In staying on the road today, we're going to talk about eight summer RV pitfalls to fix before you hit the road.

And in enjoying the RV life, boondocking like a boss, how to master off grid living, and then in money saving tips, can you imagine saving enough money to fund a weekend at Yellowstone just by doing an insurance audit? That's we're going to discuss. And then in the next stop, we're going to visit Nampa, Idaho.

And of course in shadows of the past, towns that once were its neighboring city, Silver City, Idaho. And in RV envy, we're going to talk about Powermax and Wolfco converters.

This is Eric Stark with the Smart RVer podcast, your trusted source for tips and insights to embrace the RV lifestyle without worries. Let's talk everything RV today is episode 180. Now, you know sometimes I have little rants here.

Oh, before I forget, Alexis is no longer part of the show. She has moved on to bigger and greater things. So we wish her all the best. So it's just me, only me. Now one voice. That's all right.

Keeps it simple, right? One voice, one knucklehead doing all the talking. You know who to blame for everything. Now one little thing I want to show out as a reminder.

If you have a slide room, which most of you do, it has Schwintek slide system on it or a Schwintek slide system. So it has the aluminum rods that go on the side of the slide room. In fact, in the video version I'll put a picture of one up there.

In fact, in the video version there you see more stuff sometimes that I'm describing because either I have it in the studio or I'll put an image of it. Just so you know that. And in the, you know, the video version on YouTube, you know, it's a good chuckle. See what I look like?

You know what the studio looks like. Who's this guy talking to me all the time?

But anyways, if you have a Schwintek, it's recommended that you use a slide out lubricant on it with PTFE lubricant inside of it. So it should contain that. In fact, PTFE is a good type of lubricant to use on so many different things anymore.

It's a, I don't know if it's a new technology, but that's becoming the new thing. So just a reminder there PTFE inside your slide lubricant for those Schwintek slide rooms. And supposedly that comes from Lippert components.

Who Owns Schwintek. Now we got one little thing we're going to talk about. We're going to set the stage for this.

So many of you have a motorhome, you, you have a tow vehicle, you unhook, you hook, you do all this stuff, it becomes routine, kind of like a travel trailer. It becomes routine to hook it up, becomes routine to unhook it. And part of that routine is sometimes we forget.

We get so comfortable, we get sidetracked, we forget to go back and double check something.

Well, we're going to talk about a couple who had a tow vehicle and they had a little bit of a mishap with the pins that hold the tow vehicle to the, to the motorhome. So during unhooking they had a problem. So we're gonna catch up with that at the end of the show today. But I just wanna set the stage for that.

And as a reminder, wholesale warranties. You know, we love wholesale warranties and many of you are checking them out. You're finding out that they are what they say they are.

They are who what they say they are. And they're providing a great service at a great price.

So use the link in the description here or on our website to get a quote from wholesale warranties or to talk to them. We appreciate it when you use the link because we do get a little percentage of that when you do sell it. I mean, I got full disclosure here.

We got to fund this podcast somehow. So check out wholesale warranties. Now that's going to bring us into enjoying the RV life.

Boondocking like a boss, now that's something everybody wants to be able to do, right? Nah, not really. Some people enjoy boondocking, some people can say nah, not for me. You know, I like an RV park. I like hookups.

I feel just run waste water, use power, run the ac, leave the refrigerator door open, drain down the batteries. That's my lifestyle. Well, there's many who already boondock and they do it like a boss. They've mastered the off grid RV life.

But for some RVers, they've never done it, they've never experienced it. Maybe they've only gone out for a night and they didn't like it because it really wasn't filled with the hopes and dreams they thought.

They thought, ah, whatever, you know. Well, the thing about boondocking is it's going to the right place so there's no one around.

When you like wake up in the morning, you have a beautiful mountain sunrise, or you have the silence of the Desert, or maybe at night you have that beautiful sunset and you see animals out eating, you know her, you know, at dinner time they're out chomping on some grub, just like you are.

When you're out in the middle of nowhere, you see a lot more interesting things and it reminds you of how small you are on this planet and how great this planet is and how much beauty there is in it. Now, not to get all philosophical hearing, but it really off grid camping can be pretty awesome.

So even if you do it for a night, two nights, three nights, that's still off grid and you're still seeing things you haven't done. Boondocking times, it's associated with those that go out into the desert, like Arizona for example, in the wintertime.

There's a lot of people that boondock out there and they do it for months at a time. That's not necessarily always what it has to be. That's kind of a good description of it, gives you an idea what it is.

But it's not always this long term thing. Boondocking or off the grid could just be for a few nights. One night you're off the grid, right?

Two, three nights a week, depending on what you want to do, what your skill set is, where you want to go. Now boondocking is something that does take some preparation.

It's going to test your skill set to see what you're good at, what you're not good at, what your family's good at, what they're not good at. Because you have to do some preparation. You can't just walk right into this.

And so I'm going to go out camping for three nights with not even giving any thought. I'm going to load up on water, charge up my batteries and fill the refrigerator with food. I'm good to go. Ah, it's not really like that.

You, you got to do more. You really have to plan ahead. And with that being said, I would go for a night or two nights.

Maybe you have experience with one, two, three nights, but you'd like to go longer. Well, that experience will help you, but you have to gain some experience.

And I think for some who own an rv, especially with a family, the boondocking thing, if you're going to do it, maybe try it in an RV park or even at home, camp at home for a few nights. But an RV park gets you out of the home, but you still have that safety net of hookups, water power.

If you run out of water the second night, you're okay. Because you can fill up, but then you have to analyze why did we run out of water so quick? Oh, that's right.

We let little Billy and little Sally take their showers like always. And they took long ones. You know, we didn't think about it. Those are the things you have to plan before you ever go.

You know, I don't want to make this sound like it's impossible to do because it is possible to do. It just takes some preparation and understanding. Your RV. And you know, 12 volt batteries don't last forever.

They last two or three nights if you have two of them. And boondocking, you're going to want at least two batteries. And you have to conserve. That's kind of the golden rule of boondocking.

Conserve everything. Water, power, waste, everything.

In fact, on our website, this article will be laid out with all of the things you need to know much more than what I'm going to give you here. Because boondocking is, you know, it's out RVing, but you have to think about everything a little bit differently. And families do this.

There's a family who comes into our store, Highway 93 RV, and they have 11 kids and they go out boondocking. They make it work. And, you know, I'm sure there's issues, there's problems, but they make it work.

So you want to keep that in mind that it is definitely possible.

Now, the thing is about boondocking, like I said, this will be on the website, but there are some real wins to it because you're out, you're enjoying this, this place that you've, you're at by. You're by yourself or Maybe some fellow RVers are out there, but they're doing the same thing. So everybody's given everybody their space.

You're just off the grid. So like your kids, it gets them away from their phones, it's time, away from the phone, getting their face off that screen.

For you, it's getting off that screen. No phone calls, nothing that gets you back together, especially as a family, you start talking, wow, hey, we do know each other. Wow, this is cool.

But, you know, and for some, that might be a stretch, man. For some of these young ones, kids going a night or two without a cell phone, oh, man, that'd be like, yeah, that's an addiction.

There's a lot of people with that. So it's a way to help break that addiction with something that's good, good for the family and fun. You need to try it.

Even if you do it and you do it for two or three nights. You do it a couple different times. Don't just try it once. You got to do it, you know, several times to really see if it's for you.

But if, if you do like it, it's definitely a win.

But also if you decide, hey, I don't care for this, that's a win as well because now you know, you know what's involved in it and it's not your cup of tea. And that's cool. If you don't like it, don't do it. Here's the deal.

This entire article will be on the website@the smartrver.com under the Enjoying the RV Life, Boondocking Like a boss. And also we'd like to hear from you how you boondock, how you get off the grid.

If you have a short story to share or the how you process this or what your processes are, we'd love to hear it. And if we like it, we will put it on the website for others to see.

We want to share your personal experiences so you can contact us through the website. We'll have our phone number, text number, email.

Now email is not going to be in the description, but you can go to our website and there you can email us or if you contact me and we get some communication going, I will give you my email address. We don't put a real email address on the website because it just gets spammed so much. I think most people get that. So hey, check it out.

Go to the smartrver.com under the next stop and look at boondocking like a boss. Let's get into that saving some cash by performing an insurance audit and money saving tips.

Many people get insurance for their rv, their house, their car, their boat. They sign up and they just, that's it. They have insurance now. They go on for years with the same carrier, the same thing every year.

It just automatic renews rolls over after five years. You don't even know what you have anymore. You don't even know what your insurance will or won't cover.

Those are important things, but also saving some cash. You have to know a little bit more about your insurance. So I'm going to say this right now. Put it on your calendar.

Make it a calendar item, put it out there a year out from now or whatever date you decide, preferably about a month before your renewal. If your renewal comes up, you have time to negotiate a better deal or as I'm going to get into here, shop for a better deal.

You have to do This I say have. I don't like saying that. But you have to do this. You're the smart rver, so save some cash here. So why do you want to audit your insurance annually?

You might love the company you're with. Maybe your house is with them, cars with them and you just don't want to rock the boat. Oh, I love these guys. They're so nice on the phone.

Well, you know, nice on the phone is a trademark of a good insurance salesperson or company. They're always nice on the phone. But what about when you need them? When you need to file a claim?

Oh boy, do things change sometimes, especially today, things are changing rapidly with insurance. We hear it quite often how insurance companies aren't paying what they used to. I know that they like to battle like with RV businesses over prices.

They'll find the lowest price online. So that's what we're going to pay, you know, and that's not always accurate.

It could be a low quality product from the Jungle website or something like that. Or they're not going to pay, period. Or they're not going to pay the full amount even though the contract says so.

And this is happening in residential, commercial, across the board. These are things you need to know. And that's where I was getting at. You know, sometimes it sounds good until you go to file that claim.

So here's a few things that you want to do. You know, you want to make sure you have the right coverage for your rv for your financial situation in life.

You don't want to get wiped out because of one claim. But also making sure the policy matches your RV lifestyle.

For example, if you store your RV for six months, you don't need a year round policy, not the same policy. And many insurance companies will give you a discount if, hey, you don't use the RV from let's say November through April, it sits in storage.

They're going to give you, they might give you a different rate if they know that. Now you have to remember during that time you can't use your rv. You would have to talk to them about that.

Hey, what if I wanted to use it for two weeks, what do I do? And then there's, you know, different deductibles which affect the rates. If you have a higher deductible, lower premiums.

So, but just make sure you can pay the out of pocket cost if you file a claim. So high deductibles sometimes sound horrible, but they do have a purpose.

It'll lower the rates a little more Money out of pocket though, and then you're not going to be able to file the like. Let's say Your deductible is 1,000 bucks and you need $100 worth of work.

Well, you're just going to pay for that, which sounds bad up front, but how many $800 repair jobs do you have versus thousand dollar ones that the insurance company will pay or a thousand, you know, twelve hundred, two thousand, whatever it might be.

So other things to consider, what kind of RV you have, the age of it, you know, is it out of all warranties, extended warranties, manufacturer warranties, those are considerations. But your rv, lifestyle changes. So ask about that and specific rates for RVers, whether you're a full timer. Sometimes they have discounts for that.

If you're bundling, you know, is your RV insurance just a standalone or can you bundle with other vehicles, your house, that type of stuff. Put it all under one umbrella. Well that saves some money. RV associations, you know, you might have to join one but sometimes discounts can be great.

You know, if you pay a hundred bucks to join an association, but you save 300 on your insurance and you still have a good policy. Don't, don't forget about that.

If you get discounts, you still want to have a high quality policy that's going to cover everything you need it to cover. Remember that. Don't just go for the price. Price will get you later on. You save now and you'll pay later. That's self inflicted inflation.

And you know, full timers need different type of insurance than someone who's just using their RV in the summertime. If you've changed your rv, it's time to do an audit.

If you have a smaller rv, if you went from a trailer to a motorhome or a motorhome to a trailer, you need to adjust. If you go to Canada and Mexico, does your policy cover you when you cross the border? Maybe it does, but you have to find out what it covers.

Oh yeah, you're covered. Don't worry about it. That's what they say. And then oops. Oh well, we didn't cover that. I'm sorry, I didn't mention that. Well, you didn't ask.

It's your fault. It's time to do an audit. Or when it's time to do an audit, make sure it's on your calendar. As a reminder, 30 or. Yeah, about 30 days in advance.

And check with other companies too. What are they offering? What are the prices? Can you save a few bucks without diminishing? The quality of your coverage.

Then and only then, you save that money. And that's going to fund your, your trip to Yellowstone Park. And while you're at Yellowstone, you can come by, visit us in Victor, Montana.

And hey, we'll take care of you while you're here. So save that cash and enjoy Yellowstone or maybe some other place you'd like to go. Now that's going to bring us to staying on the road.

So we've enjoyed the RV lifestyle. We're boondocking like a boss. We've saved a bunch of money on insurance. So now we're going to look at something a little bit different.

So this segment is called 8 Summer RV Pitfalls to Fix before youe Hit the Road. Now, we're on a maintenance kick lately because we're seeing that in our store.

We're getting phone calls from all over the country about many questions about taking care of things because summer's here. And so it's been on my mind. And that's kind of why we keep bringing these things up each episode lately.

And even next episode we're going to have more about maintenance. And it's important that you take care of things before you hit the road. You don't want to get out on the road, man.

Some stupid little thing, you got a leaky faucet now that has turned into a gushing faucet or the roof has had a small tear in it. Now it's a big tear. Little things that you just saw neglected, whatever, because you're out on the road.

A small little repair can turn into a very expensive, time consuming or cancel vacation type of repair. So we want to have a good time when we hit the road. Your family wants to enjoy the rv, not dread using it.

And that's why you take care of things beforehand. And so these are eight of many of the overlooked things that people or RV owners just ignore before they hit the road.

Or actually number one on the list. I don't know that's number one, you know, in general, but it's on the list is roof seals and caulking. So take care of that roof.

It doesn't matter where you're at. In the United States, some people talk about, like Arizona, how it just destroys all the plastic. You know, the sun there is so bad.

And it is, it does cause its damage and sometimes very prematurely. But then again, you have other parts of the country where maybe it's not as hot, but you have a very high UV rating.

You know, you might get sunburned much quicker there than you would in Arizona. You feel the sun, it's drier like in Montana. It's very dry here versus it's not hot. You know, it gets warm, but not like Arizona hot.

So you see some differences there.

But no matter where you're at, the plastic is going to degrade, the rubber roof is going to degrade, the sealant is going to shrink up, it's going to crack. It's going to do what it's going to do. So check out the rubber roof and make sure the roof is sealed good.

Remember, the rubber roof is what protects your entire rv. If that roof is leaking, you got a leak inside and it's going to ruin something. Stop it before it starts or stop it as soon as it starts.

So take care of that roof, get up there, check for cracked seals where the sealants peeling up and it happens. You know, sealant doesn't last forever. When they put it on at the factory, they goop that stuff or stuff on.

You know, 4 inches thick has an exaggeration, but it goes on pretty thick, pretty wide. But it still is going to crack. It might crack in the first year, it might crack in the first three years. You don't know.

So you got to check it a couple times a year.

So get some lap sealant, go up there, clean it off, repair it, then put some roof guard on it to help that rubber roof stay alive for many, many years to come. And it's same on our. Like a lot of motorhomes that have fiberglass roofs, it's the same principle.

Maybe the fiberglass isn't cracking, but make sure everything's clean, maintained that the vents and the seams are all sealed up, no issues going on there.

You know, a $14 tube of sealant, lap sealant will save you some big time, big money down the road if you have to take it in for a repair that you let go, run away from you. Now also checking your tires. That's number two. Check the tire pressure. Travel trailers, keep it to the maximum.

Tire pressure that says on the side of the tire, keep it at 65, 80, whatever it is, all the time, never lower it, leave it right there. That is what all the experts say and that's how you extend the life of trailer tires.

You have tread wear problems on a motorhome travel trailer, take care of it. Motorhomes are a little bit different of an animal. You treat their tires more like you would a truck.

You know, you still, you follow the tire pressure guidelines from the manufacturer of the rv. You look at the sticker inside the door. Generally, it's going to be pretty accurate, and you can adjust. Maybe you want to go a little bit higher.

You know, higher pressure is going to be a little better mileage, you know, not as soft of a ride, but the, you know, the tires will have. Well, there's going to be stiffer, give you a little more mileage. Maybe that's what you're trying to do.

Whatever it is, you want to keep that pressure adjusted accordingly, but you want to make sure that you're not too low on pressure. That creates heat and therefore blowout. So keep your tires aired up. Check the tire wear. Now, motorhomes, they don't seem to have problems.

You might have an alignment issue, but travel trailers get a bent axle, a bent wheel. The tire might be just wearing out on the inside of it. And sometimes they'll wear out in 100, 200 miles. So don't let that go.

You know, sometimes it might be 1,000 miles or 2,000 or 3,000. You might think, you know what? I could care less than 3,000 miles. That's five years for me.

I'm just going to buy a new tire, you know, every five years. That's not a problem. And I get that.

You know, as long as that that tread is not wearing out so much where it's going to cause a blowout, because now there's something going on there. But for some people, 3,000 miles in five years, that's not a lot of big trips. That's a bunch of small trips. So maybe it's not an issue.

Heat won't be a problem. Also, check out your air conditioner for efficiency. Clean those filters inside. All air conditioners have a filter of some kind inside.

Well, at least most of them do. I shouldn't say all. I shouldn't throw everything into that category, but most of them do. Get up on the roof, clean the condenser out.

You can get a condenser cleaner. So it's a product made for cleaning the condenser on an air conditioner. And they work good and they help with that efficiency.

There's no point in an air conditioner not only drawing more power, which maybe you don't care about, but it's harder on the air conditioner when everything's not in place, to keep it running as efficient as it can. So keep it clean. Get up there. Just the other day, a guy called me and said, oh, man, I need a technician to come out right now.

I got water just pouring inside my RV from my air Conditioner. So I know where he's at. He's near us. And so I verified that. So are you here in Hamilton or this area? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm right here.

So it's not raining where you're at, right? No, no, no, no, no rain. Well, the, the drain holes on the pan of the air conditioner were just plugged up.

He went up there and I told him that just go up on the roof, pop off of the, the COVID of the air conditioner. You'll see it'll be filled with dirt and leaves and debris and stuff. That's exactly what he did.

You know, he came in the store to thank me because of that, because it saved him probably 2 or $300. If someone went out, they would have turned it into a much bigger thing than it was and charged accordingly. But the problem was solved.

He is happy as can be. So little things like that sometimes can be a problem.

So if you're out on the road and all of a sudden water's coming in the air conditioner, you know, into the RV through the air conditioner. The condensation from it's not draining onto the roof like it's supposed to, is draining inside.

You might cancel your trip because of that, thinking, oh my gosh, we got a major problem here. We better go home. It's not a major problem. You can fix that. You are the smart rver now. Flushing the water system, keeping it nice and clean.

Don't let water sit in your RV all year long. Flush that sucker out. You know, like here in Montana, states like this, areas like this where you're constantly winterizing.

Every year you winterize your rv. Every year you de winterize your rv. So you're moving water through it.

You don't really have water sitting in there in most cases, but some parts of the country, you could leave water in the tank year round and not really think about it. Try not to do that. Keep the water system fresh.

Now, maybe you go camping enough where leaving water in there all summer long is good, you know, because you're always adding to it, you're draining it. You know, it's never really just stagnant.

That's fine because, you know, the water is out of the sun, it's in the shade, so it's not going to get mold in the tank or anything like that. So that's not really a problem. But if you do have waters with or problems with the fresh water system, you can get many treatments from RV stores.

Camco makes one. Thetford makes One, some are easier than other than Camco's, is very simple. Thetfords is a process, but it's still a great product.

We sell a ton of it here. So keep the water system nice and clean and fresh. Even if you don't drink it, you still want it to be, well, fresh.

You know, you don't want to open up a spigot or a faucet. Spigot. You know, spigots in your RV have faucets. You don't want to open up a faucet. It smells rank.

It might be clean water, but just smells rank because it's just something in your system. Keep it clean. Your RV system, not your system, you know, the RV system. So keep it clean.

And then, of course, we have refrigerator seals on the doors and of course the roof vent and the side vent on the rv. So refrigerators have a tendency when they're getting older to not work so well in the summertime. They don't heat so good or cool so good.

Even newer ones do the same thing. First off, with the refrigerator. This is an RV refrigerator. It's not a residential refrigerator. They don't cool the same.

They take longer time to actually get down to the temperature you want it to. Refrigerators, like, before you go camping, you should leave your refrigerator turned on for 24 hours.

That way it gives it enough time to get down to temperature. Now, you might be saying, eric, you're crazy. Mine gets cool in three hours, mine gets cool in 15 minutes. You might be thinking that, and that's fine.

Maybe I am crazy. But all the manufacturers say 24 hours to make sure. Because not all refrigerators are equal. And there are some that definitely cool down quicker.

You know, we've put in brand new refrigerators, and they don't cool as quick as used refrigerators. So keep that in mind. They don't all cool the same. Now, the newer they are, typically they do cool quicker.

And, you know, you put your hand on the back of the freezer or the bottom of the freezer pan, you can feel it. But it takes a refrigerator portion longer to get cool, too.

So what feels like freezing on the top might not be the temperature you need in the bottom. It might be at 50 degrees, but it feels cold, but not as cold as it should be. So give it time. That's the point.

Some refrigerators need those little fans you put in them that run off a D cell battery or two batteries to keep the air circulating. You know, it's not like a household refrigerator. They are different. Another thing too is see, we're not getting to seals and cooling vents yet.

We got a few other things here. I want to make sure every understands this.

When you have an RV refrigerator, the best thing to do is not to stand in front of it, deciding what you want to get with the door open. Not like at home where you open up the door and you're leaning on it. What do I want? Do I want the sparkling water? Do I want this Perrier?

Do I want milk? Do I want orange juice? What do I want? You know what, I'll just get a piece of cheese. Yeah, it doesn't work.

Decide what you want, what you're going to grit. But before you open up the refrigerator door, it helps keep it cooler.

When you're out camping, it doesn't matter if you're hooked up to shore power or not. It helps keep it cooler. And of course, if you're off grid camping, it's going to stay cooler, use less propane and less battery.

Well, batteries can use so much no matter what, but it's going to use less propane. So if you're off the grid, you know, boondocking like a boss, you got to save that power, that propane. Propane is power. It is money. Do those things.

Think about it before you, you know, free open the door. Decide what you're going to get.

If you have kids and you're constantly getting drinks out of the refrigerator, maybe set up a nice chest solely with drinks in it and that's where they go. You go there to leave that open as long as you want, but stay out of the refrigerator. You know, I'm not knocking kids. It's just the way it is.

Kids stand there and stare at everything that they want. Now back to kind of the other things of the refrigerator like the seals and the cooling vents or the vents.

The door seals might not be working as a as good as they could. It might be an older refrigerator. And it doesn't mean you can just replace the door seal. Sometimes, sometimes you got to buy a whole door.

Sometimes they're very expensive. So it can be a process. That being said, treat those seals nicely. They're good.

You know, they can be expensive or impossible to replace, but all you do is get a dollar bill just like you do at home, close it in the door and see how easy it comes out. If it just pulls right out. No, no pressure on it, no tension, no restrictions, no friction, that those door seals are probably no good.

But you know, if it comes out and it's kind of tough, well, Then they're working good. Try it on your refrigerator in your house. See how compare the difference. See if they're the same. That'll give you an idea.

Basic test, been around forever, but it works. Then also you have the vents. You have a vent up on the roof in most rv. Sometimes that upper vents on the side, but most of them are on the roof.

Make sure that vent cap is in good shape. Make sure there's nothing underneath it. No nest things are building up, leaves, branches, whatever you want to keep it clean.

So the air that's flowing through it can go out the top. That's going to help keep your refrigerator cooler and the side vent as well. Which all refrigerators have a side vent.

Well, at least all propane and gas ones do. And that's basically what we're talking about here. More so than these newer RVs with 110 volt or 12 volt refrigerators with compressors.

Different animal. So this is your gas absorption. Refrigerators. Make sure the side vent is clean, nothing going on in there.

Sometimes you see nests and things happening there as well. Even just blowing out the back of the refrigerator with air, just getting some of that dirt out.

Or a vacuum cleaner if you can clean out some of the dirt, just keep stuff out of there. But refrigerators need to have air moving through the back of it.

And some refrigerators come with fans on the back side, so you want to make sure they're nice and clean. And some people add the fans to keep that air moving because it's going to help keep the refrigerator cooler.

And if you have problems in the summertime with the refrigerator getting down to temperature, maybe you need to add a fan. There's plenty of fans that you can add. 12 volt fans, not a big deal. Pretty darn simple as a matter of fact.

But they help move some air and keep the refrigerator cooler, which that's what we want. We don't want food going bad when we're out camping. That's no bueno, no good. Then check your propane system for leaks.

Now I've talked about propane a lot this year because there is so much or so many low quality propane hoses on the market and regulators. It is unbelievable. When people come into our shop store, we ask them how long have you had these?

Because we're just kind of keeping a mental record of how long propane hoses last. On new RVs we're getting anywhere from one to five years max. Pushing it at five years. Most of them are failing within that one to three year range.

They're cheap hoses. They crack, they split, they fall apart. So make sure yours aren't doing that. The minute you see a crack, replace that hose.

Now we sell awesome quality hoses because we make them here. We use top of the line Gates Rubber LP Hose. You can go to our website, sunpro mfg.com and you can see our propane hoses.

There we go, a little bundle deal. If you want to do that. We'll also put a link in the description here. And this isn't a plug to just sell propane hoses.

Believe me, there's a lot of stores out there that sell propane hoses. Some of them sell better quality than other. You know that it's hard to find really good quality propane hoses in the stores.

I'm trying to think of the name of the company that we we sell some package stuff from. Gosh. MB Sturgis. Can't believe I forgot it. They make good propane hoses. They try. They're better quality than most.

When you go to the Jungle website or the garage sale website and you buy propane hoses there, especially if you're buying on price, you're getting low quality garbage.

Again, self inflicted inflation because you're going to be replacing them much sooner, many times over than if you just buy a good quality propane hose. And remember, self inflicted inflation, you heard it here first.

When that becomes a worldwide term, you heard it from me, Eric Stark, the smart rver podcast guy. All right, let's get that out of my head there. So check it out. I mean think about your propane system.

Started to say check it out like we're coming in here, we're not. Check for leaks, check the obvious things, make sure the regulator isn't leaking. You don't have leaks around the valves.

And if you smell propane, more than likely you have a leak. Or sometimes when you open up a valve, it'll leak for a split second. So you smell a little propane, then it goes away.

Now you might be able to live with that for a little while, but don't let it go too long. That valve is going to have to be replaced. The packing inside of it is going bad, so it's going to have to be replaced. Those are little tips.

Check the propane system and most of your leaks are going to be at the tanks on the regulator, the lines and the line going from the regulator to feed the rv. Those are going to be your culprits. So make sure you always check those to prevent those crazy things from stopping or ruining a trip.

Now, slide outs are another thing in RVs. Slide outs are absolutely awesome. They give you some space that just is remarkable.

The other day we had like a 40 foot motorhome in the shop and it had a slide room that was 27ft. Just made that motorhome unbelievable. It had bunks in it, sofa, swimming pool, pool tan. Just kidding. It gave it a lot of extra room.

Kind of changed the entire look of the RV. And 27ft is a lot of slide room. And I personally wouldn't buy an RV with a 27 or slide room that big because then it breaks.

Man, you got 27ft of headache hanging out there. You got to do something with.

Especially if you're out in the middle of nowhere, which, you know, that guy probably doesn't camp in the middle of nowhere. He's going to an RV park someplace, you know, where it's more comfortable, which I get it. You know, it's the kind of RV has.

It's not when you're going to drive down a dirt road somewhere and destroy trees rubbing into the paint, scratching and all that fun stuff. But slide outs need to be maintained. Check the mechanisms on them, check the gears, the rollers.

If you have those swintech gear slide rooms with the aluminum channel or track on the side of the room, it's visible, you can see it. If you have those, you need to pay attention to them. Especially a newer rv. We're selling a lot of the re upgrade kits to those.

They're expensive, they're over a thousand bucks, and each one is custom made. I'm sure for the brand of rv, they use a lot of the same part number, but it's made by Lippert and it's V triple zero.

Whenever you see V triple zero, it's a built part, it's not made and sitting on a shelf. They put those together as they get orders because all the little pieces are different. So it can take, you know, a while to get one.

You know, it could take a week, could take three weeks, could take four weeks, depending on how busy LIPR components are. But those things are failing. And their upgrade kit fixes the problem. But you don't want to have that fail while you're out on the road.

I'm not necessarily saying just go out and get an upgrade kit. It might be something you want to consider if your RV is a few years old, it's getting to that point.

Hate to say it might be a problem, but make sure everything's lubricated. Make sure you got an escape plan.

So if that slide out gets stuck in the out position, someone just the other day is asking me how to bring their slide out in on their. Whatever year the RV was, is stuck in the outpost. They're up in the mountains. And he couldn't find any place to put a crank.

Well, do you have a crank? He goes, no. So he had nothing, no preparation whatsoever. So our trusty local mobile guy went out there and got him squared away.

But it cost him some money, and he could have avoided that if he would have known beforehand. So make sure you know how to bring your slide room in or even out mechanically if it fails, that you can do that.

Because, you know, to be honest with you, if you get someplace and you can't get the slide room going out and it's, you know, just, it's not electrical, the motor failed, and you want to bring it out manually, then if you know how to do that, you can at least enjoy your trip. Then you bring it in manually and you go home and get it taken care of. So don't let these little things ruin your trips. And, you know, it happens.

I mean, there are things on RVs that can be so ridiculously small and ruin a trip. Some RVs, when they put. Put them together, I mean, they put fuses in the most obscure places.

You know, most technicians who work on RVs regularly, they see this, you know, they're like digging in a cabinet looking for, you know, a water line also. And there's a fuse behind a wall that you'd never even think to look there.

Or a circuit breaker or a whatever, or a controller for a slide room or a battery disconnect switch. Wow. Why is it back here? The battery's up front, the switch is in the middle, but the disconnects here in the rear of the rv.

That sounds crazy, but that's how it's done sometimes. So become familiar with your RV so you don't find yourself in these predicaments where you can't fix it. Or you're like, wow, where is this thing?

When you buy an rv, if the manufacturer still in business, you might call them, ask them, hey, is there anything you guys know of? It doesn't mean they're going to know it, but they might say, yeah, you know, there is a fuse here, there.

It's a great year for traveling. People are out, people are enjoying the parks. Be part of that. Take the family out. You've got this rv. Don't let it sit and rot and do nothing.

Don't let it sit and say, oh, we should sell this thing. Use it. Just take care of the things, the systems in it, your batteries, your refrigerators, your propane, your slide outs.

Just take care of that stuff and then you will enjoy your rv. Whether you go from coast to coast or town to town or from your house to the local RV park or whatever it might be. Use your rv.

Now, there'll be more about this on our website@the smartrver.com so you can definitely read this article and maybe print it, keep it in your rv or start building your own list of things that you know you need to do on your rv.

Every time you use it every few months, every spring, every winter, whatever it might be, just build a list and then you don't forget it kind of rhymes. That's pretty good, right? All right, so that's staying on the road.

So now that's going to bring us to next stop and we're going to visit Nampa, Idaho. So we're going to explore Nampa. Well, we're going to spend a few minutes talking about Nampa. Nampa, Idaho. Well, Idaho is a pretty cool state.

So it's an interesting state. Has a lot of flat land, you might call it high desert. There's the forest, there's volcanic rock. There's mountains, rivers, tons of water.

That's what's cool about these mountain states. They always have a lot of rivers, streams. There's always water everywhere, which is kind of nice.

Even when you're just traveling, you got a river alongside the road.

Just makes the drive that much better, you know, more of a challenge because you're trying to look at the river as you're swerving off the road, hitting the dirt, crashing the trees on the shoulder. Just kidding. Well, that's how my life is. So Nampa, Idaho is a pretty cool place. It's got a population of over a hundred thousand.

It's the third largest city in Idaho Now. I bet you've been worried about that, right? I wonder what the third largest city in Idaho is now. You know Nampa, Idaho, it's in the Treasure Valley.

That's what it's called. It's about 20 miles west of Boise.

So that was a Shoshone saying, possibly meaning moccasin. You know, see, it goes way back in time. And what's cool about Nampa is its history has a lot to do with irrigation.

So canals were brought in, created to turn that desert type of landscape into fertile farmland.

You see that places like Arizona, where they tap into the Colorado river, start flooding, you know, create these canals, irrigation systems, so everybody has this cheap or free water. So Nampa is a very history rich place. It has this small town charm that's blended with modern amenities.

I mean, we see that anymore everywhere, whether we like it or not. But there's a lot to do around Nampa. You know, you've got the Snake River Valley nearby, you've got the Warhawk Air Museum.

So if you like airplanes, warplanes, things like that, this is the place to go. You can check all that out there. That does have an admission fee. It's not much.

Then of course there's Lake Lowell park, which is part of the Deer Flat National Wildlife Refuge. So it's a teenage or a scenic area. And it's only 10 miles south of Nampa, so it's not too far. So it's great for bird watching.

You got a nice loop for four mile loop for hiking, walking, dragging your kids along, riding a bike, things to do. There's the points. As you notice, a lot of, a lot of these towns that we pick here are smaller towns. They're not these massive places.

I mean, it doesn't mean we haven't chosen some massive cities. But these smaller towns are just friendlier. They have more things around them. We kind of have a flavor here.

We like the older stuff, you know, so Nampa kind of fits that build. And all we're doing is stimulating your thinking.

You know, you guys get online, you look at some maps of the United States, you look at Idaho, next thing you know you're making a trip to Colorado. That's all we want to do. We want to just get you thinking so you're motivated and you make a trip somewhere. So Nampa also has a farmer's market.

And farmer markets are always cool. You find the things there that you don't find anywhere else. They everything's fresh, unique.

Quite often they have crafts, local crafts, local things like honey or jams or different Flavors of alcohol, whatever it is they got going on. And of course, Nampa has several different restaurants. They've got RV parks. It's an RV park friendly place.

In fact, they have one called Ambassador RV park that's actually in Caldwell, so it's a few miles away. But Ambassador, doesn't that sound very important?

So you can go the Ambassador RV park and you could be considered an ambassador for the weekend or the week or whatever. And don't worry, they got propane, they got dump stations. They've got everything you need. Heck, Nampa even has some books about Nampa.

If you got a town and they got books about it, you know you're going to the right place. So Nampa is this. It's a vibrant destination for RVers. There's a lot of history there, outdoor adventure. It has a small town charm.

You have the museum, you have the lake, you have hiking, you have biking, you have the farmer's market, you have camping, you have exploring, you have it all in Nampa, you've got propane, you got dump stations. What more could you ask for? So Nampa is the place. So I would certainly check into it, see if it's someplace you'd want to go.

And of course, the full rv, I mean, the full article will be on our website, the smartrver.com under the next stop. So you can explore Nampa that way as well. Now we're going to go into shadows of the past, towns that once were.

I had to take a big gulp of water there. Silver City, Idaho is where we're going to explore. Now, Silver City is a very unique place.

In this case, it's near Nampa, so you have a larger hub where you can, you know, do your RV and camp there, explore there. But then you also have these smaller towns that give you a really some history, some local flavor, and that's why we picked these.

And I only say that for those that are new to the show or maybe you forgot, maybe you haven't listened in a while for some crazy reason. You boycotted us for three episodes. Who knows? I mean, that's crazy insanity, right? We can't do that.

We got to listen to the smart RV or every week or every two weeks when they come out and on YouTube, watch it. Yeah, speaking of YouTube, we're a little bit behind. I think we're an episode behind.

Now we're going to do a little reading here like we typically do for shadows of the past. This one seems to be a little shorter than normal, but it's going to explain Silver City, Idaho very quickly. So let's just get into this one.

Silver City wasn't just a mining company camp, it was a metropolis with saloons, a brothel, two hotels and stacks of silver bars awaiting Wells Fargo stagecoaches. The Poorman Mine, named ironically for its rich veins, drew global attention with its ruby silver crystals. But the boom was fleeting.

Silver City avoided the fate of many boom towns that burned or modernized.

Unlike commercialized ghost towns, Silver City remains authentic, with many buildings privately owned by descendants of original miners.

Today, Silver City is a summer haven for history buff and adventurers. Open from Memorial Day to mid October due to harsh winter closures, the 25 mile drive from Murphy, Idaho via Silver City Road is a bumpy adventure.

Think washboard dirt and rocks best tackled with a high clearance SUV or truck. RVs leave them in Murphy. The road's too rough for trailers.

While photographers will love the rugged Oy vistas, some report ghostly vibes at the Idaho Hotel where creaking floors and old mirrors hint at lingering spirits.

Silver City, Idaho is a raw slice of the Old west where history whispers in every creaking board from its silver fueled boom to its quiet preservation. And it's a must see for RVers chasing authentic adventure.

So that Silver City you know this entire article and then some will be on the website@the smartarver.com under the Shadows of the Past Towns that Once Were Silver City is a very interesting place.

I haven't been there, but when you read about it, it kind of makes me think of Bodie, California, which is one we're going to be doing in the near future here. Except Bode is a little more accessible, so this sounds like a pretty good adventure.

Unfortunately, if you don't have a high clearance vehic, it might be a tough one for you to get to, but it's still worth checking into. Or at least that general area. Maybe you can't get there, but you can do other things. You go to Nampa, etc. So there's a lot to do there.

Scan the full article will be on the smartrver.com under shadows of the past Towns that once were now this is going to bring us to RV Envy. So this is about Wolfco and Powermax converters. Wolfco wfco. So remember that wfco. We call it Wolfco. A lot of people do.

Or it's World Friendship Corporation, something to that effect. If you go with WolfCo or WFCO, you got it. Then PowerMax is the other brand and both of these brands are very good.

In fact, we're going to have an interview from somebody with Power Max in our next episode. 181So we're not going to really do this. PowerMax versus Wolfgang Co. It's just two different brands out there and both of them are good.

You're going to find Wolfco in more new RVs. PowerMax is in some, but they are a great replacement for the Wolfco brand if you want to save a few bucks and buy a quality part at the same time.

Now we sell both in our store. We do replace a lot of Wolfco products. Wolfco or powermax replace old converters it doesn't matter the brand, they fill the box.

Magnetek and Teletech, it doesn't seem to matter. To make clear here when we talk about converters, RVers or RVs have essentially two different types of systems.

Some of them will have a power distribution center where it has your fuses and circuit breakers. And that's all it does. All the wires for that come into one box. It's a power distribution center.

Then the converter is a standalone converter, generally nearby it, behind it, you can't see it. You can see the power distribution center. It has a little door opens up and you see your 12 volt fuses and circuit breakers. Then the converter.

Generally you have to pull the out or a door something.

You access it a different way, but it's generally in the same area where a power center will have your 12 volt fuses, your 110 volt circuit breakers and your converter portion will be right below it in the same box. You have to take the door off to see it, completely off to see it, but it's generally underneath it.

That's called a lower section, or it used to be called a lower section and now they're called an MBA main board assembly. So we have two different types of systems here for the most part.

In RV, all RVs have a converter, unless you have an inverter and it has a charger built into it. And sometimes they just leave the converter out of the RV or they have it disconnected.

If it's part of the power center with the converter built into it, they might not have it powered up because the inverter is doing the charging. Either way, if you have that system and you got that MBA mainboard assembly, that's what fails as far as the converter goes.

And those are replaceable. Now what's interesting is powermax MBA main board assembly. The converter will work in a Wolfco one.

I would imagine a Wolfco one will work the other way as well. But the PowerMax one saves you a little bit money when you're replacing it. And it's a superior product, it works really well.

So you can't go wrong by putting powermax products in your RV is my point. And believe me, Wolfco does make a good product.

And one thing too is if I understand their website correctly, Wolfco is made in the States where powermax is made overseas. So that might be a problem for some people, which is fine.

Powermax is a great product and like I said, we're going to have them on the show next week. And I'm not pro Power Max all the way, believe me. We've got both brands in our store and they're the only two brands we sell.

We will sell some of the other ones that people need to get them because of a constraint of some kind, a certain type of problem they're having. We really like the powermax product actually. Their water pumps are awesome too. We sell a boatload of those.

So hey, we just, you know, if they, if people like it and there's no problems, we're gonna sell it because we like to sell quality products. I think you guys get that from this podcast. We talk about quality. Our store reflects that. We don't sell junk.

The only low quality stuff we sell is because we have to. There are no other options. And there's plenty of that. You know, plastic things, you know, the list goes on. But we'd rather sell better quality.

But sometimes that's just all that's available. Either one of these converters will charge your batteries. Whether you have lead, acid, agm, lithium, it doesn't matter. They'll work in any direction.

They're both smart chargers. They're auto detect. They're going to figure out what you have and they're going to charge accordingly.

So don't go run out and replace one with the other just because. But if you have a woof company, you're looking for an upgrade or not an upgrade, yours fails and you need to get a new one.

And you can get a Power Max. There's nothing wrong with that. Power Max will replace it, no problem. And you can go the other way as well.

One of the cool things about the Power Max converters that I really like is all the wires for it are hanging off the back side where the Wolfco ones. You have to feed all the wires into it, all the 12 volt wires, and then wire them into the circuit board individually, which is okay.

The Power Max one, I like it because you can just connect the wires up with wire connectors. It's going to go quicker, it's easier. It's easier to see what you have. You can feel that connection right away.

You know it's good or bad, it's just, to me it just makes more sense. And you, if you go look at one, you'll understand that. And of course in the video version of this we'll have something showing.

I should have brought one up and had it sitting on the table, but I forgot. But anyway, next episode 181 we're going to have someone from Powermax on as an interview. So we'll be able to learn a little bit more.

They're going to get into more details than I'm going to get into, that's for sure. You know, these sales guys are in these interviews, you know, blah, blah, blah. No, I'm just kidding.

So we will have a great show next time as well with Power Max. So we're wetting your whistle for it, basically. Now that's bringing us towards the end of our show here.

You know, before we really get to the end, I want to remind everybody to subscribe to our podcast, whether you watch or listening to it on iTunes, Spotify, iHeartRadio. Subscribe, share it with your friends and do the same with our YouTube channel. You know, YouTube.com the smart rver.

Subscribe, share, watch all the videos. Share them. Like them. Yeah, like them to do everything. Good.

We want to build this up more and more so more people get the gist of what we're trying to do, how we're trying to help them. Our show is growing because of support from you guys, and I want to thank you for that. We got an awesome audience. The Smart RVers.

They are the Smart RVers. So now let's go back to our couple who had the tow vehicle and a little mishap with the pins for the tow vehicle.

Well, when you disconnect your car, like this couple found out kind of the hard way, they were able to disconnect the car and it wasn't in park. That means there were. There was no tension on the pins, which. That, you know, okay, I get it. But they didn't put it in park.

So they pull the pins and the car rolls forward, pinning. I'm not going to say his name. He's an RVer against the RV.

Now, the RV was running, you know, the engines on the air conditioner, all that kind of stuff. So there's all this noise, you know, is a diesel pusher. So he's, you know, trying to yell for help.

He couldn't push the car away, just the way it had him pinned and the weight of the car, a little bit of a slope, obviously, so it was hard for someone to hear. And finally someone actually heard him yelling. They were able to help him get the car away, get him unpinned, all that good stuff.

But it just shows, like I was saying in the beginning of the episode, you need to double check, triple check procedures like unhooking your tow car, your towed vehicle so you don't find yourself in a potentially life threatening situation or something where, you know you cause a lot of damage to something, to property or yourself. So just double check everything. Now, this person was able to get away with very, very, very minor injuries. No big deal.

But we want to be cautious there. So that's just a reminder. Check your procedures. If you get pulled away while you're hooking up your rv, start from the beginning.

When you get back to it, don't start from where you think you left off. You'll forget something. People forget to unhook water hoses, unhook electrical cords, all that good stuff. So don't be one of those. Be the smart rver.

So again, I want to thank you all for listening Today, watching on YouTube, coming by and checking out the podcast. So this is Eric Stark with the Smart RVer podcast, your go to guide for smarter RVing and unforgettable adventures on the open road.