Tag: lessons learned

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RV Life – Month 5

Happy Thanksgiving and Merry Christmas!

This is our first holiday in Ruff Road.  It was almost one year ago that this dream began.  My Facebook timehop popped up with One Year Ago today…my friend and I were taking pictures of RVs at a local dealership.  This time last year, we had no idea we would be “looking at freedom” everyday.  So here are our tweaks, tips, and trials at Month 5, as well as some general observations.

General Observations:

  • It’s cold even in Florida, but Ruff Road has stayed warm and cozy.  Temps were chilly, but not freezing.  Stay tuned for Month 6 reflection to see how we’ll do in much chillier weather.  However, so far so good.
  • When you retire, you don’t have to be the one to cook and host.  We enjoyed going up to the big house and eating our Thanksgiving feast with my daughter and her family.
  • This leads me to another observation.  We love being with family.  What a difference it makes when the cloud of a stressful job is not hanging over your head and you can enjoy your family mornings, middays or afternoons.  This is something that was difficult for us to find time to do in our past life.  We know not everyone reading this is retired.  We were there.  My advice that I tried to follow while I was working was to work towards a work/ home balance.  It was an ongoing goal.  Sometimes I was really good at it and sometimes work just took over.  However, as long as you set it as a goal, your chance of success are higher than if you don’t.

    • Christmas with the family in St. Augustine, Florida
  • One more observation, a retirement bonus that I noticed.  Christmas shopping and events were so freeing because I didn’t have the work load I did in past years.  My budget was smaller-retirement budget-but we all still had a great Christmas and I loved looking at freedom this time of year.

Tips:

  • Make a plan to balance work and home.  Hang in there and know that the day will come when you can look at freedom everyday.
  • Need space?  Rethink it.  Even though we feel like we have ample room here, the use of space needed to be improved.  I was using the table for an office but that meant it was always cluttered with the computer and papers.  We were also busy digitizing home videos (part of our downsizing process) and the video and second computer were always on our limited counter space along with copied and to copy VHS tapes.  Clutter, everywhere!  We also observed that the passenger chair, when turned around toward the living room served mostly as a catch all as you came through the door- ugh, more clutter.  What was our solution?  We have a very roomy cab area.  There is a small table next to the passenger chair and the dashboard area is quite large.  I already had office supplies and photography equipment stored there, so…naturally this became our office.  We left the passenger chair turned forward and the space is quite roomy to work in.  We were also able to gain some room by moving one of the dog crates to right behind the passenger chair giving a more closed off look to the space.  We like it.  Expect that tweaking space and rearranging will be the norm when you begin RV living.
  • Protect your RV floors.  We made a huge mistake when we moved in.  We were leaving behind ceramic tile floors that seemed to be indestructible no matter what you pushed across them.  Ruff Road has laminate tiles.  We now know, they will scratch easily.  When we moved in we took baskets, boxes, and crates of belongings to Ruff Road and, like an assembly line, shoved them in the door and pushed them inside to add more.  All of this pushing of weighted items put fine scratches all over our floors.  You can’t really tell unless you are on the floor so that’s the good news.  Then I wondered, were they there all along?  No, I think we did it.  To further protect our floors, we stopped sliding things on them.  The dog crates rest on rugs.  In addition, we put felt on the bottom of our ottoman and free standing chair.  Lesson learned.

Tips relating to dogs:

  • Keep nails trimmed.  We should know this but we let it slip.  Our girls’ nails grow long and sharp if not trimmed.  We wish we were part of the group of folks who know how to do this, but we aren’t- yet.  Our dogs’ nail trimmings require a trip to the vet after a calming pill.  They are overdue and our dash paid the price.  We now have one little pinhole from an excited Terra who jumped up before she could be stopped.
  • Set boundaries for pets.  This should go without saying but…sometimes this doesn’t happen.  Our girls are allowed in the driver and passenger chairs, the ottoman, or the floor.  They are not allowed on the couch or the bed.  They also know to “stay” when we are coming and going through the door.  Consistency is the key.  Make sure both pet parents are on the same page.  If one allows a rule to be broken, pets become confused and, like children, will push their limits.
  • Use Velcro to keep covers on furniture.  When we purchased our RV, the coach seats were already starting to flake.  We keep them covered with blankets and that works well.  Our ottoman is looking a little worn as well so it is covered with a quilted piece of fabric.  I used Velcro to attach the fabric to the ottoman.  I plan to use Velcro to help keep blankets on the coach chairs.  I’ll let you know how that works out.  Until then, we will just rearrange them after the pups mess them up.

What are some trials we’ve had this month?

  • Our onboard water tank filled up twice this month.  The first time water was actually leaking out of the fill tank area.  We thought we had the switch flipped over to city water, but it still happened twice.  After draining the tank twice and rechecking, we haven’t had anymore issues.  Maybe it wasn’t all the way over.  It’s still a mystery.
  • This is tragic!  We purchased a Powilling Dehumidifier from Amazon to take care of excess moisture in the air.  It rode on the built in side table next to the couch.  We had no problem in all of our travels.  However, on one fateful day, as we turned into our driveway, it took a tumble and fell to the floor never to work again.  We recommend this unit.  It has worked great for us.

We are just days away from our first full time RV Christmas.  The tree is up.  The lights are hung.  We are warm and cozy and happy.  Peace to everyone.

 

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RV Life – Month 4

I moved out!

That’s right!  I moved out of Ruff Road.  We had scheduled some warranty work to be done at Tampa Lazy Days on November 4th.  Our list of needed repairs were the leaking AC in the rain, refrigerator not cooling and freezing up, toilet ring would not keep water in the bowl even though we had used the lubricant, our antennae handle just fell off, possible air leak in the brakes, and our propane tank gauge did not work.  So the girls, Phoebe, Terra, and Luna, and I moved out into the “big house” while Gary headed south to Tampa for our appointment.  Lazy Days allowed him to stay in the RV at night.  This should have been simple but we learned that the refrigeration tech only comes once a week on Tuesday.  The scheduling department scheduled us for Wednesday so that delayed the refrigerator even being looked at for one week.  All in all, Gary was gone November 1st – November 17th.  While we loved the buying experience at Lazy Days, we didn’t love the service there.  They did repair the items on our list and our warranty was effective in keeping these costs down.  Some things that had to be fixed weren’t covered.  It didn’t cover the roof reseal, AC gaskets, or the AC fan motor.  It did cover all the other items so all in all, not bad.

Lesson learned

  • Before you go to a repair shop, make sure your pantry is fully stocked.  We intended to shop but ran out of time.  Gary was stuck there without a car.  There was a gas station nearby, Cracker Barrel, and Lazy Days restaurants.  He wished he had food in the pantry.
  • Plan on it taking longer than you expect.  That seems to be the norm from what others have said.  I’m sure there are exceptions and it depends on what needs to be fixed.  I’ve also heard nightmare stories of it taking weeks or months to have repairs completed.
  • Don’t expect buyer loyalty.  We did and when Gary arrived, he was just another person.  We emailed with no response.  We did let the service manager know our concerns regarding the service.  Of course, you never complain without a solution.  Here are ours:

If the service volume is high, extend the service hours.

Have a plan for repairs.

Don’t allow outside vendors to dictate their work schedule.

Overnight parts

It wasn’t all bad.

Gary had electric, water, and dump access while there.  Lazy Days is a beautiful RV Park and RV dealership.  Gary walked the grounds and even did some RV shopping.  He is loving those 5th wheels.  I’m glad they finished the repairs or he might have traded Ruff Road for a 5th wheel!  Another bonus is he attended several RV seminars while there and learned about RV tanks and electrical systems.

Happy Holidays are coming!

While he was away, my granddaughters and I decorated the “big house” for Christmas.  We also had a sweet sixteen birthday party for my granddaughter.  All of this was so much fun and I enjoyed not stressing about work and just enjoying this time with family.

Tips:

  • Walmart battery operated lights are inexpensive and have a timer.  This works great for RVs.
Battery operated lights from Walmart
  • Don’t leave your vents open if you don’t have a vent cover.  It rained.  It poured.  It flooded.  Good thing I had my camping towel to mop it up.

When are we EVER going to leave?

You may be wondering when and if we are ever going to “hit the road”.  There have been a couple of hiccups that delayed us leaving.  The major one is it took a long time to get rid of our stuff.  Once October passed, neither one of us really wanted to venture north of where we are.  We love the warmer weather, plus we wanted to be home for the holidays.  We do have some trips planned for 2018.  We are looking forward to venturing away for awhile.  So stay tuned, it’s in the works.

Do you have any RV repair stories?  Comment and share what you learned from the process.

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RV Life – Month 2

It’s been 2 months!  Here are some wonderings, lessons learned, and tips.

We wondered:  Water drips through our AC in a heavy rain.  Why?  We have since had the gaskets redone and roof resealed.  No more problems.

We wondered:  Why do we have to defrost our residential fridge every seven to ten days?  The refrigerator would get warmer and warmer until this was done.  Update:  It has been fixed finally.  It never worked right but we had to use our current warranty to get it fixed.

We wondered:  What’s wrong with our poodle, Phoebe?  She’s struggling to breath out of her nose and has a nasal discharge.  She was diagnosed with pneumonia and on meds.  She is 15 years old and such a good old girl.  I hate to see her uncomfortable.

Lesson learned:  Shop around to dump.  We found a cheaper and nicer place to dump open 24 hours a day.  It’s the Petro Truck Stop!

Lesson learned:  Be careful what’s stored in the basements.  Moisture can get to the contents if you life in a humid, moist climate and they are not stored in proper containers.  My backpacking equipment became moldy down below so I rearranged and made room for it in the bedroom.  It works!

Tip:  We tried the GEO method for our black tank.  It helped.  What is the GEO method?  Just google GEO method for RVs and you will find a plethora of articles and You Tube how to videos.  It’s really simple.  You dump 1 cup of Calgon Water Softener and 1 cup of Dawn Dishwashing detergent down the toilet into your black tank after you dump.  You don’t need to do it every dump. It did keep the tank fresher and our sensors worked better.

Tip:  If you have an onboard washer and dryer, do small loads everyday.  They are small and don’t hold much.

Tip:  Buy a grass mat.  Less dirt comes in on little paws and feet.

Tip:  Command strips RULE!  Ruff Road feels so homey with pictures on the walls.

Dog Tip:  If you have a dog that pulls, front hook harnesses work the best.  I’ve also used the Gentle Leader Head Collar.  We also successfully used the Easy Walk Harness.  Both of these tend to cause chafing.  I sewed felt on the Easy Walk and that has helped.  We retired the Gentle Leaders in favor of the harnesses.  We recently ordered Ruffwear harnesses but they are a little big so less effective.  I called the company and they said they should work ok even though a little large.  The girls were still growing so I was hopeful they would fill them out.  They haven’t  The harnesses should have been sent back but we didn’t do it.  That, I suppose, is a lesson learned.

We survived:  Hurricane Irma came right through our area and we sustained no damage.  We were able to provide a place for our youngest son to stay since his home had no electricity.  See how we prepped for this storm in my previous post.

http://ruffroadrvlife.com/2017/12/28/hurricane-prep-and-finding-a-schedule/

Month 2- done.  We are moving on to Month 3!

Phoebe
Easy Walk Harnesses are great with young husky mix dogs.
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RV Life – Month 1

Well it’s been one month and what have we learned?  We are newbies ourselves but we do have some newbie advice.

Have a well thought out plan to transition into your new home.

Take stock of your needs, not your wants.  For example, Gary wanted a full set of pots and pans, but we didn’t need a full set.  I may have wanted to take family photo albums, but I didn’t need to take family photo albums.

That being said, be ok with parting with your “stuff”.  Replace “stuff” with experiences.

Your wants and needs will change as you move from sticks and bricks to woods, water, and adventure.

Know your space.  Diagraming every storage area helped us to know our RV.

Ahas…

Use a camping towel to mop up a lot of water.  It will be dry the next day.  I picked up two more at the dollar store.  We had an issue with our residential refrigerator and had to manually defrost it every ten days.  This super absorbent, quick drying towel was a life saver making quick work of the puddles of water or any other messes we made.

The thing that is a big deal today will not be a big deal in seven days and it will be a lesser deal in 30 days, a year from now.

It’s ok to take a zero day.  A zero day in the hiking world is a day that no miles are hiked.  A zero day to do nothing.  It’s ok.  Just do it sparingly.

Amazed

Gary is amazed that I was able to get all of our “stuff” in here.

I am amazed at how comfortable I am living in an RV.  I love cooking on the gas stove, sleeping in our cozy bedroom, and even cleaning- it’s quick!

The Ruffs

We had to switch out our Pet Mate plastic dog crates we bought for the RV and use the house American Kennel Club wire crates.  Our girls were just getting too big for ones we bought for the RV even though they were large.  The wire crates have more room, more air circulation, and a lower profile.  We put them on rugs to protect the floor.  They have adapted well and it’s nice to have them right here with us.  Poodle Phoebe is ok as long as daddy is near.  She’s easy.

Problems to Solve

I have heard some say you need to get rid of your hobby items.  This may contradict my wants and needs advice but in my opinion we need hobbies.  I have waited years to retire so I can fully enjoy my hobbies.  Storage is an issue though.  In one month, I was struggling with this problem.  Gary is a musician so he has guitars and amplifiers.  We both love kayaking.  I love hiking, biking, art, photography, crafts, and want to start sewing again.  So you see my problem!  That’s a lot of equipment, supplies.  At one month, I’m still working on this one.

Downsizing was a nightmare, but worth it.

My advice-  Just get rid of it.  I ended up doing that with so many things anyway.  The yard sale helped me to see what both families had to get rid of but I would not do it again.  The work involved vs the return was not worth it.  Donate and get a tax deduction.  When it’s done though, it feels AMAZING!

What a difference one month makes!  We are loving looking at freedom, everyday .

Share your beginning experiences or any questions that you have about RV Life.  Comment and share below.

Phoebe
Command strips work great to make your RV a home.

 

 

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Lessons Learned After Two Months of RV Living

Can you teach older dogs new tricks?  Why yes, you can!  We are growing dendrites!

Well here are just some of the adventurous learning lessons we’ve had so far.  Laugh along with us.  We are sharing so that you will be more knowledgeable and learn from our mistakes.

  • Know where your fire extinguisher is.

This one happened in the “big house” but the lesson is the same.  The washer was acting up and I absentmindedly grabbed the dryer plug, attempted to unplug it but the housing fell apart causing a giant spark which somehow arched over to the back of the dryer which immediately began to flame up the wall!  This happened in an instant and I called to my son-in-law, James, who immediately grabbed the nearby fire extinguisher and put the fire out.  I flipped the breaker off.  We evacuated the children to Ruff Road and waited for the fire department.  They were most impressed with our fast action and knowing where the fire extinguisher was and how to use it.  The outcome of this little mishap was that there was no damage, the washer works and the dryer works and I will never touch a 220 plug again!

  • Know your amps!

Make sure that you learn about amps and what your RV needs.  Make sure you know how many amps your electrical appliances use.  Remember this:  Amps = Watts divided by Volts.  For example,  a sandwich maker uses 1200 watts.  We are running 120 volts in our system.  So we divide 120 volts into 1200 watts and we find that the sandwich maker draws 10 amps, which is one third of what we have access to with our 30 amp hook up here at Happy Acre.  So this device will go in to the use with generator or 50 amp only pile.  How did we learn this?  We discovered that our little electric pot that heats water for tea draws too many amps to use if the AC is running.  We learned that we can only run one AC at a time.  Also, we learned that we can’t run our on board vacuum cleaner while AC is on.  So, as long as we are connected to 30 amp service, we must be mindful of our amp usage.

  • Do you know how your electric AC and Heat work?

We learned this the hard way on a trip to North Georgia this year.  There was snow and wind and rain and freezing temps.  No problem.  We have two heaters and we are connected to 50 amp service.  So we thought… As the temps dropped, our units did not heat Ruff Road.  Furthermore, the system kept switching to propane.  We stayed toasty warm with our propane, until it ran out.  Nothing about the AC/ Heat was covered in our walk-through or in the massive, generic owner’s manual in our coach.  So we turned to the internet.  Here is what we learned.  Only one AC unit has heat strips and this doesn’t work if the temperature is below 40 degrees.  Then the propane heat kicks on and that will use your propane reserves in a matter of days.  We also learned that our propane gauge was faulty.  It continued to show that we had propane but sadly we ran out.  Now we are more knowledgeable about our heating and cooling systems.  The propane gauge is fixed.  Lesson learned.

  • Know how your awning works

So on that same freezing North Georgia trip, we were sitting in our cozy, propane heated Ruff Road and suddenly heard what sounded like a loud bang, thud noise from outside.  It was night, blowing wind and sleet.  We knew our awning would retract in high winds but we didn’t think the wind was blowing at that speed.  I went to the door, opened it up, and did not see our awning.  My first thought was it had blown away, ripped from its mounts.  On further investigation, we saw it had rolled up by itself.  Why?  We turned to the manual this time and learned that when the temperature drops below 32 degrees, it retracts.  Good to know!

  • Tire center cap disappeared

On one of our first outings we returned to find that our front right tire center cap was gone.  It really affected the look of our Ruff Road.  It made her look a little rough.  Did someone steal it?  We had overnighted at a truck stop.  We didn’t know.  Gary started looking for tire center caps online and stumbled across some discussion of missing center caps.  Apparently, this happens so don’t be alarmed if it happens to you.  We went to Freightliner and bought another one.  Problem solved.

  • Replacing Halogen lights with LED lights- the experts don’t always know

We were told by someone at our local RV dealership that we would have to replace each individual puck (fixture).  We even started shopping for puck light replacements.  Fortunately, this was false.  In our unit, all we needed was the bulbs.  Gary read several great reviews on LED lights sold on Amazon for a fraction of the cost that RV Stores charged.  For about $70 we were able to replace all of our ceiling lights with LED lights.  So far, so good.  LEDs are much cooler and use a fraction of the watts that the hot halogen lights use.  If you are thinking of making the switch, we recommend it.

(add amazon link)

  • Beware of what and how you store in basement compartments

There is nothing funny about this one.  I allocated one of the basement bins to backpacking and camping supplies.  Some items were stored in a tote but the backpacks and tents were stored in large garbage bags.  As we adjusted to RV living, we found the need to rearrange things.  It was during one of these rearranging sessions that I discovered that my backpack was covered in mildew, not the spare one but the one I use.  The same thing happened to my good Big Agnes tent.  I was devastated.  Yes we live in Florida.  Yes it is humid and wet here.  Lesson learned, I removed my good gear and it now lives in my bedroom.  All other gear is stored in storage containers but I know now to check things regularly.  If I hadn’t gone into this bin, there would have been more damage to my gear.

  • Have a schedule

This may be a no brainer to many of you but when you retire, it’s easy to flounder going from highly scheduled days to being left to your own devices.  We set a schedule to keep ourselves sane and to keep us on track with the tasks of downsizing.  We also have set routines to provide structure to our day.  Of course, we are retired so we are flexible.  But knowing that Monday is always dump day and laundry day helps keep us on track.

  • Tips

You will bang your head.  Keep cabinets closed to avoid injury.  Be aware of low hanging cabinets.  I think I had knots and even broken skin the first month in Ruff Road.  I’m better now!

Put wheel covers on before dropping the airbags to save your knuckles.

Small humidifiers work.  Ours did.  Don’t assume it won’t go flying.  Ours did after weeks of no problems and now we have to buy another one.

Sweep everyday.  Ev-er-y day.

You will constantly be rearranging to make things fit the best and to make the best use of space.  Embrace it.  Also, you will take things out.  You’ll be ready to do it after you’ve moved something 50 times.  It will suddenly lose its preciousness.

Weekly dump day is thorough cleaning day.

What are some of your lessons learned?  Do you have any funny stories?  I’m sure we’ll “learn” more as we move into this nomadic lifestyle.  I can’t wait!