so in this video we are going to talk about five things that you should never ever and
I mean never do with your RV but you would be surprised how many times we've actually
seen people doing just these things so you're going to want to stay tuned
my name is Charity and Ben my husband and my two kids our dog our two cats we've been
traveling the US for five years now in our RV and we have learned a lot along the way
and so the reason that we have this channel that we started this channel is to be able
to share with you our experiences the things that we've learned great places to visit fun
campgrounds great food and more so if that sounds like something you're interested in
make sure that you hit that subscribe button because we've got a lot of fun travel videos
still coming up yet this year that I know that you're going to want to see so let's jump right
into it and let's talk about the five things that you should never ever do with your RV
now thing number one and we have seen this happen over and over again is over loading
your RV so basically what that is is not really paying attention to
how much weight that your RV can safely carry and just loading it to the gills
I got the TV honey
I got the lamp honey you got the lamp all I need is this lamp and you know you got to have
a big huge vacuum this is all I need and some flowers it's all gonna fit we'll make it fit
no we might need some iron something I got the surfboard honey oh
God this thing is huge
all right right here
uh that's where I have to draw the line
why now this is gonna vary a lot depending upon do you have a travel trailer do you have a fifth
wheel do you have a class A Class C B van there's so many different RVs that are out there and so
it's really all over the board as far as how much can you really bring with you safely in an RV well
every single RV has weight ratings they've got a capacity that they put on the label from the
manufacturer that tells you what can you safely carry when it comes to how much weight a really
good idea is to every once in a while go to a cat scale and weigh your RV while it's fully
loaded with what you would typically carry now you can find a cat scale at most truck stops
they're very very easy to find and that way you can just make sure now here's the deal if
you overload your RV here's the danger if it is a travel trailer or some type of towable you really
are running the risk of potential excessive sway in that particular unit which is just an
accident waiting to happen the other thing is it can cause damage to axles to suspension all
sorts of things that are really going to just cost you a lot of money down the road and the
other thing that's probably the most scary to us that we have seen start to happen within the RV
Community is if people do end up in an accident one of the things that insurance companies are
investigating is was it overloaded because you have to remember insurance companies at the end
of the day really are a for-profit organization they're about making themselves money so if they
don't have to pay out a claim well let's just put that out there but you don't want to do anything
where you put yourself in a potential to have a claim denied because of maybe a potential mistake
the number two thing you should never ever do with your RV is to leave the awning out when
you leave we have seen more than once where awnings were taken off in windstorms a high
gust situation even if you have a wind sensor on your your RV or even if you have it staked down
and somewhat secured it's just peace of mind when you leave the campground when your awning is not
left out let me tell you a little story that we experience personally we left our awning out when
we were newer rvers and then went into the town where we were at to go watch a movie and lo and
behold we're in a movie I get an alert on my phone that says there is a severe thunderstorm warning
and tornado watch for the area that we're in and unfortunately really couldn't enjoy the movie
after that because the only thing I'm thinking of the whole time is oh my gosh our awning is
out is the win sensor gonna work is it not gonna work because you can't rely on those do yourself
a favor before that you leave the campground put your Awning in you'll just have more peace of mind
now the number three thing you should never do with your RV is fail
to make sure that it's properly level see what we did there here is the thing when your RV is not
properly leveled it can cause a lot of issues the main issue that it can cause is with refrigerators
now RV absorption style refrigerators that have the ammonia in them or even residential style
refrigerators can definitely have problems if they're trying to operate when the RV is
not level now we experience this firsthand and made a huge mistake we were mooch docking at a
friend's house that had a driveway on an incline and didn't think to turn off our fridge didn't
think anything about not being level and at 3 AM when I am not thinking clearly the fridge
starts throwing an error because it's not cooling and I just went ahead and you know
reset things which turned into a hole ordeal the fridge going into lockout mode it's just it was
not a fun time and we were not happy campers so do yourself a favor make sure your RV is level
this can also cause issues with not draining properly with sinks or when you go to dump the
tanks if it's not level it just a lot of problems can happen so tip number five is something that
we've seen so many people do and I'm going to be sharing about that in just a few minutes
now the number four thing that you should never ever ever do in your RV is decide that you want
to drive your RV or accidentally drive your RV down a not RV friendly Road one of the ways that
we try to avoid that scenario is by using this Garmin RV specific GPS now we can program our
RV height and our length into this and it helps keep us out of scenarios where that might happen
we cannot tell you how many times that we've either seen this firsthand or seen pictures
and videos circulated online of RVs that tried to make a hairpin turn and they were just too
long and bad things happened people the other thing is is that you don't want to put yourself
in a situation where you somehow need to turn around and there is absolutely no way to turn
around we accidentally put ourselves into one of those scenarios when we very first started
rving with our first RV where we had pulled into a truck stop to get fuel and mistakenly
do didn't follow the sign that said trucks this way meaning like semi trucks and we followed the
car sign and we put ourselves into a very tight spot no pun intended but literally a tight spot
and really couldn't maneuver our way out of there without dropping our car dolly it was
just a huge hairy ordeal so we learned our lesson very quickly with that to make sure
that you know where you're going you know what that particular exit might look like
before you decide to go that direction now you might have remembered a situation that actually
happened in the RV Community earlier this year in 2022 where a couple were following their GPS
it took them down a not RV friendly Road they became stranded and the situation did not turn
out very well you want to make sure that you are taking your RV on an RV friendly route
okay now the number five thing that you should never ever and I mean ever do in your RV is
something that we have seen so many RVers actually doing and that is when you set up at
a campsite and you go to hook up your RV and you get to those full hookups and you open your waste
tank Valves and you leave them both open that is going to cause a problem so leaving that black
tank valve open versus close at a campground is something that we have seen so many RVers
do and this is a big big time mistake let me explain a little bit as to why you are going
to get something called the Pyramid of poo or the poop pyramid or the mountain of poo really
you can just call it whatever you want but one thing that you have to remember when it comes
to waste tanks in an RV that is not like a household toilet is you have a waste tank
and you need liquid in this waste tank to help dissolve the solids that are in this waste tank
so that you don't clog your waste tank leaving that black tank valve closed is actually going
to be the proper way to keep both liquids and solids in there where it's mixing together it's
actually digesting that waste weaves a product from unique camping and Marine called digest it
and they're drop in pods that we put into our toilet it helps to break down any waste but it
also helps to keep any of those black tank smells down what if you have made this mistake or what
if maybe you are currently making this mistake or what if right now your black tank is clogged
well this is where this product from unique also comes in so this is actually a tank cleaner but
not only is this a tank cleaner which is going to help keep your sensors and things like that
working properly this actually will unclog your holding tanks if you do by chance have a pyramid
of poo or you have excessive smells or you've got anything going on in your black tank where you are
thinking maybe my tank isn't super clean maybe I I have a clog maybe I do have that pyramid of poo
building up this is the product that you want to put in there so you put this in with plenty
of water it does need about 12 hours so ideally you'd put it in put in some water drive to your
next destination keep that black tank valve closed give it overnight and then empty that black tank
just remember when you hook up black tank stays closed unless you are actively emptying it other
than that the black tank should be closed at all times okay go oh that wasn't loud enough was it
chica is that better okay nice all right telling people not to be overweight okay
I wanted to start I wanted to go off more about the other couple
okay now the number five are you sure already like this and then touching the camera so hey
what all right so there is a ton that is going on and we want to make sure you stay updated
on it all make sure you go to our website gratefulglamper.com click the stay inspired
button we also have brand new merch so make sure you check that out while you are there
as well this is a video all about things not to do with your RV we have a whole nother video of
things you should not be doing at a campground either so I'm gonna put that right up here if
we don't see you out on the road or around the campground we will see you in the next video