Hey folks, welcome back to Grand Adventure! I'm your host Marc Guido.
Now you've just spent tens of thousands of dollars on a new RV, so you're all ready to hit the road.
You're done spending, right? Wrong. We hate to break it to you, but there's a bunch of things
you're going to need, that you need to settle a little bit of money aside for for when you get out on the road.
And we're here to share our top ten items that fit that description on this episode of Grand Adventure, so stay tuned!
Now even though you've just spent all that money on that new RV,
you can pretty much plan on spending a couple of grand on additional items that you're going to need for the road.
We're going to present these in no particular order, and we'll give you more information on how to find these things at the end of
the end of this episode.
The first thing we're going to talk about is if you have a trailer, and
that is you need to be able to chock the wheels
effectively, and we've found if you've got tandem wheels X-Chocks are the way to go.
The advantage to X-chocks is twofold for us. Number one,
they help to lock out the suspension which keeps the trailer movement down to a minimum.
When you're in camp and you're walking around the trailer, the trailer moves a lot less with the X-chocks in place.
The other advantage is
you're going to need to be leveling your trailer (and we're going to talk about that a little bit later in this video),
but when the trailer is up on blocks or levelers, its sometimes it's hard to get a
conventional wheel chock in an effective spot that it'll keep the trailer from rolling. The X-chocks,
they don't care how you're up on blocks. These simply work as a little X shaped mechanism that uses a
supplied ratchet wrench to be able to tighten up or press against both wheels
to adequately secure the trailer. We've found these to be
incredibly effective in
keeping the trailer from moving. And one other thing we want to share with you -- and I'm only doing this
because I'll give you a little secret, we learned it the hard way --
get in the habit of making sure you remember: the first thing you do when hitching is chock that trailer.
The last thing you do when hitching is unchock that trailer.
Now, the leading cause of RV tire failure is underinflation, and as someone who's experienced a blow out on the road and got
incredibly lucky that there was no damage,
we can't stress enough the importance of keeping your tires properly inflated and checking them every single day before you hit the road
hit the road. It's
incredibly easy to have thousands of dollars worth of damage from that tire casing flipping around
before you have a chance to pull over to the side of the road, or quite frankly before you even realize that you've had a
blowout.
We use the Viair 88p, which is a very inexpensive yet incredibly high-quality
compressor. Its duty
cycle is second and none, and the duty cycle is referring to
how long you can run the compressor before you have to turn it off.
It also has a very enviable air flow rate at which you can inflate your tires.
Now when you get to camp, you want to be able to comfortably enjoy the outdoors. That's why you went camping anyway, right?
So you want a couple of camp chairs that you can bring with you, and we get
more questions about our camp chairs that appear in our videos than almost any other question we get because they are so
ridiculously comfortable. We use a couple of what are known as moon chairs.
Camping World calls them club chairs.
But they surround you. They're thickly cushioned. They are unbelievably comfortable for hours spent
relaxing or socializing in your campsite.
Now the plumbing in your RV is all comprised of plastic PEX piping, and that can only withstand
water pressure of about 40 or 50 psi.
However, you're going to find the occasional campground where the water pressure far exceeds that, so it's very important if you're on hookups to
put in line a water pressure regulator.
We use this very simple brass model from Camco.
It is already preset at a water pressure of 40 to 50 psi.
You can get other ones that actually have an adjustable water pressure,
but this model is pretty much foolproof, and it's very inexpensive.
You simply put it in line in your hose and
use that to make sure that the water coming into your RV has a pressure no greater than 40 to 50 psi.
Now unless you for some strange reason enjoy walking around a floor in your bare feet that's all full of sand and dust and dirt,
you're going to need to bring a vacuum with you. Now, not all hand vacs are created equal.
We absolutely adore our Dirt Devil. It's a bagless system, but the beauty of it is that unlike most hand vacs,
it actually has a rotating brush just like your main
primary vacuum cleaner at home. That's really effective for getting stubborn dog fur
and sand out of your upholstery, and it also works very effectively on hardwood floors.
Now unless you are ridiculously lucky,
there's almost no such thing as a perfectly level campsite.
Now when you have a travel trailer you use the tongue jack
to level the trailer front to back, and use leveling blocks to level it from side to side.
These are things that you simply put under the tires to raise one side or the other. We use a combination of things. We use
leveling blocks, which are kind of like giant Legos that you can stack and place under the wheels.
But for a quick and easy solution, we use a tri-leveler from Camco. You simply pull the vehicle up onto the leveling
leveler, or the tri-leveler, to raise the vehicle
progressively one inch, two inches, or three inches off the ground.
Now whether you're filling your fresh water tank for boondocking or you're hooking up to city water supply in a campground,
you need a hose to be able to deliver your water to your RV -- and it needs to be drinking water safe.
We couldn't be happier than we are with Zero G hoses. We've tried other hoses. The beauty of the Zero G is it's incredibly flexible.
Therefore it's incredibly compact, and it actually is far more durable than those expanding hoses that you see advertised on TV.
We're able to put two 25-foot
Zero G hoses and store them in a two and a half gallon pail in our basement storage area. We find them to be
incredibly flexible,
incredibly versatil,e and we use them in conjunction with one another for a longer reach to get a 50-foot hose.
Now likely your biggest expense just starting out is going to be a way to recharge your RV's batteries. Now
contrary to popular belief, your tow vehicle will not recharge your trailer's batteries,
and the reason that is, is the alternator
bases its charging rate on the vehicle's chassis battery rather than your trailer battery, even though it's hooked up
to the vehicle via the umbilical cord into the trailer port. So once that
truck battery is fully charged, it's only sending a trickle charge to the RV battery,
even though the RV battery may be fairly well depleted. Now,
there are two ways you can go about recharging your trailer's batteries.
One is with a generator, and the other is with solar. Each has their advantages and disadvantages.
But if you're just starting out and you have to choose one,
the generator is the way to go, and that's what we did.
And that's for a couple of reasons. Number one, if you have a string of cloudy days, you don't have to worry about it,
you're still able to recharge your batteries with the generator.
Number two, your solar is incapable of running running your trailer's air conditioning unit,
whereas the generator (properly sized) is fully capable of
pperating the air conditioning unit. Now, a word about generators.
You want to go with an inverter generator, not an open frame style construction generator. If you get the latter,
you're going to be the most despised person in your campground because they are just so incredibly loud.
An open frame generator, a non-inverted generator runs at full RPM all the time, whereas an inverter generator
-- being much quieter in an insulated case --
also adjusts its RPMs based upon the load that is being drawn from the generator. It's also because of that
it uses a lot less fuel. We've been extremely happy with our Champion 75537i
generator, which has what we consider to be a killer feature of
remote electric start and stop, so you can actually start and stop the generator from inside the RV.
We did a separate episode reviewing this particular Champion generator and we'll put a link to it right here on the screen.
Just a side note:
Champion's customer service is amazing!
You can call them up on a toll-free number and talk to a technician at any time, and they are incredibly helpful and
Incredibly supportive in sending you parts when you need them.
At least that's been our experience, and the experience that we've read from other Champion owners online.
Now they're pricey,
but if you are a trailer owner, we cannot
recommend highly enough, urge you to use a weight distribution hitch.
A weight distribution hitch serves a couple of functions. Number one is it
tries to balance out the load between the front and rear wheels of your tow vehicle.
Without them you're putting a lot more weight on the rear wheels
which can make steering
ineffective or even less predictable, because there's less weight on the steering axle than than normally would be without the trailer.
The other advantage is it includes built-in sway control.
So if you get hit by a gust of wind coming across the road,
or you get blasted by a semi blowing by you with the gust front from the truck, the sway control
helps to keep that sway of the trailer under control and keeps you from losing control of the trailer, which can have devastating consequences...
...even deadly consequences.
We've been extremely happy with our e2 weight distribution hitch from Fastway.
It uses trunnion bars pressing against L
brackets that are mounted on the side of the trailer A-frameto apply the pressure and distribute the weight evenly
between the front and rear axles of the tow vehicle.
Finally, if you're staying in full hookup campgrounds
we can't stress enough the importance of a power management system. These help you in several ways. Number one,
they are a typical, what you would expect ...a surge protector.
They protect the vehicle against high or low voltage spikes in the electric grid.
The other thing is you would be shocked at how many campgrounds have a miswired pedestal,
and if the polarity is reversed if there's an open ground on the circuit, this will prevent electricity from going to your RV and
potentially damaging your RVs electronics and systems. We use
this particular model
power management system and it has a beautiful built-in display that shows us the
amperage
going into the trailer. It shows us it what the particular fault is,
if in fact it does fault, rather than just an idiot light and LED, a red LED
saying that there's a problem. It'll actually tell you open ground, reverse polarity,
high voltage, low voltage, so you know what the issue is so you can potentially get it rectified.
They're not cheap. They're about $250 or $300.
But it's really cheap insurance when you think about the damage that it prevents to your RV.
So virtually everything that we've shown you in this video is available online at Amazon.
Now we opened up a Grand Adventure shop on Amazon,
and the reason we did that is we wanted to be able to share with you the stuff that we have tried,
the stuff that we have tested, and the stuff that we can recommend after using it for
many thousands of miles on the road. Our shop only includes products that we use ourselves, and
every single one of the ten things that we've discussed so far are available in the Grand Adventure shop on Amazon.
We'll put a link in the video description down below to our shop so you can go check that out, as well as a
bunch of other items that we use and you can rest assured that these things are quality, that they've been tested, tried and
used by us.
So those are our top ten essentials for RV newbies. We're going to throw in a bonus.
We're going to throw in at number 11, because you need a great-looking t-shirt for hanging around in camp.
So we want to give a shout out to some friends of ours,
Christina and Ben McMillan. They're the force behind
The McMillan Express, which is a great YouTube channel.
We urge you to check them out as they travel all around the the United States in their RV.
However,
they've started a company called
Unhitched,
which make some great t-shirts like this one that they sent us, and I just absolutely love this, the quality of the shirt and the
designs, the various designs that they have available are absolutely first-rate. You can check them out online at
UnhitchedUSA.com, or we'll put a link in the video description down below. Now if you'd like a Grand Adventure t-shirt,
we also have a shop on Teespring so you can get mugs, you can get
tote bags as well as t-shirts. We'll put a link to our Teespring store also down below in the description of this video.
So, we're really sorry to be the bearer of bad news, please don't shoot the messenger!
But even though you've just spent all that money on that new RV,
these are the bare essentials for an RV newbie before hitting the road. There are other products
you'll find will make your life more convenient, make it easier.
But these are the top 10 things
you need to get before that first trip in your new RV. Now if you like this video, it's extremely important to us
please give us a thumbs up down below! If you're not yet a Grand Adventurer,
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please remember, life is nothing but a Grand Adventure. We'll see you soon!