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Don’t kill your RV - maintenance checklists make for StressLess Camping

StressLess Camping Podcast

Are you killing your RV? This week on the StressLess Camping RV Podcast, we offer tips for routine RV maintenance so you can avoid killing your RV. Checklists make for stressless camping!

We also recap our fun at RV Miles Homecoming and tell you about a Kansas City BBQ we tried out.

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Shareworthy: Our towing page with articles, podcast episodes, and a towing calculator: https://www.stresslesscamping.com/rv-towing

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Automated transcript of StressLess Camping RV podcast episode 277

Peggy Barthel

Are you killing your RV?

Tony Barthel

This week on the Stressless Camping RV podcast, we offer tips for routine RV maintenance so you can avoid killing your RV.

Peggy Barthel

Checklists make for stressless camping.

Tony Barthel

We also tell you about a Kansas City barbecue we tried out.

Peggy Barthel

We have this week's podcast along with the notes and all the stories that go with this episode along with deals, discounts, helpful tips, and more at our home on the web at stresslesscamping.com. I'm Peggy.

Tony Barthel

And I'm Tony. And we

Peggy Barthel

are 2 RV industry veterans who travel part time

Tony Barthel

In a small trailer.

Peggy Barthel

Looking to share big adventures and help you with great tips

Tony Barthel

Tricks. And discounts. Absolutely. Towing.

Peggy Barthel

Towing has been, uh, seems like it's been in the forums a lot lately.

Tony Barthel

Oh, boy. I mean

Peggy Barthel

it always is, but it just seems like it's been even more this past week. So we wanted to share, remind there's a towing page on stressless camping.com.

Tony Barthel

Tell me, Moe, about what I can tow.

Peggy Barthel

Yes. That should be what it's called. People do ask what can I tow and it is so dependent on actual numbers that there is no there is no right answer? There's no answer that can be written in a generic form.

Tony Barthel

That's the fact check. Yeah.

Peggy Barthel

What can I tow or what can I tow with? It all depends on on those stickers on the side of the RV and the truck. It doesn't matter if he tows with the f 250 or you know it just Yeah. It all depends on what the numbers say.

Tony Barthel

So the cool thing about our towing resource is that there is a towing calculator, so you can plug in your actual numbers

Peggy Barthel

Yes.

Tony Barthel

And know what you can tow, so you don't tow slow no more. Okay.

Peggy Barthel

Okay. You done with that?

Tony Barthel

I'm a poet, and I want everybody to know it.

Peggy Barthel

So once you have the right vehicle for towing, there are some other ways to make sure that you don't kill your RV.

Tony Barthel

Which hopefully keeps you happy, healthy, and I don't know what. And stress less. That's what.

Peggy Barthel

Stress less. Yeah. We have on our website a maintenance page. Well, I guess we have a checklist page. I'm not sure.

Peggy Barthel

It's probably in both places.

Tony Barthel

Yeah. By the way, we do have a whole bunch of checklists that you can download and customize for your own needs because checklists make for stressless, Cam.

Peggy Barthel

Indeed.

Tony Barthel

So we thought we'd kind of go back over our routine maintenance page, because when I was working at the dealership, a lot of the RV's that came in that were used, that were only a few years old, had enough lack of maintenance in simple things that there was enough damage that really caused us to have to lower the value of those. And as we may be considering a trade in of our own RV, what? It just kind of came to the forefront.

Peggy Barthel

Right. So we'll talk about we'll kind of cluster this, kind of what you should do every trip.

Tony Barthel

It's a cluster.

Peggy Barthel

It's a cluster. The maintenance that you should do on every single trip, the maintenance you should do sort of quarterly or seasonally and annually. Yeah. Feel like there's another one in there monthly. I don't know.

Peggy Barthel

Whatever.

Tony Barthel

If you're like, okay, I'm done with these guys. You can go and download the checklist.

Peggy Barthel

That's right. If you don't want to listen to us anymore.

Tony Barthel

And another thing you can add if there are specific like, let's say you you see the checklist and you're like, oh, I need to add engine stuff because you have a drivable.

Speaker 4

Right.

Tony Barthel

Or I need to add Canvas stuff because you have a pop, whatever.

Peggy Barthel

Something specific to you.

Tony Barthel

Yeah. They're all editable. That's hard to say.

Peggy Barthel

So what we did is on the website, we made files that are in

Speaker 4

Apple Pages.

Peggy Barthel

Apple Pages. There's a PDF, I think version. There's a Google document. So you can open it the way that you like to work and then you can edit it. Now please don't ask us if you can edit our document because the answer is going to be no.

Tony Barthel

Yeah. We get a lot of requests from people who are like, oh, I can't edit the Google Doc. Not the original because that would defeat the purpose.

Speaker 4

That would

Peggy Barthel

change it for everyone.

Tony Barthel

But you can copy it to your own Google Drive and have you could paint it purple if you want.

Peggy Barthel

Right. So let's talk about what we should do every single time we

Tony Barthel

Hitch up and

Peggy Barthel

go in the RV.

Tony Barthel

Most important, in my opinion, is to you know just walk around your RV and give it a good once over. Make sure you don't see any really obvious issues, but start at the bottom, work your way up. Look at your tires, like inspect the tires and make sure that the tire pressure is set correctly. I get a lot of people who go, oh, well the tires say I can inflate them to whatever the number is. I prefer using the placard on the side of the RV or in the door or wherever it is on your RV, because that's based on the weight expectation of the RV and designed in by the engineers who designs your RV.

Tony Barthel

Right. So check your tires and tire pressure.

Peggy Barthel

Now ideally you'll have tire pressure monitoring system.

Tony Barthel

Oh, yes.

Peggy Barthel

If you don't, you can do that aftermarket very, very easily. There are systems that just thread onto the fill The I know there's a word for it.

Tony Barthel

The valve stem. The valve stem.

Peggy Barthel

Ours are actually built into the tires themselves, and then we have a monitor inside the cab of the truck that we can monitor the pressure. Yep. That's a super super I think a very important add on if you don't already have it is to get some kind of a tire pressure monitoring.

Tony Barthel

I couldn't agree more.

Peggy Barthel

For yourself.

Tony Barthel

And a good one will also measure temperature, because if you see a big increase in temperature, something ain't right.

Peggy Barthel

Right. Also check the roof, especially if your slide happens to be out. If you're going to put it in so that you can be on the move, make sure there's nothing on the roof of the slide. Make sure there's nothing on the roof of the trailer that's, you know, going to cause extra scratching or poke a hole in it or anything like that. So check around for debris on the roof and on the slide roof.

Tony Barthel

Yeah. And I think I've shared with you my lazy way of doing this. I stick a GoPro on a stick on a stee. A stee. And look around the roof, and then I have ongoing video of if there's a noticeable change or difference.

Tony Barthel

I can refer back to old videos that I've shot. I also look at the air conditioner because sometimes branches and twigs and stuff get into that. So debris, once you've hooked up according to whatever your procedure is, check all of the lights on your towable and your vehicle. Make sure the brake lights work, the running lights work, the turn signal. I know some of you don't know what turn signals are.

Speaker 4

Parts of

Tony Barthel

the country don't know what the turn signal is, but it should work.

Peggy Barthel

Look it up on YouTube.

Tony Barthel

Yeah. You can look it up on YouTube.

Peggy Barthel

And this is not only to make sure that your 7 pin is connected correctly and that will ensure that your trailer lights are working, but also in case any of those bulbs have burned out. Yeah. The trailer, uh, the sorry the 7 pin may not tell you. It might tell you everything is working fine, but if one light is burned out, you may not know it.

Tony Barthel

That's true.

Peggy Barthel

Do they still have like on the on vehicles? This is gonna show I don't pay much attention to things. If a light is burned out or burning out like the

Tony Barthel

Yeah. The

Peggy Barthel

flasher will flash faster

Tony Barthel

Yeah. It shouldn't be that. Yeah.

Peggy Barthel

But it may not know that on the trailer. Yeah. Yeah.

Tony Barthel

That I don't know. And then once you're hooked up, look at everywhere where you are hooked up. Safety chains, make sure that those are in place. Make sure the 7 pin is seated. And you know, something I like to do periodically is with this Deoxit contact cleaner, spritz the 7 pin because those contacts do get dirty.

Tony Barthel

So it's something I do, you know, I look at it and kind of spritz it.

Peggy Barthel

You know what we don't have written on here and that's why you always forget, Make sure you click you hook up the trailer brake. Oh, shit. It always seems to be the step you forget.

Tony Barthel

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The emergency brake.

Tony Barthel

Yeah. You're right. I don't know. I have a mental block against hooking that doggone thing up. But Yeah.

Tony Barthel

Yeah. Your emergency brake, the ball, sway bars, however you have your rig set up, and then just give it a second inspection just to be sure. You know, if that comes loose, you want the safety chains to go under and catch it. So there's a lot of redundancy built into that, but you want to make sure the redundancy is there.

Peggy Barthel

Now when you get to camp and you set up your trailer or your RV and you've maybe you've put out your slides or whatever, look around again. This is a thing that you should do every single time. Make sure screws haven't come loose. If you find 1 on the floor, try to figure out this is a big puzzle. Figure out where it came from.

Peggy Barthel

Our microwave

Tony Barthel

That's for you.

Peggy Barthel

20 10 to back

Tony Barthel

out. Yep.

Peggy Barthel

In the stove we've had screws back out, not currently, but in the hinges of a couple of our cabinet doors. So just kind of these are routine maintenance things. These are not what a crappy build. Okay?

Tony Barthel

Yeah. Well, I mean the roads are pretty

Peggy Barthel

rough. Exactly. These roads are rough. So, yeah, no screws don't back out in your house, but your house isn't in a whirlwind earthquake for 4, 5, 6 hours at a time. Yeah.

Peggy Barthel

So just kind of check. Make sure that there aren't any, you know, when your water system's on, make sure there aren't any leaks underneath your faucets. We actually use and the brand I don't think is all that important. Ours happened to be Topvico. Topvico

Tony Barthel

brand. Famous brand.

Peggy Barthel

Uh-huh. It's a water sensor. So it has a little a little sensor on the end of a wire, and then a battery operated really noisy little sign thing to wake you up at 4:30 in the morning, not that we've experienced that, if there's any kind of a leak. So you put this down on the floor, below your faucets, below your drains, below your water heater, and then if there is any kind of a leak, the alarm will start screeching you.

Tony Barthel

Oh, it's so loud.

Peggy Barthel

And then you will know to check. But also just kind of look look and make sure that if you have your sensors that they're in the right place and they're gonna notice if there's any water. So just kind of give the trailer or give the RV, sorry, the once over and make sure that everything is still looks like it is where it's supposed to be.

Tony Barthel

Yeah. Alright.

Peggy Barthel

Because if you don't I'm sorry because if you don't do it every single time, it gets worse and worse, and all of a sudden, you come in and your stove's laying on the floor or something.

Tony Barthel

And we've seen that happen too, not to us, but we know someone, their stove literally fell out.

Peggy Barthel

Yeah.

Speaker 4

So just keep those screws.

Tony Barthel

Yeah. Make sure that you, unlike me, don't have a screw loose.

Peggy Barthel

He's got several. So let's move out a little bit. We've done those things every single month, so or every single Sprint

Tony Barthel

Every single journey. Yeah.

Peggy Barthel

So that we know that might be every single month, it might be the same thing. Now let's go maybe kind of seasonally, every 3 months or something. You want to get up on the roof or get up near the roof with a ladder or

Tony Barthel

Get your GoPro

Peggy Barthel

on a stick and check all the breaches in the roof, All the places where there might be sealant that might be drying out or getting, uh, might have a hole or might have shriveled up and left a gap, anywhere that there might be a possibility of water getting in on the roof.

Tony Barthel

The way the majority of RVs work, there's a rubber like, it can be PVC, it can be EPDM, but whatever. It's like a rubber membrane that they put over whatever they use to build the roof. And then wherever there's a hole like for a vent or air conditioner or whatever, they put sealant around there to keep the water out. Right? That rubber tends to last a very long time.

Tony Barthel

It can last for decades.

Peggy Barthel

The actual roof.

Tony Barthel

Yeah. The actual roof. And that's a lot of times you see the lifetime guarantee, and that is that EPDM or PVC or whatever that material is.

Peggy Barthel

But that's the roof material. That is not the holes that they put in the roof for all those accessories.

Tony Barthel

Right. So all that sealant that they put around the holes are considered a maintenance item and typically have L0 guarantee o. So that is on you to keep. And this is where we saw our RVs come back in that were relatively new that had water damage and that just is really bad. So check all of the areas where there's that sealant.

Tony Barthel

It looks like someone squished a bunch of toothpaste.

Peggy Barthel

It does.

Tony Barthel

And check all of those regularly to make sure that it's not drying or cracking or or and I've seen people go, well how long would it last? I've seen it last years without being touched. We had our 1st mini light, we had it 5 years and never had to reseal it. And that was in the California sun. I've seen where some of these rigs after 3 months it starts to crack.

Tony Barthel

There's so many variables of roads and weather and which Elvis song you're listening to and all of this other stuff.

Peggy Barthel

Potentially the weather or whatever when it was installed too. Right? If

Tony Barthel

it dries to

Peggy Barthel

the assembly or something.

Tony Barthel

Yeah. And how well it was put, you know, like maybe the installer was having a fight with his spouse or something. I don't know. But anyway, yes, check the all of those those seals and know what the replacement sealant is. So if you do have to either add more or just replace it, you'll know what's appropriate based on the roof material and also oddly enough on where it is on the roof.

Tony Barthel

So And

Peggy Barthel

you can find that from your manufacturer and it's not going to be one product. It's probably going to be 3 or 4 different things depending on where it's located. So that's the roof, but also check the walls. You want it, you know, the side walls, the outside walls where there are marker lights, where there are windows, baggage doors, doors, baggage doors.

Tony Barthel

Vents panels, all that.

Peggy Barthel

Yeah. Where the vents open for the heater and the refrigerator and the furnace and the vent fan, all those spaces. Yeah. Everywhere that there is a cut in the wall, you want to make sure that that seal is still good.

Tony Barthel

Yeah, and that's what got me. I when I was back when I was just a young new RV owner, I didn't know. I figured those marker lights had a rubber gasket behind them and didn't need to have the seal checked, and that's where we did experience water intrusion.

Peggy Barthel

We did.

Tony Barthel

I was wrong. Now I know better. Why? Yeah, I know.

Peggy Barthel

Okay. So what about below decks?

Tony Barthel

I would always look at the chassis where the suspension is mounted to the chassis, look at the chassis itself to make sure it's not rusting. Because you can mitigate if it's starting to paint flaking off or you can mitigate that before it becomes a serious issue. Check the suspension. Some of them have greasable bolts, some of them don't, and that's something to know. Check the the springs, all of, just all of the things that keep the RV off the road basically.

Tony Barthel

So where the springs are attached to the frame, axles, tires, wheels, lug nuts, all of that stuff. If it's between the road and your RV, just know what it looks like. And here's a tip, when you first get your RV, you could take a picture of all of that stuff, and go back and reference it and go, that's funny your tires didn't used to look like that or whatever it happens to be. So that suspension and the brakes are very very important. Also, there are wires to the brakes.

Tony Barthel

Make sure to check those that they haven't come loose, because sometimes they'll catch and you'll have one side where there's no brakes. That's right. And it might yeah.

Peggy Barthel

And you'll be doing donuts. Yeah. That's right. Whether you want to or not.

Tony Barthel

You'll be going in circles.

Peggy Barthel

Now we have one here to check the tanks, and that used to be easy with our first travel trailer because it didn't have that underbelly, but can I check the tanks in a trailer with an underbelly?

Tony Barthel

Oh, you could, but you can really look for signs of bulging or anything like that or look for all those underbellies are vented in some way, so look for maybe some water leaking out or something like that. If there's a leak in where they're attached, or if one of the tanks has become damaged, you'll know it. It'll be pretty obvious. Okay. But one thing I've seen a lot is the tanks kind of bulging because they're some of them are just dropped between the frame rails.

Tony Barthel

It just depends.

Peggy Barthel

Sure.

Tony Barthel

Also, all of your sewer connections and all of that, you can really easily replace those gate valves in the sewer. So if it leaks, you know, just a wee bit when you first open it, it's very easy to replace that gate valve, or you can just put a secondary one on.

Peggy Barthel

How about replace it with something that's easier

Speaker 4

to pull apart? Well,

Tony Barthel

we saw Dometic has a new power gate valve and we're pretty tempted by that thing.

Peggy Barthel

Well, I wouldn't even need it to be powered but it so it's like you have to reach so deep in and pull to the side and you don't have that kind of strength. Anyway, that's not really a maintenance item. That's just

Speaker 4

a gripe

Peggy Barthel

that I have to stop dumping. And it's a good one. Included in the water systems and and appliances, you want to make sure that, as Tony said, look for any kind of leaks under the tanks or in the dump station, but also where your appliances vent outside or are connected wherever, you want to make sure of that. So a 12 volt refrigerator doesn't have this, but if you have still got a gas refrigerator, you're gonna wanna open that back vent and look for bugs or signs of rodents or, you know, insects or anything. Make sure you clean out any debris and dust because there's a fire back there.

Peggy Barthel

There's a flame, that's how it works. And if you've got spider webs and dead bugs and things like that, they're gonna catch fire and that is not gonna smell good for

Speaker 4

one thing. No, but also

Peggy Barthel

It's not gonna be a good situation.

Tony Barthel

Right. That could be a problem, so check on things that have flames like the furnace and the water heater. How cleanly that flame if it's got a lot of black soot, then you know might need adjustment.

Speaker 4

Mhmm.

Tony Barthel

Just open the back of any compartment door that has an appliance, and just look at it and make sure everything looks good, and keep it kind of vacuumed out or cleaned out. They all collect dust and dirt over time, and the cleaner they are, the better they run. Yep. That's true of the air conditioner too. And most air conditioners have a set of filters you can change.

Tony Barthel

Well not even change, a lot of them it's a plastic filter that you can just rinse out.

Peggy Barthel

Yeah. And so you'll want to take the covers off the inside of the air conditioner and right behind that is the filter, and like Tony said you can maybe vacuum it, you can rinse it out in the sink or out in the hose and clean up that filter. Because it's gonna make it less smelly for one thing, right? That that vent is I mean sorry, that filter is actually picking up all the dust and everything, and if you just leave it there then it's just gonna keep recycling that dust.

Tony Barthel

Eventually it becomes less efficient. Right.

Peggy Barthel

And then it also it has to work a lot harder to get air in because your filter is clogged up.

Tony Barthel

Yeah. Another thing some people do and there's no harm in doing so is sanitize your fresh water tank.

Peggy Barthel

Right.

Tony Barthel

We, I believe have instructions on how to do that, which we'll put there's going to be show notes including links to this. So we'll put a link to that in our show notes, which on YouTube or down below. If you listen on audio podcast, you can tap over to a link on our website that has links to the show notes. So we try to make it as easy as possible to find these show notes, but they're there trust me, unless I forget.

Peggy Barthel

Something else to do seasonally or quarterly is to, if you have flooded batteries. Now if you have lithium batteries this is doesn't need to be on the list, but if you have flooded batteries those you know the ones that you have to put water in check and make sure there's water in.

Tony Barthel

Yeah. Absolutely. So those are some simple just again these are not overly complicated things that you can do, but my gosh it makes a difference in how long your RV is gonna last. Alright.

Peggy Barthel

Seasonally. So let's talk first about, because it's almost that time for some of us for some of you, uh, winterizing. Right? At the end of the camping season, a lot of people are in a place where they need to, you know, some people like us, we just park it, but some people really have to make sure that it's safe for being in that

Tony Barthel

freezing winter. Oh, it's winter. We did have to winter.

Peggy Barthel

Well, we did. I Yeah.

Tony Barthel

We did. That was sad.

Peggy Barthel

We had to winterize 2 or 3 times because we didn't stop camping.

Speaker 4

I know.

Tony Barthel

We winterize, hey, let's go camping. Winterize, hey, let's go camping.

Peggy Barthel

The good news is that means winterizing isn't that hard to do.

Tony Barthel

Oh, it really isn't.

Peggy Barthel

Right? But you want to make sure you do all the steps, and one of the important things is to get all of the water out of the RV. That means open the low point drains, check the valves on the water heater. Some people like to blow compressed air through the system and that will blow the air out.

Tony Barthel

The water.

Peggy Barthel

I'm sorry, the one that blew the air out. That'll blow the water out.

Speaker 4

That'll

Tony Barthel

blow some air out too.

Peggy Barthel

Of the of the like kind of fresh system and the drains, right? Because you've got a p trap and that's got some water in it and you might not want to leave that to freeze. And that might be enough if you don't have super super freezing, but if you have super super freezing you might need to pump some antifreeze through the system and make sure that you really get all the water out.

Tony Barthel

Yeah. We have a full winterizing guide which, uh, you will see if you're watching here, and if you are listening it's written in the show notes how to get to that. Something that a lot of people don't do is put a little bit of gasket oil on the toilet seal.

Peggy Barthel

Right. So your toilet's gonna sit dry for however long you're not camping and that rubber seal that's you know at the bottom of the bowl can dry out. Now that I guess that's not that hard to change. We haven't really had to do that.

Tony Barthel

Although it's more difficult on the Thetford than on the Oh, okay. Pamco.

Peggy Barthel

But you may not have to do that if you keep it oiled. So we just have some spray coconut oil that smells like pineapple. So it's like a pina colada in there.

Tony Barthel

Oh, it's a it's a toilet colada.

Peggy Barthel

And we just spritz a little bit of that oil. You want to make sure that you're not using

Tony Barthel

a petroleum

Peggy Barthel

oil. I couldn't think of it any kind of petroleum based oil because that will eat that basket away.

Tony Barthel

Oh, yeah. You don't want that.

Peggy Barthel

But you do want to try not to let that thing dry out, but if it dries out and you find out next season that your toilet is not holding water, you can just change that gasket.

Tony Barthel

Also if you are winterizing, uh, but don't forget to get the antifreeze through the toilet valve. We've seen a lot of when I was selling RVs, I would sell so many toilet valves as the season starts, because people that's the one thing a lot of people forget about, so don't forget it.

Peggy Barthel

Right. The other thing is you're gonna want to open your water heater and let the water out of there, and at that time if you have the kind of water heater that has an anode rod, look at the anode rod. Now you don't have to replace the anode rod every year. You might have to if the water that you've been using has eaten away at that anode rod, but we're gonna die on this hill. You do not have to change it every year if it hasn't been corroded to the point of needing change.

Tony Barthel

Right.

Peggy Barthel

You can use that thing until it's almost just a coat hanger. Yeah. Right? And so, sure, it's not that expensive. But on the other hand, why spend the money and why waste the landfill space on something that didn't need to be replaced?

Tony Barthel

Right. We saw an RV tech who said, oh, yeah, you have to replace this every year. Nice. See this is why I get nervous about some of the advice people here.

Peggy Barthel

Right.

Tony Barthel

And you will have removed that if your water heater even has an anode rod, you will have removed that to get the water out of the water heater.

Speaker 4

Put it

Peggy Barthel

in a safe place, so you don't forget where it is next season. Yeah. We just leave it right there in the cabinet. Just laying in the water heater cabinet in the back.

Tony Barthel

Battery protection depends on what type of batteries, but know what to do. In some cases, like one of the things I really like about lithium batteries is you charge them and just ignore them. Right. You don't have to put them on a trickle charger. They can exist in sub freezing temperatures, You just can't charge them in sub freezing temperatures.

Tony Barthel

But you're not charging them anyway if

Speaker 4

if your trailer is just sitting

Tony Barthel

if your RV is just sitting there. So

Peggy Barthel

Look at all the entry points, and this is like such a fear of mine and fortunately it has never happened, but if you're leaving something if you're leaving your RV sitting for a significant amount of time and you're not checking it, you know maybe you've got it under a cover and you can't get in it to check it. I do not want to come back in the spring and find out that rodents are I you know the odd spider I don't care, but rodents

Tony Barthel

That odd spider with

Peggy Barthel

7 legs. I cannot I I can't even talk about this. I am so irrationally terrified of rodents Oh. That I don't I wanna make sure they never come in. Now one great way to find out is to wait until dark, turn on all the lights in your RV, close everything up, and go outside, and get underneath, and go around, and see if any light is is leaking out of the RV.

Peggy Barthel

If light can get out, a mouse can get in. Oh, boy. So you want to seal all that stuff up.

Tony Barthel

Yeah. Sorry. I didn't interrupt.

Peggy Barthel

That's okay. We also have

Tony Barthel

a link in our show notes to our something that has really worked well for us and that's the Grandpa Gus rodent repellent, and we have a link to that in our show notes.

Peggy Barthel

Now I know we have plenty of rodents where we live.

Tony Barthel

Oh, do we ever.

Peggy Barthel

And fortunately, like I said, we've never had a problem here in in our trailers, so I'm gonna, you know, I mean, I'm gonna credit both making sure we have no place for them to get in, but also the grandpa Gus. And honestly, even if the grandpa Gus isn't needed, I like the smell.

Tony Barthel

It is.

Peggy Barthel

It smells good. It's cinnamon and peppermint and it reminds me of the holidays and I'm fine with putting grandpa Gus packets whether I need them or not. Okay.

Tony Barthel

Alright. Finally, our annual checklist things, and this is something some of you are great DIYers. Oh I know some of you are really good at it. Some of you are somebody else I wire. Or somebody else I whatever.

Tony Barthel

No. Someone let let someone else do it.

Peggy Barthel

DDI. Don't do it yourself.

Tony Barthel

Yeah. Don't do it. DDIY. Yeah. Okay.

Tony Barthel

I like that. I'll buy that. And that's to have things like the wheel bearings, brakes, axles, all checked and some of them have maintenance procedures that need to be done. Like wheel bearings, we have the wheel bearings on this trailer serviced annually. And the way we do that is we take to a dude, but they pull the wheel off, and open up the wheel assembly, and clean and re grease the bearings.

Tony Barthel

We like that because if they pull the wheel assembly, or if they pull the brake drum off to do this, they can also inspect the brakes.

Speaker 4

Correct.

Tony Barthel

Now if we like last year when we had it done, they're like, oh, there's barely any wear on your brakes. We wouldn't feel uncomfortable about greasing the bearings in this simple, like a lot of them have a provision to just put new grease in. Because they were so there was so little wear last year, I wouldn't feel uncomfortable, but it, you know, always best practice to have that just disassembled and cleaned and and checked.

Peggy Barthel

If in doubt, check it out.

Tony Barthel

Yeah, that's right. And just again, back to looking for rust or any frame damage or any other signs of wear that are uncomfortable. That's like your once a year and again you're still going to go around and check all your seals and lights and and all of that. So you know it's it's not a huge amount of stuff, but it sure will make a difference in how long your RV lasts.

Peggy Barthel

So as a reminder these checklists are available on an article called checklists make for stressless camping, and we will of course put the links to that. Also very recently, Lippert sent out an article about how to grease a trailer.

Tony Barthel

Yeah. Lippert and Dexter both have good articles and videos about this if you're a DIYer, and you know you save decent amount of money by DIY ing it, doing it your yourself. We'll put a link to that article and the video that Dexter put out in the show notes.

Peggy Barthel

Okay. So one thing that we mentioned when we were talking about checking your batteries and maintaining your batteries, lithium batteries, you don't gotta.

Tony Barthel

Yeah. There's no routine maintenance whatsoever with lithium batteries. And contrary to popular belief, they can withstand, uh, sub freezing temperatures, but again, you'll you can't charge them, but you can use them down to depends on the battery, but down to sub freezing temperatures. That's another reason we love our power system from ABC Outfitters.

Peggy Barthel

Yeah. Just so we have one less thing to look at. Yeah.

Tony Barthel

And I ripped in maintenance. In fact, right now, we are boondocking as we record this Yeah. And using our power system.

Peggy Barthel

Indeed.

Tony Barthel

And it's all Master Bolt components, which are marine grade components. They come out of the marine industry. So if you're on your fancy yacht, you really have no tolerance for these systems failing and Right. They tend not to. They're very well designed.

Tony Barthel

ABC Outfitters does a great job configuring and installing these systems. So if you've been thinking, I need to do more off grid camping, or just want a battery system that doesn't require a bunch of maintenance and fiddling and worry, the folks at ABC Outfitters will listen to you. They will check what what your style of camping is and build a system from mini to mighty that's right for you.

Peggy Barthel

So give them a call. That's ABC Outfitters at 574 333-325 or check out their website ABC Upfitters. Now it's probably gonna dotcom. It's probably gonna want to self correct to uplifters. It's not uplifters, it's upfitters.

Peggy Barthel

Yeah. ABC Upfitters.

Tony Barthel

There's a link in the show notes directly to them.

Peggy Barthel

In fact, it says uplift right there on on our show notes.

Tony Barthel

Of course

Speaker 4

it does.

Peggy Barthel

We'll have to fix that.

Tony Barthel

Well, we are coming to you from Kansas City.

Peggy Barthel

That's right.

Tony Barthel

Kansas City, here we are.

Peggy Barthel

We are at a Boondockers welcome site, and when we got here, our host mentioned that his favorite Kansas City barbecue is available just up the street, and it's a place called Zarda.

Tony Barthel

I don't know where I got this from, but I always thought Kansas City barbecue was the mustardy, uh, more vinegary, uh, barbecue sauce, but it ain't. Nope. It's the traditional, you know, sweet ketchup based sauce.

Peggy Barthel

I think you're thinking of South Carolina barbecue.

Tony Barthel

Yeah. I think so. So anyway, no, it's it's your traditional barbecue, and something that's very popular here or something the area is known for is something called burnt ends.

Speaker 4

Mhmm.

Tony Barthel

Which is sort of the end piece of is it pork? I guess so. Right? Pork or beef?

Peggy Barthel

I think it's I don't know.

Tony Barthel

I don't either.

Peggy Barthel

And yet we have some more to go back and find out.

Speaker 4

I have

Peggy Barthel

to go back. Sorry everybody from Kansas City who's phoning into this right now. Like, what's wrong with you?

Tony Barthel

What's wrong with you guys?

Peggy Barthel

All we know is it was delicious.

Tony Barthel

It was it was definitely meat. Uh, beef beef.

Peggy Barthel

It was definitely meat.

Tony Barthel

It was definitely meat. Yeah.

Peggy Barthel

They don't have burnt tofu ends hardly anywhere.

Tony Barthel

Oh, gosh. Yeah. This is wrong. And now the tofu people are mad

Speaker 4

at us.

Tony Barthel

But this is Artis. It was okay. We got sliced brisket. We got a like a combination. Yeah.

Tony Barthel

We got a lot of things. We got sausage, brisket, burnt ends, ribs, and chicken, and they have beans that have the burnt ends in them too. Oh, and we got these like fried corn

Peggy Barthel

Corn nuggets. Nuggets. Now the interesting thing to me was the sausage. I thought there would be, you know, some like big links that maybe were cut in half or thirds. It was super thinly sliced, so they were kind of big around, maybe 2 inch diameter sausages, but very thinly sliced, and that was an interesting way of serving it to me.

Peggy Barthel

Yeah.

Tony Barthel

It was

Peggy Barthel

a new new way for me.

Tony Barthel

Well, and the brisket too

Peggy Barthel

Those are good.

Tony Barthel

Other than the burnt ends.

Peggy Barthel

Yeah.

Tony Barthel

The burnt ends were cubes of meat.

Peggy Barthel

Yeah.

Tony Barthel

The beans were I thought were really good.

Speaker 4

Mhmm.

Tony Barthel

The I don't know. It was it was I've had better, but I've had worse.

Peggy Barthel

But it was certainly convenient.

Tony Barthel

Oh, it was very convenient, and it was it was tasty.

Peggy Barthel

And as soon as we're done here, we're gonna go get something from somewhere else. So we have something to compare to.

Speaker 4

Absolutely. We'll put

Tony Barthel

a link to Sarda's in the show notes somewhere to check out in Kansas City.

Peggy Barthel

So let us know if you have a favorite Kansas City barbecue by the time you tell us we'll be leaving Kansas City, but I'm sure we'll be back another time.

Tony Barthel

Absolutely. Yeah. We'll definitely be back here. We have something brand new for all of you. We have a new video RV review every week.

Tony Barthel

There's our commitment. That includes something else we've developed, the RV report card.

Peggy Barthel

Damn.

Tony Barthel

And so this week, uh, the first one last week we shared with you the Thor Hybrid Motorhome. That didn't really have an RV report card because it was really a prototype this is also a prototype but closer to production and it's a Riverside retro cabover trailer called the 145BT we will put a link to that review but check it out it's it's a cute cute trailer that has a vintage look, but is really fully modern. Something to check out, and check out our new RV report card. Let let us know what you think of that.

Peggy Barthel

Yeah. Quick reminder, we are still collecting stories for the Halloween episode. Our least popular, but most favorite episode of the year.

Tony Barthel

Yeah.

Peggy Barthel

So if you have a nice spooky camping story, please let us know. You can email us at happycamper@stresslesscamping.com or you can reach us in all those social places we always talk about. Yep. And if you'd like to read it to us

Speaker 4

Oh, yeah. And it

Peggy Barthel

can be in

Speaker 4

your voice instead of ours, even better.

Peggy Barthel

Last week, on our question, of ours, even better. Last week on

Speaker 4

our question of the week, I asked

Peggy Barthel

how you feel about non resident park camp fees. Now most of the responses understood and you know, I think I mentioned last week as an in state, as a resident, I think I mentioned last week as an in state as a resident of a state, you some of your taxes that you're paying go to the state park maintenance, and so you're already kind of paying that extra fee. Most people understand that and they don't mind a small, not unreasonable extra fee. I mean, some, uh, somebody said that one state that they won't go to anymore to state parks, like doubles the fee, which makes it more expensive than a campground. So anyway, Brian though, his comment was really smart.

Peggy Barthel

He said that the way they should do it is charge a fee, and if you live in state, you get a discount, rather than tacking on an extra fee if you don't live in state. It just turns out the same, but it just sounds better. But as Tony pointed out, the government's not really that good at marketing.

Tony Barthel

Not really.

Peggy Barthel

So thank you all for your answers on that. This week I wanted to know if you would please share your funniest camping memory.

Tony Barthel

Yeah. We've had some This is gonna be good.

Peggy Barthel

We've had some good laughs recently. Tony and I probably have different answers. So I think we'll each have to go into the group and answer these questions ourselves and tell our stories, but I expect some good belly laughs.

Tony Barthel

Absolutely.

Peggy Barthel

And I can't wait to read your hilarious camping stories.

Tony Barthel

And you can answer that question and ask your own and such on our fun and friendly Stressless Campers Facebook page. Group. Group. Group.

Peggy Barthel

For Stressless Campers Facebook group. Yeah. Also, you can sign up for the newsletter anywhere on the website, the bottom of every page, sometimes embedded in the middle of a story. You never know where you're gonna find it. Yeah.

Peggy Barthel

A chance to sign up for a once a week newsletter that is free and has links to stories and videos and podcasts and anything that we find that we think will help you. RV reviews. Oh, RV reviews. Anything that we think that will help you get the most out of your RV experience.

Tony Barthel

Yeah. Just visit our website and and sign up there. It's free. We never sell your information. None of that.

Tony Barthel

You will also find on our website the show notes for this episode, which is episode number 277 on the podcast page at stresslesscampingdot

Peggy Barthel

com. And then on the deals and discounts page at stresslesscamping.com, you'll find the best deals on things you'll need for your stressless camping adventure.

Tony Barthel

Oh, and if you've got a great deal for our audience, let us know.

Peggy Barthel

Let us know, Period.

Tony Barthel

Yeah. Yeah.

Peggy Barthel

Of course, we are on all those social places I talked about. You can start by looking at stressless camping.com. And when you've read through all the pages that we mentioned, you can jump off on the top right corner are all the links to the social places where we are.

Tony Barthel

And if you don't wanna miss a future episode of the Stressless Camping podcast, it is free to subscribe on any podcast app. Or if you're on YouTube, don't forget to like and subscribe there. That's also free. Wow. It's like a free bonanza.

Peggy Barthel

Free for all.

Tony Barthel

Yeah. We are always saving you a seat around our virtual campfire.

Peggy Barthel

We do ask that you remember that a review really, really helps us and helps others find the podcast and helps others find the YouTube channel. And the more listeners and watchers we have mean we can get more guests so that you can listen to someone other than us. Yeah. So thank you all of you who have written a review and if you haven't, you know, I'll help you word it if

Speaker 4

you want.

Tony Barthel

Sample review.

Peggy Barthel

Here's a sample.

Speaker 4

Yeah.

Peggy Barthel

Copy and paste. I'm kidding of course. But if you would please write us a review. And if you've written a review already and you still wanna help, you can share things that we write on the website. You can share things that we post on Facebook or in all the social places and just share those with others.

Peggy Barthel

You can use links from our website to answer questions that you see in the social places. And sharing is caring and sharing helps us an awful lot as well.

Tony Barthel

It sure does. So, well, we appreciate you. We appreciate that you're back again this week. It was great meeting some of you last week. That was pretty awesome.

Tony Barthel

With that, we wish you stressless camping.

Speaker 5

We hope you learned a lot and had some fun and got some tips for your next stress less camping adventure. We're honored by your reviews on Apple Podcasts, which helps others find us too. Don't forget to subscribe so you won't miss out on the adventure, and we look forward to your joining us next week. Until then, happy camping.

Peggy Barthel

And that will blow the air out.

Tony Barthel

The water.

Peggy Barthel

I'm sorry. The woman that blow the air out. That'll blow the water out.

Tony Barthel

That'll blow some

Speaker 4

air

Tony Barthel

out too.