RV Service: A View From The Other Side

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 AdminAll the RV forums and discussions relating to service issues are always from the point of view of the RV owner.  Not that there is anything wrong with that as they are the customer and did pay the big bucks.  But, what would it be like from the view on the other side of the service window? Not surprisingly, there are a small percentage of totally unreasonable owners.  Those customers that come in screaming, wanting everything for nothing, insisting on replacing with new in lieu of repair, never happy with anything, and so on.   Unfortunately, as small as the percent may be, these people take a toll on dealers’ service personnel.   This never-happy group erodes service employee’s attitude, ultimately affecting their performance, thus affecting many others.  Those others are people, perhaps like you and me. This really is nothing new.  A small minority spoiling it for everyone.  We see rules in other avenues of our lives that seem unreasonably restrictive, all put in place because of a minority of people that will not act responsibly nor be accountable.... Read more

Making Modifications to Your RV

I get asked these questions alot: “Is it safe to modify my RV? What about my warranty? Will it be voided?” There is a lot of misinformation floating around about what constitutes a safe mod and what will void your warranty if you do certain kinds of mods. Many RV owners tend to be the “do-it-your-self” types and enjoy “doing the mod”. If you fall in to this group, you should carefully consider the implications of certain mods. You know that really expensive extended warranty that covers your RV “bumper-to-tongue” after the factory warranty runs out that you added when you purchased your new RV? It won’t help one bit if you do a mod that causes a failure on a covered part. So let’s look at what mods are safe to do and what just might cause you some grief down the road if you are not aware of your warranty conditions of coverage. Read more  Read More →

RV Doctor – RV Hot Skin Test How-To

Dear Gary, How do you perform a hot skin test on a recreation vehicle? Also I’ve heard you should still hot skin test a fiberglass sided RV by checking faucets, door frames and windows. How do you do that on a slick side motorhome? - Jay Jones, (Silverdale, WA) Read more  Read More →

RV Doctor – Dripping Shower Faucet When Hot Water Heater Is On

Dear RV Doctor, We have a single lever faucet on our shower that has a continuous drip when the hot water heater is on. I carefully replaced all the parts within the faucet with a kit, but to no avail. I understand that as water heats it expands, but where does the water normally expand to and how does it seek relief? I know that some water leaks through the hot water tank relief valve, but that is not an option that I like either. — Leon Hill, (Belleville, ON, Canada) Read more  Read More →

Extend the Life of your RV Awnings

Awnings are a great feature to have on your RV. There are several different types of RV awnings and they serve different purposes. There are window and door awnings that provide shade and keep rain away from your RV windows or entry door.  There are slide-out awnings that help protect the top of the slide-out from debris and water. And there are patio awnings. Patio awnings extend the living area of our outdoor world. Similar to the front porch of your home, the patio awning provides us with shade and cover from a light rain when we want to sit and enjoy the great outdoors. The awnings on your RV will provide years of reliable trouble free operation, if you take the time to do a little preventive maintenance and cleaning. Read more  Read More →

RV Doctor – A Real RV Plumbing Miracle!

Dear RV Doctor, I think there is something wrong with the monitor panel in my RV. I just dumped both holding tanks and still the 1/4, the 1/2, and the Full lights are lit for the black water holding tank. On the gray tank, it still shows 1/4 full. The water tank, however, registers fine. I know the holding tanks are completely empty….I just emptied them! Do I need to replace the monitor panel? Read more  Read More →

Generator bonding and grounding

In previous posts we have discussed what is meant by “bonding” in an electrical distribution system.  This is an important concept.  If it seems like I am dwelling on this, I want to make sure we are clear on what bonding means. The ground wire system and the neutral wire system are two separate wire systems.  By code, they are to be connected together at ONE point and only one point.  If there is more than one bonding point in the wiring system, you can create ground faults, circulating currents and possibly prevent a breaker from tripping if there is a short circuit.  If there is no bond, it is also possible that a breaker will not trip. The breaker panel in your RV is classified as a sub-panel.  As such there is NO bond in the panel and the neutral/ground wiring systems in your RV are NOT connected to each other anywhere in the RV.  This is because when you plug in your shore power cord, you become part of the campground electrical system which IS bonded, again, at ONE point in the entire campground, generally at the campground main breaker panel. If you have a generator that is permanently installed in your RV, such as is typical in Class A motorhomes, the generator has a bond between the neutral and the ground, such that when the transfer switch switches, the isolated neutral and ground systems get connected together. If, however, you use a portable generator, sitting on the ground or in the  back of your pickup truck, a problem occurs.  Typically portable... Read more

Winter Battery Storage & Maintenance

I was recently asked a question and felt like the answer could be useful to lots of RVers, so I am using the question as the topic for this article. Q: Hi Mark, we live in Colorado and we are preparing our RV for storage. I just had the RV winterized, but I am concerned about how or what to do to store my RV batteries. Any advice would be appreciated. A: The two most common causes for RV battery failure are undercharging and overcharging.  Undercharging is a result of batteries being repeatedly discharged and not fully recharged between cycles. If a battery is not recharged the sulfate material that attaches to the discharged portions of the plates begins to harden into crystals. Over time this sulfate cannot be converted back into active plate material and the battery is ruined. This also occurs when a battery remains discharged for an extended period of time, like during storage. Sulfation is the number one cause of battery failure. The second leading cause of battery failure is overcharging. Overcharging batteries results in severe water loss and plate corrosion. With that said let’s look at how to properly store your RV batteries. Before we talk about storing the batteries we need to talk about battery safety. Lead acid batteries contain sulfuric acid which is extremely corrosive and can cause severe burns or even blindness. And the hydrogen gas that batteries produce, when they’re charging, is very explosive. When you work around batteries you need to wear safety... Read more

Portable Generator Grounding

If you read my last post, we began a discussion about grounding and bonding of portable generators.  To begin, we talked about a standard residential electrical service and specifically discussed the ground wire system, the neutral wire system, and the single bonding point between the two systems.  Lastly and most importantly, we also described what we referred to as a sub-panel and how important this is to us as RVers. So, here we go with the next point: the breaker panel in your RV is a SUB-PANEL.  When you pull into the campground and plug in your shore power, you are becoming a sub-panel to the main panel which is permanently installed at the campground.  Therefore, the neutral wiring system and the ground wiring system in your motorhome are not bonded together.  All the ground wires terminate in a ground bar within the breaker panel, and all the neutral wires terminate at a seperate bar within the breaker panel.  The neutral and ground systems are kept isolated from each other.  The bonding or connecting together of the two wiring systems is taken care of in the campground wiring system not in the RV. Keeping in mind that the above discussion dealt only with the power supplied by the shore power cord, the next step is to look at what happens if your RV has an on board generator set, particularly with an automatic transfer switch.  With an on-board generator we are faced with a problem because the breaker panel in the RV has an isolated neutral bar and ground bar,... Read more

Grounding your generator

portable generator I was attending the Gypsy Journal rally at Celina Ohio last week and while attending one of the seminars, the subject of grounding and/or bonding of portable generators came up, associated with a lot of confusion and mis-information on the subject.  Let me say up front that I am not an expert on the subject, but before writing this post, I did bone up on the appropriate sections of the National Electrical Code and in that exercise, I learned a little about the subject. As always when I discuss a subject, I like to have a vocabulary in common with others.  On this subject, there are two words we have to agree on, and understand, they are “bonding” and “grounding”.  These two words are frequently used together and sometimes even used interchangeably.  That is not correct as the two words have two distinct meanings and I believe this leads to a lot of confusion on this issue. First let’s use a common residential dwelling to begin our discussion.  In a newly constructed home, electric code requires the incoming power to be grounded by means of at least one and many times, two ground rods driven into the earth.  The ground wire from your breaker panel is connected to this/these ground rod(s) and then continues to run throughout the house with all the ground wires tied together. In addition to the ground wire system in the house, there is another wiring system known as “neutral”.  The neutral wire is generally white... Read more

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