to a Rob, owner of Morro Bay RV and Marine he suggested I just put the valves in my 2 totes instead of spending all that money on a new tote. $45 worth of parts and a little time saved me about $200 or more! Some people ask why my totes are in the back of my truck in the first place. Hey to me it’s all about making life on the road as easy as possible. Here’s a pic of my 22 gallon tote before... Read more

RV Security Improvements - Change Those Locks!

Do you know what CH751 means? It’s a number stamped on your RV storage door lock key. And it’s the same number stamped on almost every RV storage door lock key. Go ahead. Take a look right now. From the factory, most RVs use the same key and lock combination for all the external storage doors. This means you can wait until your camping neighbor leaves the campground for the day and then you can go check out his “stuff” with your key. All kidding aside, to improve your RV security, you should change out those locks or have them re-keyed. This goes for your RV entrance doors as well. Read more Tell a Friend Read More →

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