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How To STAY WARM in an RV – Survival Tips for Winter RVing!

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Winter RVing is loads of fun, but figuring out how to stay warm in an RV on those chilly winter mornings and long cold dark evenings makes all the difference between having a great time and wishing you were in a house. Going to a southern state is a good start, but it may not always fit with your overall full-time RVing itinerary. You might get caught in an early winter storm, like we did in one year in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains. Or you might get whipped by a blizzard on your way south, as has happened to some of our snowbirding friends who wanted to celebrate the holidays at home in Montana before trekking south to Arizona in January.

Here are some tips for ways we’ve found to stay warm in our RV in winter…

Winter RVing Tips How To Stay Warm in an RV

Brrr…How do you stay warm inside of this??

WINTER RV TIP #1 – STAY IN BED UNDER THE COVERS TIL SPRING!

One winter RVing tip is to go to bed and stay in bed until the spring wildflowers begin to bloom. Our two little RV companions, Chrissy the cockatoo and Weazie the ferret (named for former beloved pets) seem to have decided to go that route this year.

Winter RVing how to keep warm in an RV

One solution – jump under the covers and stay there until Spring!!

WINTER RV TIP #2 – GET AN EFFICIENT SPACE HEATER!

A better option is to get a good and efficient heater. The factory installed propane furnaces that come with most RVs is very inefficient. The blower uses a lot of electricity. What’s worse, the heater goes through a lot of propane, because much of the hot air is exhausted outside the RV (just go outside on a cold day and put your hands by the RV furnace vent — they’ll be warm in a jiffy!).

If you will be plugging into electric hookups a lot, and staying for just a few days at a time in most of the places you travel to (with no metering on the electricity and unlimited power built into the overnight camping fee), then it makes sense to get a really great electric space heater.

WINTER RV TIP #3 – INSTALL A VENT-FREE PROPANE HEATER!

If you are going to be boondocking (or dry camping), out in the southwestern deserts — or even in Florida or Texas — then you will need an RV heater that is efficient both in its use of electricity and its use of propane. The best option is a vent-free propane heater.

Winter RV tips vent-free blue flame propane heater

We LOVE our vent-free propane heater.

We have been using ours since Mark installed it in 2008, both during the winter and the summer, and we love it. We have a whole blog post explaining how this kind of heater works, what the technologies are behind the different styles of vent-free propane heaters on the market, what kind of heat each type of heater produces, and how to install one here:

Choosing and Installing a Vent-Free Propane Heater in an RV

We have used this heater from sea level to 10,000′ altitude year round, and we share some tips for heating strategies we’ve used when we’ve camped on a lofty mountaintop as temps plummeted and a snowstorm rolled in:

How to Heat an RV in Cold Weather and Winter Snowstorms

 

WINTER RV TIP #4 – GET A PORTABLE VENT-FREE PROPANE HEATER!

Mr Buddy Portable Propane Heater Staying warm in an RV

A portable vent-free propane heater is an easy way to go.

If you love the idea of using an efficient propane heater that doesn’t use any electricity, but you’re not keen on doing a permanent installation, another great option is to get a portable propane heater.

 

WINTER RV TIP #5 – INSTALL A VENT-FREE PROPANE FIREPLACE!

Pleasant Hearth Vent-Free Propane Fireplace 35 inch

How about a vent-free propane FIREPLACE?!!

On the other hand, if you are outfitting the RV of your dreams for a life of full-time RV travel or of winter snowbirding RV adventures, then you might consider installing a vent-free propane fireplace that is built into an elegant mantel. These heaters give off the same incredible heat as the more industrial looking vent-free propane heaters, but they have the cozy and inviting appearance of a fireplace and produce a beautiful (and mesmerizing) flame. What a great addition to an RV!!

 

 

WINTER RV TIP #6 – SHRINK-WRAP YOUR RV SCREEN DOOR!

One of the easiest ways to winterize an RV is to shrink-wrap the screen door. By covering the screen door with a thin layer of plastic, you can keep the big RV door open all day long, close the screen door, and let the sunshine fill your rig with light and warmth. It is really surprising that just a thin layer of plastic on the door is all it takes to keep the cold air out and let the warm air in (if you aren’t in sub-freezing temps!!).

Winter RVing Tips Shrink-wrap RV screen door

Shrink-wrapping our RV screen door keeps the cold air out and lets the sun shine in!

We learned this trick from our RVing mentors, Bob and Donna Lea, in our first winter of RVing back in 2007-08. The beauty is that the installation of the shrink-wrap is less than a one hour job, and you can remove it in the springtime in just a few minutes.

Winter RVing how to stay warm in an RV use Window Shrink Film

Window shrink-film kit

We love having shrink-wrap on our screen door so much that we’ve gone through quite a few summers without removing it. Up in the mountains, it can be chilly in the summertime, with a brisk breeze blowing into the rig in the mornings, so the shrink-wrap can work its magic there too, and it also keeps the dust out.

This year, however, we took the shrink-wrap off our screen door when we got into the heat and humidity of the northeastern states in August, so we had to reinstall it just a few weeks ago.

To get started, all you need is

  1. Pair of scissors
  2. Razor blade (or boxcutter or sharp knife)
  3. Hair Dryer
  4. Window Shrink Film kit
Winter RVing Tips - Tools to Shrink-wrap RV screen door

All the tools we used to shrink-wrap our screen door.

The window shrink film kit comes with double-sided tape, and all you have to do is outline the door with the tape, remove the backing, press the plastic onto the tape, trim off the excess and then heat it up with a hair dryer to make the plastic taught. It is best to clean the frame of the door with alcohol or film remover first so the tape adheres well.

Winterize an RV screen door attach double-sided tape

Press the double-sided tape along the frame of the door, going around the plastic sliding insert
by the door handle.

Go around the little slider opening for the door handle, because you need to be able to slide this open and closed (the shrink-wrap is covering only the screened parts of the door!). Then peel the backing off the tape all the way around the door.

Winter RVing winterize screen door remove tape backing

Remove the backing from the tape.

Press the plastic onto the sticky tape around the door frame.

Winter RV Tips - Winterize screen door and hang plastic shrink film

Hang the shrink wrap around the door frame.

Then use a razor blade to trim off the excess all the way around the door. Get the plastic as taught as you can. It doesn’t have to be perfect, though, because all the wrinkles will be taken care of in the next step.

Winterize RV screen door - trim off excess plastic shrink film

Use a razor blade or box cutters to trim off the excess plastic.

Using the hair dryer on the high setting, wave it gently back and forth over the edges of the door. The plastic will miraculously shrink up and become taught.

Shrink-wrap RV screen door and use hair dryer to shrink plastic film

Use a hair dryer on the high setting to shrink up the plastic along the door frame.

Once you’ve gone around the frame of the door, wave the hair dryer across the middle to tighten that up too. Keep the hair dryer moving so it doesn’t melt the plastic in one spot.

Shrink-wrap RV screen door and shrink plastic film with hair dryer

Keep the hair dryer moving and wave it across the plastic to tighten it up.

If it’s cold out, you can always give yourself a blow dry too!

That hot air feels good!

.

Once it is done, open the outer RV door open and close the screen door. The warm sun will pour in, but the cool breezes will stay outside!

Winterize RV screen door sunshine comes in

Morning sunshine fills our kitchen

Note: Since publishing this post, we have refined our shrink-wrap system even further. We have found that it is easy to make this into a Dual Pane system but adding a second layer of shrink-wrap film on the INSIDE of the RV door. What a world of difference this second layer makes!!

 

WINTER RV TIP #7 – ORIENT THE RV WINDOWS (and DOOR) TOWARDS THE SUN

Every RV floorplan is different, with the largest windows and the door placed in various locations, depending on how long it is and whether it’s a trailer or a motorhome. Take a look at where your biggest windows are, and try to orient the rig so those windows are in the sun for most of the day.

Our biggest windows are in a big slideout on the curb side (passenger side) of the trailer and also in the rear of the coach. So, in the wintertime we are best off orienting our rig with the truck headed northeast. This places our biggest windows towards the southeast and southwest.

In the summertime, the opposite is true as we try to avoid having our windows facing the sun. Our best orientation in the summertime is for the truck to be headed northwest. This way, although we get blasted with some sun in the morning, our biggest windows are blissfully shaded during the long hours of blazing hot sun as it shines from the south and sets in the northwest.

This does place our RV refrigerator in direct sunlight during the hottest hours of the day in the summer, but we’ve never had trouble keeping our food cold with the fridge on the highest setting during those hot months (of course, our fridge died recently, but we discovered that that was to be expected because of its age!).

How to stay warm in an RV Orient the RV windows towards the Sun

For our rig, it’s best to orient the truck to the northwest in summer and the northeast in winter.

Note that the sun doesn’t travel the same arc in the sky in the summer months as it does in the winter, as shown by the orange arrows in the graphic above.

In the dead of summer, the sun rises in the northeast and sets in the northwest. During the day it is high in the sky, almost directly overhead. In mid-winter, the sun rises in the southeast and sets in the southwest, traversing a very low arc in the sky. At its highest, the sun is only halfway up the sky. These low angles are advantageous for keeping an RV warm in winter, however, as the sun shines directly in the windows into the center of the coach.

WINTER RV TIP #8 – INSULATE THE HATCH VENTS

The RV roof may have some fabulously high R-rating that the manufacturer proudly touted when you bought it, but that applies only to the parts of the roof that are solid. Most RV vent hatch covers are thin pieces of plastic, and they don’t have much of an R-factor at all.

You can give the vent hatch covers a hand by using a hatch vent insulator. These have reflective insulation on one side to make them even more effective.

How to keep warm in an RV Hatch vent insulating pillow

A hatch vent insulator really helps!.

Another option is to cut styrofoam to the exact dimensions of the hatches. When we bought our fifth wheel trailer from the manufacturer NuWa Industries, we asked them to cut four pieces of the Blue Dow insulating styrofoam that they used in the walls to the exact dimensions of our four roof hatches.

The great thing about having insulation on the hatches is that they work both summer and winter. We often use ours in the summertime when we leave the rig for the daytime hours.

Another helpful benefit is that they block out all light. So, if you are parked under a bright light or there is a full moon that wakes you up as it shines right in your eyes, you can block out the light with an insulator in the bedroom hatch.

How to stay warm in an RV hatch vent insulation

We use Blue Dow foam from the fifth wheel walls cut to the dimension of our hatches

 

WINTER RV TIP #9 – DEALING WITH CONDENSATION!

One of the biggest annoyances in cold, winter weather in an RV, is condensation. If you run a vent-free propane heater while boondocking, whether it’s a portable heater or one that is permanently installed, condensation will build up on the insides of the windows when the dew point is at a certain level.

Condensation on an RV window in winter

Insulation on our windows – ugh!

You can minimize the condensation build-up by running the RV furnace for a while to blow out the moist air. You can also open a window a crack, or open the RV door for a bit.

Absorber XL towel wipe away condensation

Absorber towels sop up moisture with ease.

The fastest way to deal with the condensation is simply to wipe it off with an Absorber towel. As the name implies, these towels are incredibly absorbant. They are most effective when they are damp, so they come with a little plastic container that will keep them damp for months.

Simply wipe the window and then wring out the towel. And repeat. Once the window is dry, give it a final swipe with a soft microfiber towel. This gets rid of any streaks.

To make your life easier during the winter condensation season, remove the window screens and put them in a closet. This way, you aren’t fighting with the screens every time you wipe down the insides of the windows.

How much do we love our Absorber towels? We have two — blue for him and red for me!

 

WINTER RV TIP #10 – INSULATE THE WINDOWS AT NIGHT

Like the big roof insulation R-factor that doesn’t account for the hatch vents, the well advertised high R-factor in the walls doesn’t account for the windows, which is where much of the heat in a rig escapes, especially at night. Closing the blinds makes a difference. When we’re in a remote area with no one around, we prefer to keep the blinds open so the first light of morning fills the rig. But we can’t do this in the wintertime unless we want to wake up to a rig that is 5 degrees cooler than it could be.

Likewise, on the worst of the cold winter nights, covering the windows with Reflectix insulation makes a big difference. This aluminum foil insulation comes in a big roll, and you can cut it to the exact dimensions of each window. Just use a marker to write on each one which window it’s for.

To put one of these window insulators in place, simply hold it against the glass and then lower the blinds over it. In the case of our biggest one in the back of the rig, we rest the bottom of it on a spare pillow so it doesn’t slip down.

Reflectix insulation keeps heat from escaping out an RV window

The window-sized piece of Reflectix Insulation is held in place by the window shade.

We keep all of them rolled up together in a closet and use them both summer and winter. In the summertime, they help immensely with keeping the heat out during the day.

 

WINTER RV TIP #11 – USE THE OVEN

One of our favorite ways of warming up the inside of our buggy is by baking. Mark is the Resident Baker in our household, and there is nothing like a batch of yummy muffins or a fresh loaf of banana bread coming out of the oven to warm us up inside and out!

How to stay warm in an RV baking muffins

On a brisk morning, there’s nothing like a fresh loaf of banana bread coming out of the oven!

After the baking is done and the oven is off, we keep the oven door open for a while so we can enjoy the residual warmth as it cools down. By the way, we recently discovered Chiquita banana bread mix, which is absolutely delicious and tastes just like a loaf made from scratch. It requires two bananas, and lately Mark has been adding raisins to it too.

On a cold afternoon, we’ll bake something in the oven for dinner. The longer it takes, the warmer the buggy will get during the baking process! Anything from frozen pot pies or lasagna to a whole chicken does the trick nicely.

 

WINTER RV TIP #12 – DO SOME EXERCISES

As soon as we wake up in the morning, we do some modest exercises. We might be shivering when we first turn on the vent-free heater, but a quickie round of 25 sit-ups and pushups always gets the blood flowing, and by the time we get in a few rounds with the hand weights, we’re sweating and turning the heater off!

This is also a great way to work off those extra calories from the tasty muffins, sweet breads and pies that keep coming out of our oven!

Exercise to keep warn in an RV in winter

One way to take the chill off — do a set of sit-ups. Still cold? Roll over and do a set of push-ups!

 

WINTER RV TIP #13 – PLAY THE FIREPLACE DVD

Fireplace DVD How to stay warm in an RV

Fireplace video.

This may sound a little goofy, but a video of a fire burning in a fireplace is really fun and makes the rig cozy. The video simply shows logs in a fireplace burning down to embers, accompanied by the crackling sound a fire makes. It is surprisingly realistic, and quite funky. The crazy thing is that whenever we play it, the person sitting in the recliner closest to the TV always feels a little warm on the side by the fire!

 

WINTER RV TIP #14 – INSULATE THE HOT WATER HEATER and HOT WATER PIPES

To conserve propane, we always heat the water just once a day, right before we take our showers. After we’re done, we have warm water for dishes, etc. By insulating the hot water heater, the water stays warmer longer. We also put insulating pipe foam on the hot water pipes that run from the heater to the shower and the vanity and kitchen sinks.

Taking a shower in an RV in the winter can be a numbing experience if temps got to freezing the night before, no matter how hot the water is in the hot water heater, because the cold water has to run through the pipes before the hot water reaches you in the shower.

If we are conserving water, we’ll bring a small cooking pot into the shower and run the cold water into it. Then we’ll warm that water up on the stove later for dishes or whatever. Even though it’s less than a quart of water, this way it’s not wasted on our bodies as we hop around in the shower shouting expletives and soaping up our goose bumps!

For more tips on heating an RV, see these articles:

How to Heat an RV in Snow Storms and at High Elevations

How to Install a Vent-Free Propane Heater in an RV

 
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RV Solar Panels – Flexible or Rigid? 12 or 24 volt? Mono or Poly? Yikes!

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There are a lot of decisions to make when you install solar panels on an RV or boat. Some of the most basic are: what size solar panels to buy, whether to go with flexible solar panels or aluminum framed rigid panels, whether the solar cells should be monocrystalline or polycrystalline, and whether to install nominal 12 volt or 24 volt panels.

We have done several RV and marine solar panel installations, and we have used not only 12 volt and 24 volt panels of various sizes but we have also used both aluminum framed rigid solar panels and the newer semi-flexible solar panels. We have also worked with both monocrystalline and polycrystalline solar panels. This article outlines the pros and cons of the various types and sizes of solar panels and offers some things to think about when you are deciding which solar panels to buy for your RV or boat.

RV solar panel selection

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Our article RV Solar Power Made Simple explains how to determine the overall wattage for an RV solar power installation. In general, a weekend / vacation RV can get by with 200 watts or less while a full-time solar power system is best with 500 watts or more.

SOLAR PANEL SIZE and PLACEMENT

Once you decide on overall capacity for your solar panel array, the next thing to think about is solar panel placement and wiring. The panels should be a matched set of identical or nearly identical panels. If you have a lot of real estate on the RV roof, then you can get a few big panels. If you have a truck camper or your RV roof is cluttered with a lot of things on it already (hatches, vents, antennas, etc.), then you may need to go with smaller panels that can be squeezed in and around everything else.

Solar panel installation on a ffith wheel RV

Our fifth wheel trailer is powered by four 120 & 130 watt 12 volt rigid polycrystalline solar panels wired in series

WHAT VOLTAGE IS THAT SOLAR PANEL?

Solar panels are constructed internally with DC wiring, and they are sized to work on 12 or 24 volt circuits. So, they are commonly referred to as 12 or 24 volt solar panels. What’s confusing is that while the nominal voltage of a solar panel may be 12 or 24 volts, the open circuit voltage is higher. So, for a nominal 12 volt solar panel that is 100 watts, the open circuit voltage (“Voc“) will be 17 or 18 volts. Likewise, for a nominal 24 volt panel, the Voc will be 34 to 36 volts.

Also, smaller solar panels (both physically and in terms of watts) are typically nominal 12 volt panels while larger panels are typically 24 volts. Solar panels under about 150 watts in size are usually 12 volt panels. Solar panels over about 150 watts are usually 24 volt panels.

Solar panel installation on a sailboat

For nearly four years, we sailed our boat on Mexico’s coast relying on three 185 watt 24 volt
polycrystalline rigid solar panels, wired in parallel, for all our electrical needs.

Solar panels work best when they are a matched set. The electrical characteristics of all the solar panels in the array need to be very similar, preferably identical. When upgrading a solar power array this can make things complicated as you try to mix and match old small panels with new big ones.

One technique for upgrading is to wire two 12 volt solar panels in series to work on a 24 volt circuit. For instance, if you have two 100 watt 12 volt panels and you are buying a 200 watt 24 volt panel, you can wire the two 100 watt panels in series and then wire that pair in parallel with the new 200 watt solar panel.

This will work as long as the electrical characteristics of the pair of solar panels in series match the electrical characteristics of the single panel that is wired in parallel with them.

THE EFFECT OF SHADE ON SOLAR PANELS

Shade is the biggest enemy of any solar power installation. Unbelievable as it seems, a tiny bit of shade will effectively shut down a solar panel. The impact is dramatic: a few square inches of shade can drop a solar panels current production down from 8 amps to 2 amps. A few more square inches of shade can drop the current production to 0.

Before deciding on the size of the panels, it is worthwhile to take some time to study the various things that might cast shade across them once they are in place. A closed hatch may cause little shade, but when it is open on a hot day, depending on where the sun is in the sky, it might cast a big shadow across a nearby solar panel. Satellite dishes, air conditioners and even holding tank vents can cast sizable shadows as well.

We put a book in one corner of a 120 watt 12 volt panel and discovered that even though it was a small percentage of the surface area of the panel, that 8.5″ x 11″ book was enough to knock down the current production of a 120 watt solar panel by 80%. Rather than producing 7 amps, it produced a measly 1.4 amps. Egads!

Shade on one corner of solar panel

Just 8.5″ x 11″ of shade from this book reduced current production by 80%!

Similarly, shade wreaked havoc on our three185 watt 24 volt panels on our sailboat. The shade from our mast traveled across the panels as the boat swung at anchor, and the current production dropped by 1/3 and then by 2/3 as the shade first crossed one of the three panels and then straddled two of them. It did this over and over, with the current rising and falling repeatedly, as the boat slowly swung back and forth at anchor.

Effect of shade on solar panels installed on sailboat

A line of shade from the mast on our sailboat reduced our solar panel array to 65% and then 35% of its capacity as it traveled across the panels and occasionally straddled two of them.

Shade is a huge concern in the solar power industry, and there are several white papers (here’e one) about the impact of shade on commercial solar panel installations. The gist is the importance of spacing the rows of commercial solar panel arrays in such a way that one row of panels doesn’t accidentally shade the bottom inch or so of the next row behind it when the sun is low in the sky.

If it does, the second row of panels shuts down. If there are rows and rows of solar panels spaced like this, none of the panels except the ones in the first row can function until the sun rises a little higher in the sky.

Solar panels are most sensitive to shade along the longest part of the panel, so in the case of our sailboat, when the sun was over our bow, the mast would shade the panels in a strip that had a maximum impact on current production (as you can see in the above photo)!

For RVers, besides rooftop obstructions, shade comes into play primarily if you park near a building or trees. Snowbirds boondocking in the southwest deserts of Arizona and California during the wintertime have little concern with shade from trees and buildings. But summertime RV travelers who boondock in wooded areas need to be cognizant of where the shade from the trees will fall during the course of the day.

WIRING SOLAR PANELS IN PARALLEL vs. IN SERIES

One of the big decisions for a solar power installation on an RV or boat is whether to wire the solar panels in series or in parallel. There are several things to consider when making this decision.

When the solar panels are wired in series, then the developed voltage across all the panels is additive while the current remains constant from panel to panel. That is, if there were four 120 watt 12 volt panels producing 7 amps each, then the developed voltage across all the panels would be 48 volts (12 x 4) while the current would be just 7 amps.

In contrast, when the solar panels are wired in parallel, then the voltage of the panels remains constant through the circuit while the current is additive from panel to panel. For instance, for those same four panels, the developed voltage across them would be 12 volts but the current would be 28 amps (7 x 4).

The solar charge controller takes care of balancing everything out by ensuring the circuit between it and the batteries is 12 volts. In the case of the above solar panels wired in series, the solar charge controller steps down the voltage from 48 volts to 12 volts (if they are 12 volt batteries). The current then increases from 7 amps to 28 amps in the wire run going between the solar charge controller and the batteries.

In the case of the above solar panels wired in parallel, the voltage is already 12 volts, so the solar charge controller does not need to step it down for the batteries.

SHADE EFFECTS on SOLAR PANELS WIRED IN SERIES vs. WIRED IN PARALLEL

When solar panels are wired in series, if shade hits one panel and shuts it down (caused by that solar panel’s internal circuitry building up a massive amount of resistance), then the entire string of solar panels shuts down. For instance, if a tree shaded 1/3 of one solar panel in the string of four panels given above, wired in series, the current production of the entire array of four panels would be reduced to to 0 amps, even though the three other solar panels were in full sun.

In contrast, if the panels are wired in parallel, when shade knocks one panel out, the other panels are unaffected. So, even if 1/3 of one solar panel were shaded, reducing it to 0 amps of current production, the other three would be working just fine. The total current production would be 3/4 of what it could be if that one panel were in full sun (in this case, 21 amps), rather than 0 amps.

So, it would seem that the best way to wire solar panels is in parallel.

Unfortunately, it’s not that easy, and here’s why:

CURRENT and WIRE SIZE in a SOLAR PANEL INSTALLATION

The more amps of current there are flowing in a circuit, the thicker the wire needs to be to ensure that no energy is lost to heat. Unfortunately, thicker, heavier gauge wire is a pain to work with. It’s stiff and doesn’t bend around corners easily. It is hard to tighten down in the solar charge controller connections and it’s hard to crimp ring terminals onto. It is also more expensive per foot.

So, when the solar panels are wired in series, a thinner gauge wire can be used for a given distance than when they are wired in parallel.

Of course, the thickness of the wire is also dependent on the length of the wire. The longer a wire is, the more energy is lost along its length. So, if you are installing the solar panels high on an arch off the aft end of a 50′ sailboat and the batteries are located at the bottom of the hull over the keel, the wire must be a lot heavier gauge than if you are installing the panels on an RV roof directly above the battery compartment.

What is the price difference in the cable? We like to use Ancor Marine Cable because it is tinned and it is very supple (the copper is fine stranded). Here are the price differences for 25′ of 2 gauge wire as compared to 25′ of 10 gauge wire.

Ultimately, there is a dilemma: Is it better to go for thinner, cheaper wire and an easier installation, and wire the panels in series, risking that the whole array will shut down whenever a corner of one panel is shaded by a nearby tree? Or is it better to pay the extra bucks for heavier gauge wire and endure a more challenging installation but have a system that will be more tolerant of partial shade?

What to do?

SOLAR PANEL VOLTAGE and WIRE SIZE

Luckily, there is another option: higher voltage solar panels can be wired with thinner gauge wire. Remember, Watts = Current x Voltage. So, for the same number of watts in a panel, a higher voltage panel will produce a smaller amount of current.

Rather than using four 120 watt 12 volt panels wired in parallel that would produce 28 amps at 12 volts, you can use two 240 watt 24 volt panels wired in parallel that produce 14 amps at 24 volts. The net effect on the battery bank will be the same, but the bigger panels can be wired with smaller gauge wire.

As mentioned above, the wiring that is most affected by these solar panel choices is the wiring that runs from the solar panels to the solar charge controller. The wiring from the solar charge controller to the batteries is the same in either configuration, as the same amount of current will be flowing in that wire regardless of how the solar panels are wired. In the case of solar panels wired in parallel, the voltage will be stepped down in the solar charge controller. So, in our example, the solar charge controller will step down the voltage from 48 volts to 12 volts, ensuring that the circuitry between the solar charge controller and the batteries is at operating at 12 volts.

CHOOSING THE OPTIMAL WIRE GAUGE

The thickness of the wire, or wire gauge, depends entirely on how long the wire is going to be. That is, the wire gauge is determined by how far apart the solar panels and the solar charge controller and the batteries are.

Why is this? The more current that flows in a wire, the more the conductor in the wire will warm up. The more it warms up, the more energy is lost to heat. Eventually, this becomes measurable as a voltage loss between the two end points.

When wiring solar power circuits, you can choose how much voltage loss you are willing to have. Somewhere between 2.5% and 5% is typically considered okay. There are voltage loss tables that will help you decide on the proper wire gauge size for the distance you are spanning between the solar panels and the solar charge controller and between there and the batteries. Here’s a good one:

AWG Voltage Loss Table

An Example: 480 watts of solar power located 27′ from the batteries

  • Say we have four 120 watt 12 volt panels wired in series. If the distance is going to be 27′, then by looking at the third chart at the above link (the 12 volt chart) and going to the line for 8 amps flowing in the wire, it shows a wire run of up to 27′ can be done with 10 gauge wire.
  • Now, imagine putting those same panels in parallel. 32 amps will flow at 12 volts. For that same 27′ distance you’ll need 2 gauge wire.
  • Lastly, instead of using four 120 watt 12 volt panels, use two 240 watt 24 volt panels wired in parallel. For this you use the 2nd chart down (24 volt chart). There will be 16 amps flowing in the wire at 24 volts. You will be able use 8 gauge wire.

Of course, due to the nature of multi-stage battery charging and the changing position (and angle) of the sun in the sky, the solar panels will be operating at full tilt for a very short time each day. They may produce max current for 30 minutes near noon as they wrap up the Bulk Stage, however, as the Absorb stage takes over and continues in the afternoon, the solar charge controller will gradually hold the panels back so they produce far less than max current.

With less than peak current flowing in the wires, less energy will be lost to heat.

If this is confusing, see our articles:
RV and Marine Battery Charging Basics
How Solar Charge Controllers Work

So, although it may seem dire that you’re wiring is on the hairy edge size-wise, it is only that way for a little while each day. Depending on the overall size of the solar power array, the size of the battery bank, and the state of discharge when the batteries wake up in the morning, your system may not even hit the theoretical maximum current production or even come close.

MULTIPLE SOLAR CHARGE CONTROLLERS

Another method of keeping the wire size down is to install more than one big solar charge controller. For instance, you might install several smaller charge controllers for each pair of panels wired in series, or perhaps even one for each panel. Of course, this adds complexity and expense, and you will probably buy less sophisticated solar charge controllers that have fewer programming options than a single big one.

You must run more wires between the RV roof and the location in the coach where the solar charge controllers are installed (preferably next to the batteries), and so you must not only pay for additional solar charge controllers, but you must buy more wire and install it all. However, this design option does deserve mention and consideration.

TILTING THE SOLAR PANELS

Solar panels perform a whole lot better in the summer than in the winter. This is because the sun rides much higher in the sky and its rays hit the panels at a nearly perpendicular angle in the summertime. The days are also a whole lot longer. In the winter, the sun’s rays hit the panels at an angle and the sun is only out for a short while.

Solar panels on a fifth wheel RV roof

Tilting solar panels in winter can improve current production by 30%
Or…install more panels and save yourself from climbing up and down the RV ladder!

To get around this, rather than using ordinary Z-brackets to mount their solar panels on the roof, many RVers use tilting brackets. By tilting the panels towards the sun at about a 45 degree angle (technically, at the angle of your latitude), then the sun’s rays hit the panels at a nice 90 degree angle if they are oriented to face south. This can increase the overall power production by about 30% on a sunny winter day.

The only problem is that you have to climb up on the roof to tilt the panels each time you set up camp and then climb up again later to lay them flat when you are packing up before you drive away. We’ve seen many a winter snowbird driving their RV around with the solar panels still raised.

An alternative is simply to install more solar panels and to keep them lying flat all the time. This is easy for a big RV that has a huge roof but is not so easy for a little trailer with a small roof. We have not installed tilting brackets on our trailers.

MONOCRYSTALLINE vs. POLYCRYSTALLINE SOLAR CELLS

Monocrystalline solar panel

Monocrystalline
solar panel

There are lots of different kinds of solar panels on the market today. There are two primary types of solar cells used in the manufacture of solar panels: monocrystalline and polycrystalline.

Monocrystalline solar panels are more efficient and more expensive, but they are also extremely intolerant of shade. Polycrystalline panels are slightly less efficient and less expensive, but they handle partial shade just a smidge better.

The way to tell if a solar panel is monocrystalline or polycrystalline is to look at the pattern of rectangles on the panel itself.

If the circuitry between the rectangles has large silver diamond shapes, it is monocrystalline. If the pattern of rectangles is just intersecting lines, it is polycrystalline.

Polycrystalline solar panel

Polycrystalline
solar panel

Examples of popular monocrystalline solar panels are here:

Examples of popular polycrystalline solar panels are here:

RIGID ALUMINUM FRAMED SOLAR PANELS vs. SEMI-FLEXIBLE SOLAR PANELS

Flexible solar panel

Flexible solar panel

Solar panels can also be rigid or flexible.

Rigid panels are built with an aluminum frame surrounding tempered glass that covers the solar cells.

Flexible solar panels are built with the solar collecting material impregnated into a thin mylar film that is affixed to an aluminum substrate.

Flexible solar panels are not flimsy, they are simply bendable up to about 30 degrees.

 

There are a number of manufacturers selling flexible solar panels:

FLEXIBLE SOLAR PANEL ADVANTAGES

Flexible solar panels have several advantages over rigid panels. They are a little lighter than framed solar panels and you can glue them onto an RV roof using Dicor Lap Sealant, or something similar. This saves you from the complexity of drilling holes into a perfectly watertight roof and risking creating leaks. This is especially helpful with a fiberglass roof. It takes just a few minutes with a caulk gun to attach these panels to the RV roof.

Another nice feature is that on a rounded roof, like an Airstream travel trailer or Casita travel trailer, the panels can bend to follow the contour of the roof.

Installing solar panels on a motorhome roof

Mark uses Dicor Lap Sealant to affix flexible solar panels to a friend’s fiberglass roof.

One of the most important things for solar panels to work well is heat dissipation. Rigid aluminum framed solar panels stand up off the roof of the RV by about an inch, allowing air to flow underneath and for heat to dissipate. Air can’t flow underneath flexible solar panels. The aluminum substrate serves to dissipate the heat instead. This may or may not be as efficient a method of heat dissipation, and I have heard of a case where all the flexible solar panels on a sailboat had to be replaced after two years because they did not dissipate the heat sufficiently in the tropics and the panels self-destructed.

FLEXIBLE SOLAR PANEL CONSTRUCTION and INSTALLATION

Our RVing friends Dick & Katie asked us to install six 100 watt 12 volt flexible solar panels made by Eco-Worthy on the roof of their motorhome, along with all the other projects involved in an RV solar power installation. Ironically, the hardest part of the entire installation was removing the plastic protection from the aluminum substrate of each panel (it kept ripping!). We all ended up working on this together.

Flexible solar panel installation on an RV

We had a tough time getting the plastic off the back of the Eco-Worthy flexible solar panels

Removing plastic from flexible solar panel

With all of us working together, we got the job done!

Once we got up on the roof, and got past a cute warning from Winnebego, the installation was straight forward.

Warning slippery roof on RV

Hmmm…I wonder what sage advice the manual suggests for this problem?

Solar panel installation on a motorhome RV

Flexible solar panels are lighter than their rigid counterparts

The plastic protection needed to be removed from the face of the panels as well. Interestingly, at one point Mark found himself picking at the corner of the mylar that has the solar collection circuitry embedded in it and almost began to peel that whole layer off the aluminum substrate! But once he got a hold of just the most superficial layer of plastic, it came off easily.

Removing plastic from flexible solar panel

Mark removes the plastic from the face of the flexible solar panels

He used Dicor Lap Sealant to tack down the corners of the panels and then ran a bead around each side of each panel.

FLEXIBLE SOLAR PANEL DISADVANTAGES

Flexible solar panels are less efficient than rigid aluminum framed solar panels, which means you may want to get a few more total watts of solar panels than you would if you were buying framed panels. Bendable panels also can’t be installed on tilting brackets. So, again, buying more total watts may be the best solution.

Flexible solar panels are not as rugged as rigid aluminum framed solar panels built with tempered glass. Overhanging branches can scratch them. This is important for anyone that will be boondocking or dry camping a lot on public lands and in rustic public campgrounds, as it is often impossible to get in or out of a site without ducking under some low lying tree branches.

Some RVers have found that flexible solar panels installed on flat motorhome roofs tend to pool water when it rains. This can lead to debris building up and taking root and damaging the panels.

Perhaps for all these reasons, flexible solar panels are sold with a much shorter warranty than rigid solar panels. Whereas many solar panel manufacturers warranty their tempered glass aluminum framed rigid solar panels for 25 or 30 years, bendable solar panel manufacturers generally warranty their panels for 5 years or less.

This may or may not be relevant for RVers, as the fine print in almost every solar panel manufacturer’s warranty states that their solar panels are not warrantied for use on mobile vehicles.

Also, there has been a huge problem across the entire solar power industry with rigid solar panels failing prematurely in large numbers in big commercial installations (see a May 2013 NY Times article here). Apparently, just because those lovely rigid solar panels are warrantied for decades doesn’t mean they will last that long. We have already had a failure of one of our framed solar panels that was warrantied for 25 years, and we discovered the manufacturer’s warranty did not apply to RV installations.

However, as a general rule, when manufacturers warranty a product for 5 years versus 30 years, it says something about how they think their product will hold up over time.

Flexible solar panels installed on a motorhome RV roof

Nice job! (but don’t fall off that roof!)

CONCLUSION

There are many ways to go about installing solar power on an RV roof, and the solar panels that work best in one installation may not be the same as those that are best for another. Not only is every RV roof different, but every RVer’s needs are different.

If you have loads of space on a big motorhome roof or fifth wheel trailer roof, and you are setting it up for full-time use, you may be best off with three or four 200+ watt 24 volt rigid solar panels wired in parallel. If you have a little tear drop camper you use on weekends and store in the garage, a single flexible 100 watt 12 volt panel may be just the ticket for you.

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RVers Jason and Nikki Wynn have written about the condition of their flexible solar panels after a year of use HERE

When Reality Interferes with Fun RV Travels and Blogging!

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14

This week was one of those weeks where our idyllic lifestyle of sightseeing and playing in beautiful places had to be put on hold while we took care of some important repairs on our fifth wheel trailer. We have been waiting for these repairs since we were in Nova Scotia three months ago where the rough roads bent an axle on our trailer and caused a leak in our fresh water holding tank.

Kansas Sunrise

A stunning Kansas sunrise!

We were able to replace our trailer axle in Maine over two months ago at Harvey RVs, an outstanding RV repair facility in Bangor. Unfortunately, they did not have a fresh water tank in stock that would fit our trailer. I doubt any RV repair facility would stock such a tank, as they are generally custom made to fit between the floor joists, with fixtures and plumbing connections placed in locations that are unique to each RV.

RV fresh water tank in fifth wheel trailer underbelly

Getting ready to remove the fresh water tank.

So, we decided to return to Chanute, Kansas, where our trailer was built in 2007, to have the fresh water tank replacement done at the NuWa service center. We were assured they had the proper fresh water tank in stock.

Since we were relying on our RV extended warranty to cover the fresh water tank replacement cost, we decided to have a few other broken things taken care of at the same time. We had been living with these broken items for a while, as they weren’t too critical, but because each one qualified to be repaired under warranty, we could bundle the repairs together and get them all fixed at once while paying just one warranty deductible for everything.

RV toilet replacement repair

RV toilet rebuild — fun fun fun!!

The day of our repair appointment in Kansas finally came on Monday this week, and we have had a whirlwind (tornado?) of a week as we watched and assisted as many as five mechanics working on our rig at once, all day long, for three days. To add to our own personal confusion, we had to move out of our trailer and into a motel for a few days.

Turmoil in our RV

Chaos reins!

All of our repairs were related to water in some way, with most of them having to do with either our fresh water or sewer water plumbing systems. For the entire job, our precious rolling home straddled an open grate in the floor that serves as the RV dump station for the shop. This is where they fix clogged black tanks and replace broken ones. They had just replaced five black tanks the week before we got there!

RV fresh water holding tank replacement

Our new fresh water tank gets installed.

This meant that for three days both we and the mechanics were lying on and scooting around on the (often wet) floor that was layered with who knows what kind of muck, from who knows whose rigs.

RV holding tank valve replacement

New black tank valve…nice!

Of course, most people don’t hang out with their mechanics when their RV is being worked on, but we were with them every step of the way. We learned a lot about how RVs are put together, and we were able to catch quite a few bloopers that would have bitten us big time down the road.

RV kitchen faucet replacement

A new kitchen faucet goes in.

Being present throughout the repair process ensured us that everything was installed correctly using best practices (i.e., using teflon tape and hose clamps where needed, installing all the o-rings that came with the replacement parts not just some of them, and testing each repair after it was finished). Several projects on our list were done two or three times to get them to 100%.

This was awesome for us in the long run, because we knew our repairs were being done well, but it was exhausting to live through. Needless to say, there wasn’t any creative writing or blogging going on!

Fifth wheel RV window removed

Rear window removed.

But life is groovy once again and our buggy is back together and fully functional. NuWa provides an awesome cleaning service after a repair job, and Sharon did a terrific job making sure our living areas were clean before we left. Once we were back in the wonderful (and nearly free) city RV park, we followed her lead and shampooed the carpets and detailed the exterior of the rig too.

Washing our fifth wheel RV

Working hard…well, one of us is!

With this big interruption behind us, and with a huge sigh of relief, we are now planning to leave Kansas in our wake and head south through Oklahoma and Texas over the next few weeks before turning west. Yay!

Oh yes — and that Trailer Warranty we have through Wholesale Warranties? What great fortune that we had it, as these repairs came to $1,242, and all we had to pay was the $100 deductible.

Note added later: Sadly, we had another major repair waiting for us just a few weeks in the future when our trailer suspension failed when we got to Phoenix, Arizona for the holidays. Here’s how the warranty has worked for us to date:

Here's a summary of what our four year RV warranty through Wholesale Warranties cost, what our repairs WOULD HAVE cost, and what our warranty reimbursements have been to date:

Cost of Warranty $1,904
Total Cost of Repairs we've had done $7,834
Total Out of Pocket Costs for those repairs $1,145
Repair Reimbursements:
Trailer Axle Replacement $1,036
RV Refrigerator Replacement $1,647
Plumbing Issues & Window Leak $1,142
Suspension Replacement $2,550
RV Toilet Replacement $314
Total Repair Reimbursements $6,689

Our trailer warranty has paid for itself 3.5 times over!
Confused about the nitty gritty fine print buried in RV Extended Warranties? Here's an excellent detailed explanation!!

If you are thinking about getting a warranty for your trailer or motorhome, Wholesale Warranties is offering a $50 discount to our readers. Just mention that you heard about them from our website, Roads Less Traveled, and the discount will come off the quoted price at the time of purchase. You can get a quote from them here:

Wholesale Warranties Quote Form

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Wet Cell vs. AGM Batteries & Wiring Tips for Installation on an RV or Boat!

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There is a world of difference between wet cell batteries (also called flooded batteries) and AGM batteries for use in an RV or marine battery bank, because AGM batteries are totally sealed, maintenance free and keep the user from coming into contact with battery acid (electrolyte). In a nutshell, the advantages of AGM batteries over wet cell batteries are the following:

  • AGM batteries are maintenance free, which means:
    • They don’t need periodic equalizing to clean the internal plates and never need the electrolyte topped off with distilled water.
    • They do not release gasses during charging, so they don’t need special venting in the battery compartment.
    • Since gasses are not released, the terminals and battery cables do not corrode over time and don’t need to be cleaned.
  • AGM batteries discharge more slowly than wet cells, so an RV or boat can be stored for a few months without charging the batteries.
  • AGM batteries charge more quickly than flooded batteries because they can accept a higher current during the Bulk charging phase.
  • AGM batteries can be installed in any orientation, which is helpful if installation space is limited.
  • AGM batteries can’t spill battery acid if they are tipped over. This is especially important when a boat heels excessively or capsizes. (Not that you’d be too concerned about spilling electrolyte if your boat were upside down!)
RV battery upgrade from 6 volt wet cell batteries to AGM batteries

.

OUR ORIGINAL BATTERY INSTALLATION

We used Trojan T-105 wet cell (flooded) batteries for nearly six years in our fifth wheel trailer, and they worked great. They were installed in our basement compartment, all lined up in a row. This was a custom installation that was done by H&K Camper Sales in Chanute, Kansas, when we purchased our trailer new from the NuWa factory in 2008.

Fifth wheel RV battery boxes in basement

Four 6 volt golf cart batteries installed in our fifth wheel basement

The original battery compartment was designed at the NuWa factory to hold two 12 volt Group 24 batteries. Group 24 batteries have the same footprint as 6 volt golf cart batteries but are about an inch shorter. We had 2″ angle iron bolted onto our fifth wheel frame so the four batteries could stand side by side in battery boxes.

Angle iron supports under an RV fifth wheel battery bank

2″ angle iron is bolted onto the fifth wheel frame
to support the batteries.

There were four venting flex hoses that ran from the battery boxes to four individual louvered vents on the front of the basement on either side of the hatch door.

RV 5th wheel basement with 6 volt battery boxes

Each battery box is vented to the outside with flex hose going to a louvered vent cover.

These batteries worked well, but because we put our RV in covered storage for 4 to 20 months at a time during the four years we cruised Mexico’s Pacific coast on our sailboat, we were not actively present to take care of the the battery charging and maintenance duties. Despite our best efforts to have someone do this while we were gone, when we moved off of our boat and back into our fifth wheel, we found our four Trojan wet cell batteries were completely dead and unrecoverable.

We replaced these batteries with four inexpensive 6 volt golf cart flooded batteries from Costco. These new batteries did not last. Within 18 months, the internal plates had sulfated badly, they took forever to charge, and they discharged extremely quickly.

6 volt wet cell batteries in fifth wheel RV basement

Upgrade time! We removed the old wet cell batteries and replaced them with AGMs.

In April, 2015, while staying in beautiful Sarasota, Florida, we replaced our wet cell batteries with four fabulous new Trojan Reliant T105-AGM batteries that Trojan had just begun manufacturing and selling. We replaced all the wiring as well.

CORROSION CAUSED BY WET CELL BATTERIES

One of the biggest problems with wet cell, or flooded, batteries is that the battery terminals and ring terminals on the battery cables get corroded easily due to the gassing that goes on when the batteries are being charged. When Mark removed the battery cables from our old batteries, he measured as much as 20 ohms of resistance from the end of each cable to its ring terminal.

Corrosion on battery cable

We measured 20 ohms of resistance between the end of the cable
and the end of the ring terminal.

Flooded batteries need to be held at 14.5 or more volts during the Absorption charging stage (depending on the battery), and at this voltage the electrolyte in the batteries begins to release gasses into the air. These gases are both explosive and corrosive, and venting them protects everything around them. However, inside the battery box these gases can corrode the battery terminals and wiring.

The best way to clean off the corrosion is with a solution of baking soda and distilled water. Put it in a disposable cup and then use a cheap paintbrush to paint it on and smooth it around the terminals and cable ends. Let it sit for a few minutes and then pour a little distilled water over it to rinse the baking soda and crud off. Dry it with paper towels.

Also, while driving down the road, the electrolyte can splash around inside the battery cells and drip out the vent holes. Dust can settle on the spilled electrolyte and can cause a minute trickle discharge across the top of the battery. So, it is important to wipe down the tops of the batteries regularly and keep them clean.

It’s a good idea to wear rubber gloves for all of this too!

6 volt wet cell RV house batteries

These batteries did not hold up well and corroded badly every few weeks.

Watch out for drops of liquid settling on your clothes when messing with the batteries. It’s nearly impossible to avoid, and Mark has holes in some of his jeans from drops of battery acid landing on his pants while he either checked the state of charge of the batteries with a hydrometer or poured distilled water into the battery terminals or cleaned the corrosion from the battery terminals and cable connections.

Battery hydrometer not used with AGM batteries

Now that we have nifty new AGM batteries, we no longer need the hydrometer!

OUR NEW RV BATTERY INSTALLTION

We chose the new Trojan Reliant T105-AGM batteries to replace our old flooded batteries because these are a completely redesigned battery from one of the top battery manufacturers, Trojan Battery. Rather than being dual purpose batteries, like othe AGM batteries on the market, the new Trojan Reliant AGM batteries are single purpose deep cycle batteries.

Trojan Reliant AGM 6 volt RV batteries

Our new Trojan Reliant T105-AGM batteries ready to go.

TRUE “DEEP CYCLE” – START BATTERIES vs. HOUSE BATTERIES

Large RV and marine batteries can be used both to start big engines and to run household appliances. However, these functions are polar opposites of each other! A start battery gives a big but short blast of current to get an engine started and then does nothing. In contrast, a house battery provides a steady stream of current to power lights and household appliances for hours on end.

Most deep cycle AGM batteries on the market today are actually dual purpose start and deep cycle batteries, largely due to the history of how batteries have developed and what they have been used for. The new-to-market (in 2015) Trojan Reliant AGM batteries were engineered from the ground up to be strictly deep cycle batteries, and the design is not compromised with start battery characteristics.

Installing Trojan 6 volt Reliant AGM battery in RV fifth wheel

Mark installs the new batteries in the old plastic battery boxes.

12 volt batteries come in many sizes: Group 24, Group 27, Group 31, 4D, 8D and more. As the battery sizes increase, they provide more and more amp-hour capacity. 6 volt batteries come in various sizes too, and the golf cart size is one of several.

The Trojan Reliant T105-AGM 6 volt golf cart style batteries (68 lbs. each) are rated to have a capacity of 217 amp-hours when two of them are wired in series to create a 12 volt battery bank. In comparison, our sailboat came with three Mastervolt 12 volt 4D AGM batteries (93 lbs. each), and we added a fourth. These batteries were rated to have a capacity of 160 amp-hours each.

The advantage of using two 6 volt golf cart batteries instead of enormous 4D or 8D 12 volt batteries is that they are smaller, lighter and easier to carry around and to put in place during the installation and easier to remove in the event of a failure.

BATTERY WIRING

We wired our four new 6 volt batteries in series and in parallel. We wired two pairs of batteries in series to create two virtual 12 volt battery banks. Then we wired those two 12 volt banks in parallel with each other.

Four 6 volt batteries wired in series and in parallel

Four 6 volt batteries: two pairs wired in series to make virtual 12 volt batteries.
Those pairs are wired in parallel with each other (red / lavender circles explained below).

Trojan Battery recommended the following wire sizes for this battery configuration:

  • 4 gauge wire between the batteries that are wired in series
  • 2 gauge wire between the pairs of 12 volt battery banks wired in parallel

This is thicker wire than many RVers and sailors typically select for their battery banks.

Because we were wiring batteries that would be physically lined up in a row, we drew out a wiring diagram to be sure we got it right.

Four 6 volt batteries in a row wired in series and in parallel

Same wiring but with the batteries lined up in a row (red and lavender circles explained below).

WIRING THE BATTERY CHARGERS and INVERTER

Because AGM batteries have a lower internal resistance, they can accept a higher bulk charging current than wet cell batteries.

Trojan Reliant AGM batteries can accept a bulk charge current of 20% of their 20 hour amp-hour rating. For the T105-AGM batteries, the 20 hour amp-hour rating is 217 amps per pair of batteries wired in series. So the max current the batteries can accept is 20% of 217 amps, or 43 amps, per pair. The wiring for each charging system should be sized for a max current flow of 43 amps.

In contrast, Trojan’s wet cell batteries can accept only 10%-13% of their 20 hour amp-hour rating. For the T105 battery, the 20 hour amp-hour rating is 220 amps per pair of batteries wired in series. So the max current the batteries can accept is 13% of 220 amps, or 28 amps.

It is important when wiring both the battery charging systems and inverter systems into the battery bank (that is, the solar charge controller, the engine alternator on boats and motorhomes, the inverter/charger or the individual DC converter and inverter), to ensure that the wiring going to those devices is connected across the entire battery bank and not to just one 12 volt battery (or 6 volt pair) in the bank.

If the charging systems are connected to the battery terminals of just one 12 volt battery, whether it’s an individual Group 24 or 4D battery or is a pair of 6 volt golf cart batteries wired in series, then the batteries in the system will not charge equally. Likewise, if only one battery of the parallel bank is wired to the DC side of the inverter, the batteries will not discharge equally.

In the above drawings, the two optimal connection points for the charging and inverter systems are shown in red and in lavender. Either pair of terminals works equally well.

We found that with individual devices for our converter, our inverter and our solar charge controller, there were a lot of ring terminals getting piled up on two of the battery terminals. So we chose the inner pair of battery terminals for the inverter and the outer pair for the converter and solar charge controller.

Since we dry camp 100% of the time and rarely use our converter except when we have to pull out our generator after days of storms or to run our air conditioning, this division means that our primary charging system spans the batteries one way while the inverter driving the AC household systems that discharge the batteries span the batteries the other way.

NOT ALL BATTERY CABLE IS CREATED EQUAL

We chose Ancor marine wire for our battery cables because it is very high quality cable. The individual strands of wire inside the casing are thin, which makes this cable very supple, despite being thick overall. It is easy to work with and to snake around tricky areas. The individual strands inside the cable are tinned as well.

This is expensive wire, but after all the wiring projects we have done on our RVs and on our sailboat, we felt it was well worth the extra cost.

We also used Ancor marine tin plated lugs made of high-grade copper with flared ends for our ring terminals (available here).

Ring terminal on battery cable

Mark slips a ring terminal onto the new battery cable.

It was critical to get a good solid connection between the ring terminals and the 2 gauge and 4 gauge wire we were using.

We don’t own a crimper of that size, but West Marine Stores often have a crimper for heavy gauge wire that customers can use, and we got an excellent crimp from a workbench mounted crimper.

Crimping ring terminal on battery cable

Crimping 2 and 4 gauge wire requires a large crimper.

With Mark hanging onto the ring terminal and me hanging onto the wire, we both pulled with all our might and we couldn’t pull the lug off the wire.

Good crimp on battery cable

A good, solid crimp.

As these projects always go, we needed to return to West Marine for crimping a few days later when we wired in our solar charge controller. We went to a closer West Marine store this time, and they had a different crimper that wasn’t quite as nice.

Using a hand crimper to crimp ring terminal onto battery cable

This wire is so thick you need a huge wire cutter!

Mark wasn’t as confident that these crimps were as good electrically as the ones made with the first crimper, even though we couldn’t pull the lugs off the wire. So he fluxed the wire and used a propane torch to flow solder into the connection. This way we had not only a solid physical connection but an excellent electrical connection as well.

Soldering ring terminal crimp on battery cable

Mark flows solder into the connector to make a superior electrical connection.

Then he slipped shrink tubing over the connection and used a heat gun to shrink it in place.

Heat gun shrink wrap over ring terminal on battery cable

Shrink tube covers the whole connection, and a heat gun tightens it up.

After our installation, we discovered that Camco makes 2 and 4 gauge battery cable and you can get them here.

Back at the RV, Mark wired the batteries up. He placed the batteries in the battery box bottoms to keep them from sliding around and put the battery box tops on as well so that if anything fell over in the basement while we were driving, it wouldn’t accidentally land on the battery terminals and short something out. We keep that area clear, but you never know when you’ll hit a huge bump and things will go flying.

Trojan Reliant AGM 6 volt batteries in fifth wheel basement

The batteries are ready for their battery box tops.

The AGM batteries do not need to be vented, so he removed all the vent flex hoses. This gave us much better access into the fifth wheel basement from the front hatch door.

Trojan Reliant AGM 6 volt batteries in fifth wheel RV battery compartment

The new batteries are installed, wired and labeled.

Without any flex hose behind the louvered vents, dust and road grime could now flow into the basement, so Mark removed the vent covers and placed a piece of solid plastic behind each one.

Replacing battery vents on fifth wheel RV

The louvered vents are open to the basement in the back and will let dust in.

RV battery vent

Mark puts a thin plastic sheet behind each louvered vent to keep dust out.

We then went on to wire in our new converter, inverter and solar charge controller (installations to be shown in future blog posts).

HOW DO THE NEW TROJAN RELIANT AGM BATTERIES WORK?

The performance of these new batteries is nothing short of outstanding. We are floored everyday by how quickly they get charged, and not one bit of corrosion has appeared anywhere.

Mark is happy not to have to check the electrolyte levels in the batteries any more or to remember to equalize them every month. The new AGM batteries are winners all around.

RV battery boxes in 5th wheel basement

Even though AGM batteries don’t have to be installed in battery boxes,
ours are because our basement is large and open and we want to protect them from falling objects!

WHY WOULD ANYONE USE FLOODED BATTERIES?

Our Trojan T-105 wet cell batteries worked just fine for us for years, and flooded are actually advantageous over AGM batteries in two significant ways:

  1. Flooded batteries are much cheaper than AGM batteries.
  2. Well maintained wet call batteries can be cycled more times than AGM batteries

Flooded batteries cost 30% to 40% less than AGM batteries. This can add up to a savings of hundreds of dollars. Depending on the value of the RV or boat, it just may not make sense to have a huge investment in batteries on board.

Also, perfectly maintained wet cell batteries can be cycled more times than AGMs. “Perfectly maintained” means staying on top of equalizing the batteries to keep the battery plates clean and also checking each cell in each battery regularly to ensure that the electrolyte is completely topped off with distilled water at all times.

Under these ideal conditions in the laboratories at Trojan Battery, the Trojan T105 flooded batteries can survive 1,200 cycles where they are discharged to 50% (12.06 volts) and then fully recharged. The Trojan Reliant T105-AGM batteries can survive only 1,000 cycles.

Of course, battery cycling in real world conditions is very different than in laboratory conditions. The degree to which RV and boat batteries are discharged and recharged day to day is far from regular (partial discharging and partial recharging are common). Also, batteries on RVs and boats that are left in storage for any period of time can be difficult to maintain and may degrade despite good intentions (like ours did).

So, the ultimate performance and value of flooded versus AGM batteries is going to vary widely from one RVer or sailor to the next. However, for us, we will not be going back to wet cell batteries any time soon!

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Oregon’s Wallowa Mountains (and more) – In Trailer Life Magazine!

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One of the most beautiful and remote places we have enjoyed in our RV travels is the eastern part of Oregon. The Wallowa Mountains are a little visited treasure that hug the sparkling clear waters of Wallowa Lake. Nestled at the base of the mountains near the lake is the charming village of Joseph, home to just 1,000 residents. How remote is this area? Joseph is 6 miles from the next town, Enterprise, which is home to just 2,000 residents!

The October 2015 issue of Trailer Life Magazine features our article about the many wonderful things there are to see and do in eastern Oregon.

Out Yonder In Oregon Trailer Life October 2015

Trailer Life Magazine – September 2015
Article by Emily Fagan, Photos by Emily & Mark Fagan

Trailer Life Magazine has posted the article online here: Out Yonder in Oregon

What makes the Wallowa Mountains and the town of Joseph unique is that they lie at the end of the road rather than along a road that leads to somewhere else. On the way there, Baker City is a wonderful town to visit, and if you go in June, you can watch the fabulous finale of a four day bicycle stage race that winds all through the city streets while sipping a beer in a front row seat outside a brewpub.

Once in the Wallowas, there are unusual rides — one on a bicycle railcar on the old narrow gauge train tracks in the valleys and another on a tram that goes up to the top of the mountains — and there is beautiful lakeside camping, a town full of exquisite bronze sculptures and hikes among the wildflowers on the mountain tops.

Our blog posts from our RV travels in this area can be seen at these links:

Hiking the Wallowa Mountains in Joseph Oregon

Hiking into the peaks above cute little Joseph, Oregon. We’ll be back!

Trailer Life Magazine was one of the first RV magazines to be published and first appeared on newsstands in 1941. When we watched the old 1954 movie The Long Long Trailer starring Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, we were surprised to see images of 1950’s era issues of Trailer Life magazine in the movie!!

For both new RVers and old pros alike, this is a good magazine to learn various RV tech tips, get inspired to travel to different destinations across the country and stay in touch with the latest developments in the world of towable rolling homes. Subscriptions to Trailer Life are available here.

We have published several articles in Trailer Life Magazine, and you can read them all at this link.

For another perspective on RV travel to the Wallowa Mountains in Oregon and for more beautiful photos from the town of Joseph, check out the four blog posts written by Nina Fussing from the RV blog Wheeling It.

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Escapees Magazine Cover Photo + Photography Tips!

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We are delighted to have another photo on the cover of Escapees Magazine in the September/October 2015 issue. This photo was taken just after the peak of the magnificent autumn colors in Colorado’s San Juan Mountains. We were fortunate enough to be there for a few weeks, soaking up Nature’s incredible display. One morning we woke up to find our buggy and everything around it covered in snow.

Escapees Magazine Cover Sep-Oct 2015

An early autumn snow in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado
Photo by: Emily Fagan

Inside this issue we have a feature article offering a few pointers we’ve learned about how to take great photos.

We weren’t photographers before we started traveling in our trailer in 2007, but living this life of sightseeing throughout North America’s most beautiful places has made us eager to improve our skills.

While I spend many happy hours writing magazine articles and blog posts, Mark sits next to me studying photography. And when that boy decides to learn something, he dives in deep!

In a few short years he has plowed through a steady stream of photography books, ebooks, tutorial blogs and more. Luckily for me, as we sit side by side, he gets so excited about what he’s reading that he often reads aloud.

So, we have learned together, which has been great fun, even though it can be a little tricky sometimes for me to write and listen to his photographic words of wisdom at the same time!

The editors of Escapees Magazine have kindly allowed me to share the article here:

Enhance Your RV Travel Photography Skills.

I’ve got lots more tips and share all of our favorite photography resources and learning tools and also list all the camera gear, backpacks, filters and software we have used over the years in this post: Photography – Cameras, Gears, Tips & Resources.

Some our favorite photos from our travels this summer can be seen in these links:

Escapees Magazine is the membership magazine for Escapees RV Club, a wonderful club that brings together RV enthusiasts from all walks of life and that drive all kinds of rigs. Besides their outstanding magazine, one that covers a wide enough range of topics to include something as off-beat at photography tips, Escapees is also the biggest RV advocacy group out there. For that reason alone, anyone with an RV should be grateful.

Escapees looks after the unusual needs of all RVers, especially full-timers whose unique lifestyle could often leave them falling through legal cracks. Among the many other things Escapees’ advocacy work includes ensuring that overnight parking in commercial parking lots remains possible.

If you are an RVer, you can help their efforts by taking a minute to fill out the new Escapees / Xscapers survey so they can determine the demographics, interests and travel styles of the RVing community as a whole:

Escapees / Xscapers RVer survey.

This information will help them in their future RV advocacy efforts!

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RV Refrigerator Replacement – How an RV Warranty Saved Our Bacon!

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We’ve been reporting on whether or not an RV warranty is a good investment for RVers, and this page — the second of four installments — presents our latest findings.
(Hint: the answer is a resounding YES!)

Ten days ago, after a fabulous two weeks in Maysville, Kentucky, and a long day of driving, we set up camp, grabbed a beer, and kicked back to enjoy a cold one. But to our dismay, the beer was kinda warm. We ratcheted the RV refrigerator up a notch and went about our business. After dinner and a movie in our RV, we decided to have a bowl of ice cream. When Mark lifted the lid on the Haagen Dazs, what he found inside could only be described as cool chocolate soup.

Oh no! Our 8 year old RV refrigerator had died.

RV extended warranty repair RV refrigerator replacement

Do something quick! We’re going to lose everything in the fridge and freezer!!

As the clock neared midnight, we began a frantic search for RV repair shops in the area. We put together a list of them, went to bed quite distressed, and first thing the next morning we started making phone calls. Mark threw bags of ice in the fridge and freezer and we didn’t dare open either door after that. We lamented sadly that all our frozen meats — all those nice burgers and steaks, and even our bacon, darn it — were quickly defrosting.

After about 15 phone calls, we were still nowhere. Everyone told us it would be a two week wait to get a fridge and that it would probably cost upwards of $1,500. Finally, we called Camping World just south of Indianapolis. They had an identical unit in stock and they could squeeze us in for service the next morning. They told us they always try to make an extra effort for desperate travelers passing through.

Well, we weren’t exactly passing through. We were in Kentucky driving west towards Tennessee, and they were 150 miles to the north in the totally wrong direction. But what can you do? We were absolutely thrilled to find an RV repair facility that had an RV refrigerator in stock and could install it quickly, so a 150 mile detour was not a problem!

This would be our second major repair in just over a month. We had just had our 36′ fifth wheel trailer axle replaced. What’s worse, we were actually on our way to an RV repair appointment in Kansas to fix a leak in our fresh water tank. What kind of luck was that?

As it turns out, Lady Luck was following us very closely. Our RV extended warranty had covered the bulk of the trailer axle repair, and we were pretty sure it would cover this one too.

Where we stood on our trailer warranty at this point was the following:


We were 11 months into a 4 year RV extended warranty
Cost of RV warranty: $1,904
Reimbursements (less deductibles) to date: $1,036
Remaining Reimbursements to Break Even: $868

You can see the current status of our warranty HERE.

It looked like this RV warranty repair would not only bring our total reimbursements to the point of covering the original cost of the RV extended warranty but would go well beyond that.

18 hours after we’d discovered our fridge was dead, Camping World service manager Rick Helvey was in our trailer examining its hulking carcass. He told us that propane RV refrigerators typically last only 10 years.

What??!!

It was no surprise to him that our 8 year old unit had kicked the bucket. He opened the fridge vent on the outside of the trailer and showed us the telltale signs of a dying RV refrigerator: greenish or yellowish dust.

The presence of this dust meant the ammonia was leaking out and the cooling unit had given up the ghost. The crazy thing is that the price of a cooling unit is nearly the same as the price of a new RV refrigerator — Not Cheap!

RV warranty repair on a refrigerator - inside the vent

Yellowish dust in the fridge vent area is proof positive that the fridge is dying.

RV warranty repair RV refrigerator installation

Here is a closer look at the greenish – yellowish dust.

He called our warranty provider, Portfolio Protection, to get approval to proceed with the repair the next morning. To his astonishment (and ours), they said they wouldn’t reimburse us for a replacement refrigerator. They would reimburse us only for the replacement of the cooling unit to save themselves a little money. Here’s the breakdown:

Install New RV Refrigerator Parts: $1,389.99
Labor: $267.00
Tax: $97.00
Total: $1,753.99
Replace Cooling Unit Only Parts: $1,049.00
Labor: $356.00
Tax: $73.43
Shipping: $100.00
Total: $1,578.43

DIFFERENCE IN OVERALL COST: $175.56

This was a problem — for us and for Camping World!!

If we got our refrigerator replaced, we would be in and out of Camping World in 3 hours the next morning and they could go back to business as usual with their local customers. If we had to have the cooling unit replaced, we would have to wait a week or two for the part to come in and Camping World would have to reshuffle their appointments the next morning, once again, because our appointment was already on the books. We had all assumed the approval of a replacement refrigerator would be a slam-dunk.

New RV fridge ready for installation

Our new refrigerator is ready and waiting — all we need is approval to install it!

What to do?

Well, here’s one reason we are becoming more and more enamored of our RV extended warranty through Wholesale Warranties. Unlike most warranty brokers who wash their hands of the deal once you’ve purchased the contract and signed on the dotted line, they are willing to go to bat for you if the warranty reimbursement process isn’t going as smoothly as it should.

We called Wholesale Warranties and told them what was going on. The difference in cost between repairing and replacing was not astronomical. Couldn’t the warranty company allow us to go ahead with the refrigerator replacement?

Within an hour they had called our warranty company, Portfolio Protection, explained to them why it made more sense for everyone involved to install the new fridge Camping World had in stock and, magically, our refrigerator replacement had been approved. We were floored that Wholesale Warranties would do this and that they could be such effective facilitators. Yet it turns out that making these calls is business-as-usual and is routine customer support for them.

Early the next morning we parked the fifth wheel in front of Camping World, and service technician Raymond and his assistant José got started on it right away. Unfortunately, our old refrigerator was 1/4″ too wide and could not fit through our front door. RV refrigerators are installed at the factory before the doors and windows are in place!

RV warranty repair Removing RV refrigerator from fifth wheel trailer

Good heavens, the old fridge can’t go out the front door!

So, the dining room window had to come out!

RV extended warranty Removing an RV window from fifth wheel trailer

The dining room window has to be removed
so the refrigerators can be hoisted in and out.

RV extended warranty repair RV window removed

It would have been so much easier if the refrigerators could have gone through the door!

RV warranty refrigerator replacement gets through window

The new fridge is ready for some strong person to pick it up!

A forklift was used to remove the old fridge and hoist up the new one. It was at this point that I realized just what a challenging DIY project this would have been for Mark!

RV warranty refrigerator replacement New RV fridge on forklift

Thank goodness for fork lifts! This is not an easy DIY installation for one guy!

Then the new RV refrigerator was put in place.

RV warranty repair New RV refrigerator installed in fifth wheel trailer

Raymond settles the new refrigerator into place.

The pretty oak panels from our old refrigerator were slipped into place on the new door.

Under warranty Oak panel installed on RV refrigerator door

Our oak panels from the old fridge slide neatly into place.

Then Raymond ran around back to hook everything up in the refrigerator vent.

RV extended warranty repair new RV refrigerator installation

The back of the new fridge is exposed in the vent area where Raymond hooks it all up.

Meanwhile, his assistant José removed the silicone remnants from the wall around the window opening using a scraper and wiping the wall down with Acrysol

Removing silicone seal on RV window

José scrapes the old silicone sealant off the outside wall
around the window opening.

Removing silicone from RV window

The wall has to be completely clean for a good seal on the window.

Raymond lifted the window into place, and he and José screwed it in place.

RV warranty refrigerator replacement Installing RV window

Raymond puts the window back in place.

Installing RV window on fifth wheel trailer

The guys work together to get the window screwed into place.

Then they remounted the window valence and reinstalled the day-night shades.

Installing valence on RV window

The window valences are reinstalled over the windows.

Installing day-night shades on RV window

The day-night shades are reinstalled on both windows.

Raymond gave us instructions not to put a bead of silicone around the window frame for about a week because he had used caulk tape that would ooze a little for the next few days.

We were impressed with how quickly these guys worked and got the job done, and we were really grateful to Rick for making an opening for us. In just 36 hours from the time we had soup for ice cream, we had a brand new RV refrigerator up and running. Now we just had to wait for it to cool down (about 9 hours).

In the meantime, our frozen meats had fully defrosted but were still cold. We couldn’t re-freeze any of them when the refrigerator finally cooled down. Arghhh!

As we hitched up the fifth wheel, I noticed Mark had a twinkle in his eye as he drove it around to the back lot. He hopped out and instantly set up the barbecue, right there in the Camping World parking lot. He happily began grilling burgers, hot dogs, steaks, chicken and brats.

“We can’t let all this good meat go to waste!” He said to me as he handed me the bacon and sent me inside to fry it up.

It turned out he’d invited the service guys to come on over to our place for a barbecue lunch, and when the yummy smells from our grill began to waft across the Camping World parking lot, they quickly showed up in a golf cart and began chowing down.

The crew enjoys a barbecue lunch

The Camping World service team stops by for an impromptu barbecue. Thank you guys for a super job!

At last it was time to settle up the bill with the service manager, Rick. Our RV warranty deductible was $100. Indiana charges sales tax on deductibles, so our total out of pocket cost for this phenomenal repair was only $107. Wow!!

Our RV warranty (less our $107 deductible + tax) covered $1,647 on this one repair alone — that is nearly the cost of the entire four year RV extended warranty itself!

Shockingly, this RV refrigerator replacement was just one of a slew of major repairs our trailer needed in a four month period in 2015:

Here's a summary of what our four year RV warranty through Wholesale Warranties cost, what our repairs WOULD HAVE cost, and what our warranty reimbursements have been to date:

Cost of Warranty $1,904
Total Cost of Repairs we've had done $7,834
Total Out of Pocket Costs for those repairs $1,145
Repair Reimbursements:
Trailer Axle Replacement $1,036
RV Refrigerator Replacement $1,647
Plumbing Issues & Window Leak $1,142
Suspension Replacement $2,550
RV Toilet Replacement $314
Total Repair Reimbursements $6,689

Our trailer warranty has paid for itself 3.5 times over!
Confused about the nitty gritty fine print buried in RV Extended Warranties? Here's an excellent detailed explanation!!

Are we happy with our extended trailer warranty? OMG Yes!!

Having suffered four major repairs in four months, we have come to the conclusion that anyone with an RV older than four or five years should seriously consider getting an RV extended warranty, especially if they don’t like unexpected financial surprises.

What a shock it was to find out that RV refrigerators are expected to fail by their tenth year of service. All you need is that one repair plus another one or two (air conditioner, water heater, furnace, slide-out mechanism, hydraulic leveling system, etc.) to cover the cost of a four year warranty and even wind up ahead.

Do I sound enthusiastic and excited about our trailer warranty? I am!! I was hugely skeptical about RV warranties before our trailer axle and RV refrigerator replacements, and all I can say is that this has been an amazing process!!

If you want to find out what a warranty would cost for your rig, Wholesale Warranties is offering a $50 discount to our readers. Call our contact, Missi Emmett at (800) 939-2806 or email her at missi@wholesalewarranties.com. Or go to this link:

Wholesale Warranties Quote Form

The discount comes off of the quoted price at the time of purchase — just be sure to ask!

To learn how RV warranties work and how they differ from RV insurance, see this article:

What Is An RV Warranty and Is It A Good Investment?

If propane RV refrigerators are so prone to failure, why don’t we have a residential refrigerator? — It takes a huge solar panel array and big (heavy) battery bank to power a residential refrigerator along with everything else in an RV. See the following:

Can a Residential Refrigerator Run on Solar Power in an RV?

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The Full Case History of our RV Extended Warranty:

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Coast to Coast Magazine Cover Photo & Feature – Colorful Colorado!

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Coast to Coast Magazine Cover Fal 2015 Issue by Emily Fagan

Coast to Coast Magazine Issue: Fall 2015
Cover Photo: Emily Fagan
Feature Story: Riding the Rockies in Colorful Colorado

The Fall 2015 issue of Coast to Coast magazine is featuring our article called “Riding the Rockies in Colorful Colorado” about the spectacular fall foliage in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains.

Autumn colors are gorgeous everywhere, but we have been absolutely smitten by the golden hues that blanket Colorado’s San Juan mountains in late September.

The area around Ouray, Ridgway, Silverton and Telluride is ablaze with vivid yellow and orange hues in the last 10 days of September, and the Million Dollar Highway — Route 550 between Ouray and Silverton — is knock-your-socks-off stunning.

Not only is this area filled with vivid colors and jagged peaks, but the tiny mountain towns nestled between the summits are utterly charming.

An old narrow gauge train takes visitors from Durango up one side of the mountains while the jaw-dropping Million Dollar Highway takes drivers up the other side from Ouray. Both meet in the hamlet of Silverton where echoes of the wild west can be heard and felt in the antique miners’ buildings around town.

Coast to Coast is the magazine for Coast to Coast Resorts, a campground membership program of over 400 RV parks that gives RVers a way to invest in their future travels and enjoy resort style RV living for a nominal nightly cost.

The editors of Coast to Coast have been kind enough to allow me to share the article here.

We have spent two glorious fall seasons in this area. All of our pics and stories from our RV travels amid Colorado’s flaming autumn colors can be seen at these links:

Where is this part of Colorado? – Google Maps
Other Magazine Cover Photos and Feature Articles – Our portfolio of commercially published work

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Canada RV Travel Tips – RVing Nova Scotia & the Canadian Rockies!

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Taking an RV into Canada to explore the Canadian Rockies or the Atlantic Maritime provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia is very easy, but there are a few fun and funky things we thought fellow RVers would appreciate knowing about.

TRAVEL TIPS FOR RVers THAT ARE PLANNING A TRIP TO CANADA:

For starters, you need a passport to cross the border into Canada. If you don’t have a passport, Visa Express can help you obtain one easily.

The border agent in the booth at the Calais border crossing in downeast Maine asked us a bunch of questions about where we were going and how long we’d be staying. He did not look inside our trailer. It was very easy. Likewise, crossing the border north of Eureka, Montana, at Roosville, British Columbia was a quick affair, and our trailer was not checked.

Coming back over the border the US border in Calais, Maine, the agent wanted to check our fridge for fruits and veggies. The only thing in our veggie drawer was a peach, and he took it. Crossing into the US at Chief Mountain, Montana, the border agent took the keys to our trailer and opened it up and inspected it himself (we offered to get out of the truck and accompany him, but he refused). This time we had no fruits or veggies in the fridge, and nothing was confiscated. Checking things over later, we assume he also looked in the basement compartment of our fifth wheel trailer, as we found it was unlocked when we arrived where we were going, and we’re sure we’d locked it when we’d packed up to leave Canada.

Credit and Debit Cards

To avoid having our cards declined at stores in Canada, we called our credit card companies and banks before we crossed the border to let them know we’d be traveling in Canada.

Because every transaction on a credit card or debit card involves exchanging money between Canadian dollars and US dollars, most credit cards and banks charge a 3% fee for making the exchange, no matter where you use the card (i.e., at an ATM or restaurant or gift shop). This 3% charge on every transaction quickly adds up!

Some credit card companies and banks list the 3% fee as line item on their statement. Others may not.

If you will be spending a long time in Canada, or plan to do many repeat visits, consider getting a credit card and checking account with Capital One. They do not charge a currency exchange fee on their credit and debit cards.

Getting Cash

On each visit to Canada, we were in Canada for three to six weeks and we used only $20-$50 in cash (to do laundry). If you need cash, you can get it without paying an ATM fee by asking for cash over on a small debit card purchase at a big supermarket like the popular supermarket chain Sobeys.

We also had clerks in tiny mom-and-pop stores change a US $20 bill for us so we could either make a purchase from them or could get some coins to finish drying our laundry next door.

By the way, $1 coins are called “Loonies” for the cute loon on the back of the coin and $2 coins are “Toonies” to rhyme with Loonies.

Data / Phone Plans

Your best bet for internet access is to install Starlink on your RV. We installed Starlink on our trailer and it was a total game changer in our traveling lives. See our detailed post about our permanent RV rooftop installation here.

Verizon MiFi Jetpack in Canada

Verizon MiFi Jetpack shows “GSM” for Global Service in Canada.

Contact your cell phone provider and mobile internet data provider to see what happens when you take their phone or internet device into Canada. Technology is changing rapidly, and these companies are modifying their plans all the time.

If you don’t like the company’s plans and restrictions for taking your devices to Canada for some reason, you may be able to suspend the account for a period of time and reinstate it once you get back. Find out if there is a disconnect or reconnect fee for doing this.

It also may be possible to swap out the SIM card in a smartphone for one from a Canadian carrier, but from what we saw, it is brand and model dependent. Some can and some can’t. Canada has a lot of cell phone providers.

Internet Access via Public WiFi

There is ample free and open (no password) internet access in both the Canadian Rockies and Nova Scotia via WiFi at town halls, visitors centers, big box stores like Walmart, restaurants and coffee shops.

Unlike the US where almost all WiFi signals are password protected, there is usually a free signal available in the more populated areas. However, they aren’t always all that fast and, of course, they aren’t secure.

Currency Conversion

The following links give the current currency conversion between US and Canadian dollars:

Canadian Dollars to US Dollars
US Dollars to Canadian Dollars

Gas and Diesel prices New Brunswick Canada

1.10 $C / liter = $3.30 $US / gallon
Note: diesel is cheaper than gas!

Fuel Costs – Converting Canadian $ per Liter to US $ per Gallon

Contrary to many crazy rumors we’d heard before we got there, fuel prices in Canada were about 20% higher than fuel prices in the US. That’s it.

The easiest way to get from Canadian $/liter to US $/gallon is to bundle it all into one conversion factor taking two things into account:

— There are 3.79 liters in a gallon.
— The current exchange rate (it was 0.8 $C to 1.0 $US when we went)

Converting from $C / liter to $US / gallon uses this conversion factor:

$US / gallon = (3.79) x (exchange rate) for the price you see advertised for fuel

During our visit the conversion factor was: 3.79 * 0.8 = 3.03 or approximately 3.

So, we multiplied the advertised gas price (or other liquid liter price) by 3 to get the equivalent US dollars per gallon.

For instance, the sign says diesel is 1.097 (Canadian) per liter (call it 1.10 Canadian). Multiply that by 3 and it’s around $3.30 (US) per gallon, or a little over.

We also found that New Brunswick was slightly higher (averaging around $1.25 per liter) than Nova Scotia (averaging around $1.10 per liter).

Sales Tax

If you see a great sale on something because the price is low and the conversion math in your head makes it seem like a steal, don’t forget that there is a much larger sales tax than in most American states.

During our visits, the sales tax in New Brunswick was 13%, the sales tax in Nova Scotia was 15% and the sales tax in British Columbia was 12%. Alcohol is taxed a little extra and other goods are taxed a little less.

Comparative Cost of Groceries and Beer

We found that groceries were just slightly more expensive than the eastern states and New England where we had been traveling prior to visiting Nova Scotia. Groceries were perhaps 5% to 10% higher for identical items. The same proved true in the Canadian Rockies as compared to Idaho and Montana.

Beer and cigarettes are heavily taxed, and we found the typical cost of a six pack of darker beer was around US $10-$12.

In the National Parks in the Canadian Rockies, everything is priced a little higher simply because these are heavily visited tourist destinations.

Microbrew Beer

For lovers of dark ales, porters and stouts, the selection in Nova Scotia is almost non-existent. After trying every “dark” ale we could find, and discovering that they were all just a shade darker than Bud Light, we discovered a wonderful brew called Propeller Porter.

Propeller Porter Beer in Nova Scotia Canada

We really liked Propeller Porter.

In the Canadian Rockies we had much better luck with finding good darker microbrew beers.

Parks Canada Discovery Pass

Parks Canada (similar to the National Park Service in America) offers various ways to pay the entrance fees at the national parks. There are day rates but there is also an annual pass called the Discovery Pass.

The easiest way to get the Discovery Pass is when you arrive at the entrance gate to a National Park. The fee when we got ours in 2016 was C$136.40 per couple/family group.

Because Canada is celebrating its 150th year of confederation in 2017, all the National Parks entrance fees will be waived in 2017. So, the ranger happily informed us that our 2016 pass would be effective for two years, which is another way of looking at it.

There is more info here: Parks Canada Discovery Pass Info

Entering Kootenay National Park British Columbia Canada

Knowing we’d be in Canada’s National Parks for a while, we bought a Discovery Pass as we drove into Kootenay National Park near Radium Hot Springs

Navigating the Web

The first time you do a Google search in Canada, you may be surprised to see that rather than www.google.com you end up on www.google.ca. The search results are quite different, because the search is done primarily on Canadian websites.

This is a wonderful chance to see how cyberspace looks from another vantage point, and we truly enjoyed browsing the internet with a Canadian slant.

However, if you get lonely for the Google that you know, simply enter the following:

http://www.google.com/ncr

The “/ncr” will go away the next time you visit Google.

Time Zone

New Brunswick and Nova Scotia are in the Atlantic Time Zone which is one hour earlier than Eastern Standard Time, so you will need to set your clocks forward when you cross the border.

We have atomic clocks in our RV that beam up to satellites every so often to get the current time of day according to the time zone they think they are in (we tell them what time zone they are in via buttons on the back of the clock).

Unfortunately, these are American clocks that don’t have a setting for Atlantic Time. So, we spent three weeks in Nova Scotia not really knowing the correct time. The manual override on the bedroom clock worked okay, but the living room clock insisted on beaming up despite being set on manual, and unfortunately the satellite it got its time from was four hours off.

Oh well! The computers had the right time, and who really cared what time it was anyway?

Canadian Tire

There are lots of great boutique stores and wondrous shopping experiences to be found in the Canadian Maritimes, and Walmart and all the other big box stores have a strong presence in urban parts of New Brunswick (less so in Nova Scotia). One incredible store that is well worth a visit is Canadian Tire. It is a combination of Walmart, Home Depot, Ace Hardware and Target all rolled into one. They also sell tires.

Weather

Nova Scotia was having a cool summer during our visit in June and July, but more important than that was the variability of the weather. In general, we found the coast could often be foggy or rainy, so we tried to make hay when the sun was shining.

Here’s a classic eight day forecast for the pretty twon of Lunenburg on the South Shore:

Lunenburg weather 10 day

What’s the forecast? A little bit of everything!

We visited the Canadian Rockies ahead of the main tourist season in May. We saw high temps ranging from as low as the 40’s to as high as the 80’s (Fahrenheit). We saw low temps get as low as the 20’s. We saw beautiful sunny days, snow, sleet and rain. Be prepared for anything and everything!

Later in the season, the Canadian Rockies is much warmer, but can still throw a cold day at you. The trade-off is that the number of tourists skyrockets as the Rockies warm up.

Medical Care

We didn’t need medical care during any of our visits. However, if you are concerned about needing emergency assistance while traveling, you might consider getting a fall emergency call button that has a built-in GPS and can send emergency services to you anywhere in Canada.

 

DECIPHERING THE ROAD SIGNS IN NOVA SCOTIA

Striking off on the highway in New Brunswick was ordinary enough until we noticed some of the highway signs flying by. Canada’s official languages are both English and French, so the road signs are written in both languages. What a cool truck scale sign!

Truck scale sign New Brunswick Canada

We’d never seen a truck scale sign like this before!

Then we were reminded that Canada uses the metric system for all units of measurement, including speed.

Speed limit 110 km-hour road sign

WOW!!
Oh, wait, that’s kilometers per hour. Darn!

This includes not just kilometers per hour for speed but Celsius for temperature too.

Bridge Freezes Road Sign Canada

Bridge may be icy

Including both English and French words on a small sign can get crowded, so lots of the highway signs in Canada use creative imagery instead. It was really fun to look at the signs and try to figure them out.

Highway entrance ramp roadsign

Eye catchers on the side of the highway

Did a lighthouse picture mean there was a lighthouse somewhere? What about that snail vine looking thing?

Lighthouse and snail roadsign_

What???

We got an eye full when we pulled off the highway and had to decide which way to go.

Road sign New Brunswick Canada

That’s a lot to take in all at once!

Wait a minute — can we see that again up close?

Road sign up close New Brunswick_

Oh my goodness. What are all those things?

The traffic piled up behind us as we studied the icons and tried to guess their meaning. Our route was to the left, despite all the wonderfully artistic imagery that tried to lure us off to the right.

We got back on the highway only to pass an exit that made it very clear we were now traveling in a foreign country. English might be spoken here, but then again, maybe not!

Confusing road sign New Brunswick Canada

Where are we, exactly?

The icons are really imaginitive, and at first glance, going by at 60 mph, it was impossible to know what they all referred to.

Exit road sign with icons New Brunswick Canada

Some of these are obvious, but some…what the heck are they??

Icons on highway road sign in New Brunswick Canada

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Was the “@” sign something with email? Was the flower and barn a nursery? Were the masks a theater?

There was a key icon — we sure could use a key to unlock the other icons!

It became a fantastic game to spot these signs whipping past us and to try to remember all the icons we saw and to guess what they represented.

Egg spinning wheel and vase road sign New Brunswick Canada

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International road sign Canada

.

Icons on international road sign Canada

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Icons on road sign New Brunswick Canada

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We stopped at a visitors center, and the hosts shed some light on a few that they knew. The egg in an egg cup was a bed and breakfast. The wrapped gift was a gift shop.

They had never noticed the barn with the people in it waving, so they weren’t sure what that was. We had seen several — one had a silo and another was under water with a fish swimming above… who knows!

There was a seahorse and there was a father and son looking off to sea with a spyglass and pointing. There was a tulip in a house and a vase on a hand. Just wonderful, but utterly baffling!

Inventing meanings for these signs sure beat the old alphabet game we used to play as kids in the back of the family station wagon!

We learned later that some were icons for designated scenic drives, and the hosts at the visitors center told us that one time a fellow came in and was very irate because he had followed all the lighthouse signs to the end of the road and had never seen a lighthouse. They’d had to explain to him that the lighthouse icon stands for a scenic drive that has lighthouses along the route, but you have to get off the route to see them!

Cuttlefish road sign

Mystifying

Another mysterious icon for a scenic drive had triangles and stripes that looked to me like a fish skeleton. I don’t know what that indicated, but when we saw the beer stein icon we knew for sure that a brewery was nearby.

Brewery Sign Nova Scotia Canada

Ahhh… follow that sign!!

Some signs were very familiar and very obvious.

Moose Sign New Brunswick Canada

This one we know…

Others were familiar but had a special twist. McDonald’s puts the Canadian maple leaf in the middle of their logo, and we later noticed that many online retailers like Amazon put the red maple leaf on their websites too (along with the “.ca” extension rather than “.com”).

McDonalds Road Sign Maple Leaf New Brunswick Canada

…and this one too, but it has a special maple leaf twist~

Within a few days, though, the novelty of these exotic road signs wore off and we felt very much at home.

 

That’s about it. Going to Canada to do some RV travel is pretty darn easy. I hope these little tips and insights are useful to you, and have fun RVing the Canadian Maritimes!!

Our RV travel posts from the Canadian Rockies:

Our RV travel posts from Nova Scotia:

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What Is An RV Warranty – Do You Need One? Is It A Good Investment?

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An RV Extended Warranty (or “RV Warranty“) is a mechanical breakdown protection product that you can purchase for your RV to give you a financial boost in the event that a system on your RV suddenly fails. By their very nature and reputation, RV warranties are contracts that most RVers either swear by or swear at, and for those of us whose eyes glaze over when reading legal documents, it can be really hard to figure out whether or not buying an RV extended warranty is a worthwhile investment.

This article is the first in a series of articles about RV extended warranties that present our personal case history with our RV warranty on our 2007 NuWa Hitchhiker II LS fifth wheel trailer (four year warranty cost: $1,904). This first article begins by explaining what RV extended warranties are, how they work, and how they differ from RV insurance. It also explains what to look for when buying an RV extended warranty contract. Then it goes on to show our own RV warranty in action during our first claim which was an axle replacement on our fifth wheel trailer ($1,136 reimbursement).

The rest of the articles in this series show our warranty in action. How valuable is this extended trailer warranty to us?

Here's a summary of what our four year RV warranty through Wholesale Warranties cost, what our repairs WOULD HAVE cost, and what our warranty reimbursements have been to date:

Cost of Warranty $1,904
Total Cost of Repairs we've had done $7,834
Total Out of Pocket Costs for those repairs $1,145
Repair Reimbursements:
Trailer Axle Replacement $1,036
RV Refrigerator Replacement $1,647
Plumbing Issues & Window Leak $1,142
Suspension Replacement $2,550
RV Toilet Replacement $314
Total Repair Reimbursements $6,689

Our trailer warranty has paid for itself 3.5 times over!
Confused about the nitty gritty fine print buried in RV Extended Warranties? Here's an excellent detailed explanation!!

What is an RV Warranty and should you have one?

To buy or not to buy an RV warranty?

You can navigate through this article using these links:

 

RV Extended Warranty Overview

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All RVs come with a manufacturer’s warranty when they are purchased new, and these warranties are good for a year or two.

After the manufacturer’s warranty expires, you can purchase an RV Extended Service Contract, commonly known as an RV Warranty, from an independent warranty company for another few years. Or you can just hope for the best.

RV extended warranties are contracts that describe in detail what is covered and what is not covered by the policy, and they have a specific start date and end date. You can pay for the warranty outright when you sign the contract or you can purchase it over time with payments. These contracts are designed to cover the mechanical working components on and in your RV.

If you have an RV extended warranty, when there is a system failure on your RV, you begin the process of filing a claim with your warranty provider by finding an RV repair shop of your choice to diagnose the problem. The shop then calls the warranty company’s administrator for authorization to do the repair. The claims adjustor then reviews the details of your failure to determine if the failure falls under the coverage offered by the contract you purchased. After a covered repair is completed, the RV repair facility contacts the warranty company to present them with the bill, and the warranty company pays for the covered items immediately with a corporate credit card. You then pay for the items that were not covered by the warranty plus a deductible.

The real sticking point comes with what is covered and what is not covered by the warranty. It is up to you to determine the likelihood that enough items on your RV will break during the time period that the warranty is in place to cover the cost of the warranty. Obviously — and hopefully — it will cover a bit more than that, just to make you feel like you made a smart decision by buying a warranty in the first place.

What Is The Difference Between Insurance and A Warranty?

In a nutshell, the difference between an insurance policy and a warranty is that insurance covers damage caused by an incident or accident happening, while a warranty covers the failure of something mechanical that shouldn’t have broken.

Insurance is there for damage that can be pinpointed to an event on a particular date: a fire, a theft, a tree falling on the rig, a tornado. Warranties are there for systems that die without an obvious cause: the hot water heater can’t warm the water any more, the fridge can’t keep the food cold any more, the air conditioning is on the fritz, or a slideout room refuses to budge in or out.

Insurance is something we all understand pretty well since we’ve all had to have car insurance since we bought our first car. Warranties are a little less familiar because, for most of us, our only experience is with manufacturers’ warranties or with a home warranty we got as part of the deal when buying a house. There are no laws that say we have to purchase a warranty of any kind for any big asset we own, so many folks (like us) steer clear of them!

Risks

The value of an RV warranty all boils down to risk. Just like insurance, you pay some money up front in the hopes that something major goes wrong that will cost a lot more than the money you paid for the contract. It’s a way of protecting yourself from having to come up with a massive amount of money to pay for an unexpected repair — a way of hedging your bets by paying a little now instead of (possibly) a lot later.

Just like playing the slot machines at the casino, you put in quarters — either with regular payments or by paying for the whole contract at the beginning of the warranty — and you hope the bells suddenly go off and a huge pile of quarters lands in your lap. Unfortunately, in the back of our minds, we all know that when it comes to casinos, “the house” always wins. And who owns the biggest and fanciest office buildings in most major cities? The insurance companies!

So, while we consumers are betting that something bad will happen when we buy insurance or a warranty, the insurance and warranty companies are successfully betting that it won’t.

Our RV warranty Personal Case History

RV extended warranties provide the most value for folks that have a rig that is two or more years old. Our fifth wheel trailer that we live in full-time is a 2007 model, and its aging equipment could be very costly to repair. The hot water heater, RV refrigerator and air conditioning systems are all more and more prone to failure as the days pass. Sometimes older rigs like our develop cracks in the frame or the big slide-outs fail (we have three slides). We’ve heard heard horror stories from fellow RVers of broken trailer axles and unexpected $1,700 refrigerator replacements. We realized that an RV warranty could make a lot of sense for us.

As we did our research, we had no idea that we would soon experience both trailer axle AND RV refrigerator failures!

We decided to work with Wholesale Warranties, an RV extended warranty broker. We gave them the details about our rig, and they got quotes from the warranty companies they work with and chose the one that was best suited to our situation. We signed a contract with Portfolio Protection for a $1,904 four year Exclusionary RV Extended Warranty with a $100 deductible.

Fifth wheel trailer RV at Harvey RVs in Bangor Maine

Our fifth wheel peeks out from the its hospital room at Harvey RVs in Bangor Maine

Some warranty companies are fly-by-night operations that might go out of business before the contract period ends, and others have top ratings with the Better Business Bureau and are backed by A-rated insurance companies that will step in and take over if the warranty company fails.

Wholesale Warranties makes it their business to sort out which companies are the best ones and to establish relationships with them. Wholesale Warranties has been growing by leaps and bounds and was named one of Inc 5000’s Fastest Growing Companies in 2014, and one of San Diego’s fastest growing companies in 2015. More important, they have made many clients very happy.

What is unusual about Wholesale Warranties is that they don’t simply sell a contract and walk away. They are there for their clients to help smooth the process, if necessary, when a claim is filed. In fact, they are willing to pay for a client’s claim themselves, if they believe it was wrongly denied, and then fight with the warranty company behind the scenes after the fact.


Little did we know that before the first year of our contract was up, we would need FOUR major repairs on our trailer and we’d end up almost $4,500 AHEAD of the cost of our trailer warranty!

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The RV Warranty In Action – Trailer Axle Replacement!

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About three weeks ago, in mid-July, 2015, Mark noticed some serious and irregular wear on the passenger side tire on our rear trailer axle. Our tires were just 14 months old, had been properly cared for, and had less than 10,000 miles on them. Oddly, one half of the tire had okay tread while the opposite half, 180 degrees out, was a mess. On the bad half, the tire was severely cupping on the outside tread and was nearly bald. The other three tires looked great. Much research and many phone calls later, we realized that our problem was probably a bent axle.

Bald tire

Weird tire wear: bald on one side, on one half of the tire

Bald tire other side

Same tire spun 180 degrees – bad but not bald!

We were wrapping up our travels in Nova Scotia at the time. We weren’t sure what was involved in replacing an axle, and even though our warranty covered repairs in Canada as well as the US, we had friends in Bangor, Maine, and felt better about doing the repair there. Lippert Components helped us locate a phenomenal RV repair facility in Bangor — Harvey RVs — and we nervously drove 450 miles to Bangor on the faulty tire and took the buggy in.

The diagnosis was exactly what we had expected: a bent axle. The bizarre wear on the tire was due to the tire “dribbling” like a basketball as it rolled down the road. Unfortunately, by the time we got to Bangor, the driver’s side tire on the bad axle was also beginning to cup, and we needed both tires replaced.

We decided to take advantage of our RV warranty to have some other broken items repaired as well. This way, one deductible payment would cover all the different warranty repairs. The extender on one of our awning arms had sheered off, and we had just developed some kind of leak in the fresh water tank during the last few weeks.

Brent Horne, the service manager at Harvey RVs, called our warranty company’s administrator and got same-day authorization to do all three repairs, with the water tank repair pending a full diagnosis.

The axle replacement and awning arm replacement went like clockwork, although we did have to wait ten days for the new axle to be built and shipped from Indiana. A minor complication with the replacement was that the new axle came with electric drum brakes pre-installed and we had to move our new disc brakes from the old axle to the new one.

The diagnosis on the water tank was inconclusive. The leak was at the top of the tank, and we would have to drop the tank out of the trailer frame to determine the cause. Because it was at the top of the tank, it leaked only when the tank was totally topped off, not when it was less than full. We decided to defer that repair to the service folks at the Kansas RV Center (which used to be NuWa, the manufacturer of our trailer) rather than delay our travels waiting for a replacement tank to be shipped to northern Maine. Kansas would be in our general direction as we headed west in the fall.

Old trailer axle new fifth wheel RV axle

The new axle (left) has electric drum brakes and old axle (right) has our nifty new disc brakes.
The challenge with this repair was moving the disc brakes from the old axle to the new one.

When the bill for the repairs came, it was the following:

Awning Arm, tax and labor 46.73
Trailer axle, tax and labor 1,089.42
Freight for trailer axle 219.90
Tires, tax and labor 417.78
Total Repairs: 1,773.83

The Service Manager, Brett, called the warranty company and was immediately paid by credit card for the following:

Awning Arm, tax and labor 46.73
Trailer axle, tax and labor 1,089.42
Total Covered by Warranty: 1,136.15

Our bill was the following:

Freight for trailer axle 219.90
Tires, tax and labor 417.78
Deductible 100.00
Total Out of Pocket: 737.68

 
So, on a total bill of $1,773.83, our savings was $1,036.15.

 

RV Warranty Analysis

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As mentioned above, RV warranties are intended to reimburse the parts, tax and labor expenses for repairing system failures, and the trailer axle and awning arm piece were clear system failures.

However RV warranties do not cover the freight costs for shipping large replacement parts from the manufacturer to the RV repair facility, and they don’t cover “maintenance items” that wear out or need regular maintenance to operate correctly. There is also a very large gray area when it comes to items that were damaged by the failure of something else, like the tires being damaged by the failed axle. Similarly, water damage due to plumbing or roofing failures may or may not be covered.

In our case, even though the tires were very obviously disintegrating because of the bent axle, they are classified as a maintenance item so they weren’t covered. We learned later that Wholesale Warranties has a separate policy for tire failures due to road hazards, but it wouldn’t have helped us in this case either.

So, we paid for the tires out of pocket.

Has our RV warranty done the job so far?

Absolutely! 10 months into our 4 year warranty contract, here’s where we stand:

 
Cost of warranty: $1,904.00
Reimbursed so far: $1,036.15
Remaining to break even: $867.85

We are 20% of the way through our warranty contract period.
We are 54% of the way through our contract cost.

So, we are ahead of the game at this point. $867.85 more in repairs in the next 38 months, and we will have matched the cost of the warranty.

NOTE: We did not know at the time we wrote this that we’d have a bunch more major repairs in the next THREE MONTHS!

A financial breakdown of all our repairs is at the top of this page HERE

Harvey RVs Bangor Maine

All smiles at Harvey RVs after the repair is finished
Expert Technician Steve and Service Manager Brett join me in front of our rolling home.

Could An Insurance Policy Have Done The Job?

Usually, insurance and warranties don’t overlap in the kinds of things they cover. Insurance generally requires an event that caused damage while a warranty generally requires a system to fail on its own. In this particular situation of a bent trailer axle, however, if we could have pinned the axle failure to a particular event, perhaps when we hit one particuarly gargantuan pothole of the thousands we encountered in Nova Scotia, then we could have filed an insurance claim based on hitting that pothole.

Using insurance, our claim would have been:

Trailer axle, tax and labor 1,089.42
Freight for trailer axle 219.90
Tires, tax and labor 417.78
Total Claim: 1,721.10

Note that we couldn’t have slid the awning repair into the insurance claim.

If the claim were approved, all of those items would have been covered. However, we have a $500 deductible on our trailer insurance and we would have had to pay the $46.73 awning repair out of pocket.

Here’s the breakdown for comparable repair work (axle and awning) using our warranty versus our insurance policy:

Covered Out Of Pocket
Warranty 1,136.15 737.68
Insurance 1,721.10 546.73

 

Why Use a Warranty When Insurance Works Too?

If we had filed an insurance claim, there would have been a wait for an insurance adjuster to assess the damage. With the warranty, the authorization for the repair is given to the service provider as soon as they call. Also, our “reward” for filing the insurance claim would have been a ding on our insurance record which would have affected our insurance premium in the future.

If we had had one of those nifty insurance policies that has a “disappearing deductible” that decreases each year that no claim is filed, the clock would have started over again at the maximum deductible amount the next year after we filed the claim.

I’m not sure if the difference in out of pocket costs of $190.95 ($737.68 in the case of using the warranty minus $546.73 in the case of using the insurance policy) would have been made up in the next three years of insurance premiums (the time period that the warranty will continue to be in effect), but it’s easy to imagine this claim resulting in an increase in our annual insurance premium of $66.67 ($190.95 / 3 years).

Of course, this particular system failure — a bent trailer axle — is unusual in that it is even possible that an insurance policy might have been used to pay for it. In most cases, RV systems die on their own without a specific event causing the failure (an accident, road hazard, theft, etc.), and those failures are not eligible for insurance coverage at all.

 

Is An RV Warranty A Good Value?

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RVs are notorious for system failures, and sooner or later big expensive stuff is going to break on every RV.

If you don’t like large, unexpected financial outlays, an RV extended warranty can mitigate or eliminate the cost completely when a major system on board goes on the blink. There’s a lot to be said for that when you are suddenly jerked off the road and away from your travels and dumped into the waiting room at an RV repair shop while you nervously wonder if the service guys are any good and if your rolling home is going to be repaired correctly.

Bicycle riding in Nova Scotia Canada

It’s a shock to be dragged away from your happy travels to deal with an RV repair

Obvioiusly, you could simply bank the amount you would have put into buying an RV warranty and use that cash as needed when things fail. It is easy to go that route when you remember that, on average, RV warranties must work out in favor of the warranty companies or they couldn’t stay in business.

However, an intangible in all of this is peace of mind when chaos reins. Abandoning your travels to take care of an ailing RV is really stressful. Believe me! And there are lots of stresses involved in any repair that is big enough to be warranty-worthy.

There is stress in finding a repair facility that has the right equipment and the right skill set and a good reputation, especially when you are traveling in a part of the country you don’t know. There’s stress in taking a detour to get your RV to the shop if it’s not in totally safe driving condition (like ours was). There’s stress in figuring out where you’re going to stay while your RV is in the shop, if you can’t stay in it. And there’s stress as you wait, first for a shop appointment, and then for the necessary parts to come in.

Going through all that stress while also knowing in the back of your mind that the repair is going to put a big hole in your bank account makes it even worse.

Directions to Everywhere

It’s all fine and dandy to be traveling in remote areas,
but where do you find a top quality RV service repair shop?

The purpose of an RV warranty is to pay up front to cover potential costs later. Where they get the bad rap is when you pay up front to cover potential costs that never materialize or that materialize but aren’t covered. However, if you think about it, in many ways the devil that you don’t know may be worse than the devil that you do.

What I mean is that paying a fixed amount for an RV warranty, an amount that you know up front, may save you more or less cash for repairs in the end, but at least you’ve lessened the surprises and you know your costs. Plus, you may save far more than just cash when all is said and done. Even if having the warranty doesn’t save you all the cash you spent on it, you can view the difference as the price of peace of mind. If it saves you more than it cost you, you’re ahead.

 

What to Look For in an RV Extended Warranty

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It is easiest to turn to a company like Wholesale Warranties to get a warranty. When you work with them they will evaluate which warranty product is the best fit for your RV. Whichever warranty company they recommend for you, one of their requirements is that the warranty company call them if you file a claim that is over $500 so they can be part of the claims process and help it be as smooth as possible.

Since we got our RV warranty (our warranty company is Portfolio Protection), Wholesale Warranties has grown a lot and has begun providing their own warranty protection in addition to brokering for warranty companies like Portfolio Protection. This is a new and exciting development, because they have been through the claims process with their clients so many times that they know what RVers really need. The name of their warranty company is Viking Protection.

However, if you want to research RV warranty companies on your own, here are some things to think about:

Inspection and Age of RV

With the better warranty companies you will need to make your RV available for an inspection to determine the condition of everything at the start of the contract. This way, when you file a claim, there is no question as to whether the problem was a pre-existing condition. The warranty companies that Wholesale Warranties works with will send an agent to your RV, wherever it is parked, to do the inspection, and you don’t have to lift a finger.

If your RV is older than a 2001 model or has over 100,000 miles on the odometer, it may be difficult to find a warranty company. In some cases, a motorhome with more than 100k miles can get a “coach only” warranty for everything except the engine and drive train.

Warranty Types

There are two major warranty types: Stated Components and Exclusionary Contracts. Stated Component contracts cover only what is listed in the contract. Exclusionary Contracts cover everything EXCEPT the items listed. Definitely get an Exclusionary Contract, as many more things are covered in that type of contract.

You Choose the RV Repair Shop

Make sure there’s no clause that restricts who can do the work. You want to choose the best repair facility you can find and not be forced into using one that is not up to your standards.

Deductible

Deductibles can vary. Make sure you know what it is!

Fair Treatment of the RV Repair Shop

Be sure the warranty company guarantees to pay the RV repair shop quickly, preferably immediately with a corporate credit card, and make sure they pay the shop’s standard prices for the parts rather than wholesale or some amount to be negotiated. RV repair shops are often little outfits, and they can’t afford to be toyed with by a warranty company.

What Happens if the RV is Sold

Be sure the contract will be valid for another owner, just in case you decide to sell before it expires. A warranty is a nice perk to offer the buyer that may set your rig apart from others they are considering.

Cancellation, Missed Payments and Refund

Find out what happens if you decide to cancel the contract prematurely, and whether the purchase price will be refunded in whole or in part, and find out what happens if you miss a payment. Some warranty companies offer a month-to-month payment arrangement, but in the event that you miss a payment the contract terminates. Wholesale Warranties goes the extra mile and will work with you if you have extenuating circumstances that make it hard to make a payment, and if you cancel before the contract is up, you will be refunded the unused portion of the contract.

Hotel & Lodging Reimbursement

Some warranties cover a certain amount of lodging if you can’t stay in the RV during the repair. This is where Wholesale Warranties is really taking care of RVers with their new Viking Protection contracts. You will be reimbursed for “trip interruption” expenses of: $150/day in hotel rooms (up to $750), $50/meal for 2 meals a day (up to $500), $75/day for a rental car (up to $450), up to $100 towards boarding your pet and up to $200 to cover a mobile mechanic’s upfront fee for coming out to your RV.

Towing and Roadside Assistance

Some warranty companies offer reimbursements for some amount of towing and/or roadside assistance. Wholesale Warranties‘ new Viking Protection reimburses up to $750 in towing expenses.

Canadian RVers and RVing in Canada

If you plan to travel to Canada, make sure the warranty company covers repairs done in Canada. Also, not all warranty companies cover RVs that are registered in Canada. Wholesale Warranties’ new Viking Protection does!

 

Final Notes

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We couldn’t be happier with our RV warranty so far, and have been convinced in the value of purchasing an RV warranty.

At this point we still have three years to go on our warranty, and we have a big repair looming as we tackle the problem with our fresh water tank. We have no idea how our RV warranty will come into play on that repair, or if it will at all, and of course, we will be posting and analyzing that repair!

It’s a pain to feel that you have to buy yet one more big ticket item for your RV, and I am the last person to say you need to do this or that in your RVing adventures. However, if you are interested, Wholesale Warranties is offering a $50 discount to our readers. Mention that you heard about them through our website, Roads Less Traveled, and they will deduct $50 from the quoted price at the time of purchase. Just be sure to ask! You can get a quote for your RV (not including the discount) at this link:

Wholesale Warranties Quote Form

Or you can call them at 800-939-2806. Ask for our contact, Missi Emmett. Or email her at missi@wholesalewarranties.com.

NOTE: We had no idea during this first repair that in the next few months we would have a slew of major failures after our trailer axle was replaced. The summary of our warranty reimbursements to date is below:

Here's a summary of what our four year RV warranty through Wholesale Warranties cost, what our repairs WOULD HAVE cost, and what our warranty reimbursements have been to date:

Cost of Warranty $1,904
Total Cost of Repairs we've had done $7,834
Total Out of Pocket Costs for those repairs $1,145
Repair Reimbursements:
Trailer Axle Replacement $1,036
RV Refrigerator Replacement $1,647
Plumbing Issues & Window Leak $1,142
Suspension Replacement $2,550
RV Toilet Replacement $314
Total Repair Reimbursements $6,689

Our trailer warranty has paid for itself 3.5 times over!
Confused about the nitty gritty fine print buried in RV Extended Warranties? Here's an excellent detailed explanation!!

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