Exterior/Door Mods

RVlock electronic door lock – 15

Carrying keys all the time while  RVing can be a pain. And it is all too easy to get locked out. Our first solution to that was to get an extra set of keys and hide them in our Tow vehicle. With our Class C motorhome, there was an electronic solution: RVLock Class C keyless entry.  When we moved to a Class A, RVLock didn’t have a solution for a long time, but eventually they came out with their Atlas lock for Class A’s. As of this writing, that is only available directly from RVLock and you have to check your RV carefully in their fit guide.

Grab Handle on Screen Door – 16

One of the first things we installed on our RVs is this RV screen door cross bar handle.  It really comes in handy when going in and out or closing the screen door.

Through Screen Latch – 17

Our Tiffin Open Road has a sliding door(to keep flies out) on the screen door to reach the main door handle. But we have to leave the door closed when the main door is latched open and thus we have to slide the access door to unlatch the screen. We found this little lever at the Tiffin Store.   It is a rubber grommet with the hole angled upward and a plastic rod.  Originally the rod was black plastic – which got lost – so I replaced it with a whittled branch.

Rubber Bumpers on Slides – 18

We installed these slide bumpers on both of our slides. They are still a bit hard, but a lot less uncomfortable than hitting my head on the hard slide corners and I don’t have to put them away whenever we move..

Water Pressure Resevoir – 19

SeaFlow accumulator Tank    I like to know what is going on with my various RV systems. So I had a pressure regulator with a gauge on my campground water supply inlet. I also installed a T fitting in the water line after the pump to see what the pump output was doing.  One day I was out there after a shower and the pump output showed 130 PSI!!! My thinking was we used a lot of hot water, then after everything was shut off, the heater warmed up fully, and expanded the 6 gallons of water in tank. With nowhere to go except stretching the hoses, the pressure skyrocketed.  I added the Seaflow tank, which is just a plastic tank with a rubber bladder. Air pressure is added to one side of the bladder and water pressure pushes on the other. It provides expansion space. It also allows the pump to turn on a bit less often and run a bit longer each time.

Pressure Gauge on Water Pump – 20

This is the pressure  guage I added to my pump outlet. I just used some standard hardware store fittings to “T” down to a 1/4 inch plastic tubing, the appropriate fitting to this gauge.  We’ve been through several water pumps on this RV already.  We prefer to fill our water tank and run off the pump since it is consistently better pressure.  I tried a cheap pump and a fancy expensive pump that wasn’t worth the expense.  We’ve had this one for a year now and are quite happy with it.  By the way, most RV’s have the water pump installed with the business in toward the interior – thus you can’t see the adjustment or work on it without removing the pump.  If you are replacing the pump, see if the hoses are long enough to face the business end of the pump outward.

Pressure Regulator on Water Inlet – 21

Always a nut for data, I like to know what the campground water pressure is up to. I added this pressure regulator to the inlet using this 90 degree adapter.  I find most all campgrounds are under 60 psi which is why we tend to leave our pump on and just refill the fresh water tank every few days.

Black Tank Flush Dead Man Valve – 22

I added a Dramm Touch and Flow Pro Trigger Valve. This isn’t available on Amazon and I don’t remember where I ordered it, but it is available from a number of sites. It has a high flow rate that you need for black tank flush and standard hose connectors. I’ve personally seen what happens when someone was interrupted while flushing their black tank and let it overflow. So this valve stays on my black tank flush all the time and if I’m chased by a bear or abducted by aliens, at least my tank won’t overflow.

Velcro in Back of Water Bay – 23

There is never enough room in the water bay. I keep thinking I will install a sewer hose storage tube somewhere but haven’t gotten around to it. In the meantime, I installed three pairs  of 2 inch double sided velcro (screws and fender washers) on the back wall of my water bay. A long strip screwed at the top, a short one at the bottom – and three pairs across so I can velcro my sewer hoses against the back wall of the water bay.

Reflectix on Outside Refrig Access Door – 24

We have a residential refrigerator and there is no insulation on the inside of the outside access door..  Anything that helps, especially if it is as light as Reflectix. I used mylar tape to attache a square of Reflectix to the inside of the door.  Don’t forget that i you have a residential refrigerator, you need to clean the coils about once a year.

SnapPads – 25

We added SnapPads to our jacks. They provide a bit wider, flat footprint and add just a little height. If you are going to order these, make sure you order the right model for your particular RV – there are many to choose from.  We found they tend to collect water so I drilled a couple of 1/4 inch holes into each of them.

Antenna and Weather Station Pole – 26

We originally added this pole for our cell booster. It is just a painter extension pole and some homemade PVC brackets to support it. There are two sets of brackets, one lower for travel and one higher for antennas. After we switched to our Pepwave router, we dropped the cell booster but added our weather (wind speed, direction, and temperature) sensor.