Shownotes
- Understanding your truck's towing capacity is crucial to ensure safe RV travel.
- Always prepare for unpredictable storms by having a storm emergency kit ready in your RV.
- Inspect your RV for damage after a storm to prevent future problems from developing.
- Consider using 12-volt heating tape from Heat Line to protect your plumbing in cold weather.
- Research RV parks for safe shelter options in case of severe weather warnings.
- Creating a personalized checklist for RV trips can streamline your preparation process.
Transcripts
Towing capacities. Does the math add up with your truck and trailer? That's what we're going to talk about today in staying on the road and then enjoying the RV life.
We're going to talk about storm awareness while you're staying in RV parks. Very important to know that. And then we're going to visit Cottonwood, Arizona in the next stop.
Then right next to that in Shadows in the Past, towns that once were. We're going to visit Jerome, Arizona. And then in RV Envy, we're going to talk about 12 volt heating tape from Heat Line.
This is Eric Stark with the Smart RVer podcast, your trusted source for tips and insights to embrace the RV lifestyle without worries. So let's talk everything RV, and today is episode 168. So let's just dig right into this. So, Alexis, welcome to the show today.
Alexis:Thank you. I'm excited to be here again.
Eric Stark:Again. It's always an iffy situation, you know.
Alexis:Only if I'm good.
Eric Stark:Well, it's like minus 40 today. Well, maybe not, but it's cold out and cars may not start. Cars crashing everywhere. I get it. You know, on these wild west roads.
Alexis:It's true.
Eric Stark:Here in Victor, Montana. Yeah.
Alexis:We had to get the horse out this morning.
Eric Stark:Yeah. And they're always cold. You gotta tap their legs a little bit.
Alexis:Right.
Eric Stark:All right, so first off, a great show planned today, but I want to give a shout out to Craig from Selma, Texas. Got me thinking about 12 volt heating tape.
And so I did some research, a lot of research, and found a great company named Heat Line, which we'll get to that in RV Envy. And then also, Craig brought out a great point. What he does is he creates this checklist for his RV when he's getting ready to go out on a trip.
So it's personalized for him. He didn't get online anywhere. He just made this. So he goes down the list and makes sure everything's done before he goes out.
Then when he comes home, he does it basically in reverse. Make sure everything's undone that needs to be undone. And there you go. He has a great trip. When he does that makes it a lot easier.
And then also, somebody didn't like what I said about putting needles in your arm at the factories. The workers walking around all hopped up on heroin. So I want to apologize for that.
Maybe it was insensitive because some people are dealing with problems like that. And I made it sound like every worker at the factories, you know, walks around a needle in their arm. And that's not the case.
I'm going to stop right there before I really go into that too deep. So today or this weekend, I'm going to the NTP show in Colorado. So I'm going to learn a little bit more about RV parts and accessories.
So when I come back, I'll be a full fledged expert one more time. All right, so now today our show is not brought to you by Wholesale Warranties, but that's going to be our honorary sponsor today.
Alexis:There you go.
Eric Stark:We like them, so they're just going to be our guy today. So go to our website or in the podcast description you'll find a link for Wholesale Warranties. If you need an RV extended warranty, check them out.
They got a great company and they have great service. So go ahead and look at that if you're looking for a warranty. Extended RV warranty. Now let's get into enjoying the RV life.
And the subject today is storm awareness while staying in RV parks. And so this is a pretty interesting subject.
And Alexis chose this because sometimes I've talked about being out in our RV and you know, storms come out of nowhere. And I'm from Arizona as well, and sometimes air storms will be on you and within minutes you see it out on the horizon, all of a sudden it's on you.
So in an RV park, you're going to be out there for days, camping or wherever you're at, you want to be ready for a storm. If you think a storm's coming, you don't want to just leave your RV unattended with the awning out and your chairs and tables and all that stuff.
So talking about some of that kind of got Alexis's curiosity stirred up. So she wants to share some things that she found online about storm awareness while you're in an RV park.
Alexis:Yes, exactly. And this, again, is not to scare you, it's to prepare you. So we want you to be the smart rv, right? Yeah.
No, we want you to be the one inside your RV watching everybody else scramble. So one of the first things we want you to do is to stay informed.
So however you do that, monitor the weather with an app or whatever you have on your phone.
Sometimes we don't have a WI fi connection, though, so you have to be ready to know what that is and then keep track of what the weather is and then also create a storm emergency kit. You can never have enough kits.
Have stuff ready, first aid supplies, bottled water, flashlights, you're going to want everything that you're going to need if the power goes out or if you're going to be in your RV for a little bit.
Also identifying, if you're in an RV park, you want to identify safety, safe shelter options if you can't make it back to your RV for whatever reason. So sometimes those RV parks have, you know, bathrooms or laundromats. So maybe hiding in there if they're concrete.
Eric Stark:Oh man. Depending on the park, I'd just soon die. Hide one of their bathrooms.
Alexis:That's true. It might not be the best option.
But of course, after any storm hits your rv, you're going to want to inspect for damage, make sure there's no leaking going on, no structural damage, because that could really cause problems in the future for you. So those are just some of the things we want you to think about. And obviously there's going to be more personal things to worry about.
These are just some things we came up for you.
Eric Stark:All right, very good. So all that information is on the website, the smartrver.com under storm awareness under enjoying the RV life.
So you can check out the full article there. And also we have a money saving tip which we, I think we missed the last one. Not sure. Alexis, do you recall?
Alexis:I, I do not.
Eric Stark:Yeah, I don't remember if we did. We're sorry. But all of them are on our website as well under money saving tips.
So this was try cheap or do it yourself alternatives to RV accessories.
You could, rather than buy accessories, you could actually go to like in or thrift stores, garage sales, and find things that you can incorporate in the design of your RV on the interior.
Remember we talked about that last episode about changing up the inside of your RV to kind of give it a refresher so you don't feel inclined to go buy a new one. Saving thousands of dollars.
These thrift stores, even antique stores, have a lot of stuff, a lot of cool little tin type items that would fit on the walls, lightweight, that you could use to decorate. You might be able to find some things if you're handy.
You know, you could buy curtains and cut them up and make them into covers for your toilet seat, things like that.
I mean, I'd love to see that people buy that kind of stuff, you know, I mean, you can find curtains with a cool design or an RV design, an old T shirt and why don't you get a T shirt and shove stuff in it? Make a pillow. There you go, man. Art at interior design at its best.
Alexis:Yes.
Eric Stark:Seriously, there's ways to save money. You don't have to buy all the stuff from A store or go online to spend hundreds of dollars.
And believe me, we like you to buy stuff because we sell a havoc store and we sell stuff like that. You know what, sometimes you got to save some money, cut back where you can. So that's our money saving tip today.
So that should help you out with a few bucks and keep you aware when you're going out in an RV park or wherever you go camping to be aware of storms, keep an eye on the weather and to make the changes that you might need to make. That brings us to staying on the road. This staying on the road. We're going to talk about towing capacities and does that matter? Math add up.
So what I mean by that is, is your truck and trailer the right configuration and it's important that you have that understood or figured out because you don't want a little wimpy truck pulling this big old massive trailer that weighs too much. The brakes barely stop it, you can barely accelerate. I mean those are problems. But there's some basic things about this and why I brought it up.
This episode too. We, we get a lot of our customers in the store who don't understand this and a lot of dealerships, I shouldn't say a lot.
Some dealerships really don't help you if you're buying a new trailer to hook up to your truck. Whether it's a fifth wheel or just a towable trailer, you know, a pull behind. They just want to sell you a trailer.
And so they don't care if you go in there with a Toyota pickup, a little tiny thing, they might sell you some big old trailer that you can't tow. You might even be able to get off the lot and well, you just got to get a new truck. But it's not always that simple.
Not every truck can troll every trailer. And also you don't need to go out and buy a one ton truck to pull a little 18 foot trailer. So you don't need to go overboard either.
Unless you need that truck. Be aware of that.
And even consumers or RVers who are buying a new RV and maybe they're going private party, you still have to have an understanding there. The private party again, they're just going to sell you the rv. They're going, I don't know, it looks like it'll pull it.
And in a lot of cases, just by looking at a truck and a trailer, you know, someone who's been around a bit could tell whether it can tow it or not. But you want to be sure. And there's Other things too. Do you need a weight distributing hitch?
Do you need a sway control, which everybody should have those two things, if you're pulling a trailer that should just be, hands down, everybody has it. And the reason why I say that is I remember a couple years ago we were going down this mountain road.
So there's a truck pulling a trailer and as he's going down the road, the trailer is swerving all over the place. It's going back and forth, back and forth, and there's curves and straightaways.
And every time you go into curve it'd get all, you know, swaying on him and going everywhere, totally unsafe. So that guy, you know, eventually I was able to pass him and you could. He didn't have a weight distributing hitch, no sway control.
He's just going, pulling this trailer.
And whoever sold them the trailer probably didn't sing to him, or maybe they did, but he didn't want to spend the extra four or five hundred dollars minimum to get set up. Right now, weight distributing hitches, when you go to a dealership, they're not going to sell you the 4 or 500 $1.
They're going to go up to the:And you know, there's some truth to that. But you don't have to go high end on these weight distributing hitches. They've been around for decades.
And the basic ones like from Easelift or Reese, they work just fine. They're just not as fancy and easy to hook up as some of the newer ones. But they work. The main thing is to have one.
Back to the real thing here about the capacities. There are some dealerships on their website, they're going to have charts to help you make the right decision. Like General RV, they do that.
Generalrv.com you can go their website and get probably all the information you need because they have a fit chart. Basically you put in the year, make, model, year, truck, whole deal and then it'll set you or hook you up to one of their trailers.
One of their trailers, you know, but it gives you an idea. It might not be the trailer you want. General RV might not be near you, but it'll show you the trailer, the size and the weight capacity.
So now you can go and shop other places if you decide you want to do that. So that's pretty helpful. So that's just one website, you know, There's a lot of them. Even some banks have them. So you buy the right thing.
But it's important to get it figured out before you ever buy the rv, what your truck can tow or your SUV or whatever it is you're using to tow. Don't try to decide that later. Buy the RV based on what you have. Unless you want to buy a new vehicle.
Then maybe look at RVs and vehicles and find that, you know, nice match there. And there's a lot of terms and definitions when it comes to towing capacities. You have tongue weight, pin weight for fifth wheels.
You have dry weight, gross vehicle weight, gross vehicle weight rating. You have cargo weight, tongue hitch weight. It goes on and on. Payload capacity. You're like, wow, look at all these numbers.
You know, I don't even try to remember all this stuff. I mean, it comes to me when we're talking about it.
But what you need to do is just know that for the RV you're buying, you don't need to have this stuff memorized. Like I said, you know, you can go to our website.
We got an article here under do it yourself articles with all this information on it broke down into categories. So it makes it real easy to understand it. So you can jot down some notes.
And this is what I need to look at when I'm buying an RV or a towable trailer. That way you get the right match. And that's where the math adds up. And that's what's so important, because all these numbers will be very confusing.
There's a lot of people that will throw out numbers this that it gets confusing. Just make notes on what you look at or what you see that's important.
You like the weight of the trailer empty versus the weight of it after you put all your stuff in there.
You know, your tools, your sewer hoses, your awning shades, your chairs, your tables, your coolers, your spare this, your spare that, little Billy the dog, your wife, all that adds up. And then all of a sudden, you maybe added a thousand pounds to it. That'll also tie in with the axle rating as well.
But when you look at the website, you see all that, and it'll come together for you. So don't panic. It's not that complicated.
And also, if you already have an rv, maybe you want to go back through and just kind of double check this stuff to make sure maybe you're having problems towing. It doesn't feel right. And you can double check that information. Now.
One of the things that also ties into this is the receiver hitch that you have on your tow vehicle. So you want to make sure your receiver hitch will tow the trailer as well. Because there's different rate weightings on receiver hitches.
You have class 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. So you want to make sure you get the right one. You don't want to buy the wrong hitch either one, that's underrated.
And you go to hook it up and drive them down the road and thing just breaks right off and you, God, gee, Davey, what happens? Sorry, anybody named Davey out there, right? But so then you're driving, the trailer's gone. Oh, well, you know, have to go get a new rv.
Do this one again. There you go. You don't want to do that. Most trucks today come with the right hitch that's designed for what that truck can tow.
But if the vehicle doesn't have a hitch and you're buying one or you want to upgrade, you got a clue. There's different size hitch ratings. It's not one size that fits all. And sometimes what we do is we think that this is what my truck has.
So every truck must have the same thing. You know, we hear it with RVs, this is what my RV has. And the RVer thinks that every RV has the same thing and they don't.
A lot might have the same thing, but not every rv. And then another question we get asked a lot. This isn't so much about capacities for towing, but it's just in general.
If your tongue jack breaks and you have to replace it, you want to buy something that's the right weight rating. The tongue weight of your trailer is 10 to 15% of the total weight.
Alexis:Right.
Eric Stark:You know, 10 is easier math. Add a few little bit more to it. But that's what you want to calculate. 10 to 15%.
I pretty much just go on 10%, add a few pounds to the trailer and go off of that and then you're going to be safe. And generally you're going to buy a bigger tongue jack than what their weight rating is anyways. Just the way it works out.
Especially if you go to electric, they don't have as many options or size options, which is fine. Bigger on that is definitely better.
You have a lot of different things, axle weight, payload capacity, hitching up correctly, all these terms and stuff. So don't be worried about it.
Just go to our website, the smartrver.com, look at the do it yourself articles and you're going to find exactly what you need there. Be able to do the math on it.
And if you need help, you can always just call us or contact us through the contact us page on our website, or just call us at our phone number, which is listed in the description of the podcast as well. So you'll see that from here on out. Also, if you do need to call us, it just makes it a little bit easier. All right, so that's going to conclude.
Staying on the road, it's important that you get the capacities right or the right vehicle trailer combination. Don't push it to the limit because it becomes unsafe. And you can wreck your trailer, kill your family, all that fun stuff.
You know, unless you got great insurance, you probably don't want to do that.
Alexis:Yeah, we're a bad family.
Eric Stark:Then again, you know, insurance, the way it's going with fires everywhere, things burning down, insurance might, you know, be a hundred million dollars a year soon. All right, that's an exaggeration, hopefully. Alexis told me to not do that anymore. I can't help myself.
This is going to bring us to the next stop, and first off, we're going to visit Cottonwood, Arizona. So Alexis is going to take us on this. It's going to say aerial tour, but we're not flying.
She's going to try to bring this alive for us so we can really appreciate the next stops in these towns we choose.
And sometimes they're not places that we've been to personally, but when we find them, we do a lot of research, and we really feel that these places are really cool for RVers and great places to go and do some exploring. So, Alexis, the floor is yours.
Alexis:I'm taking it away. Okay. Well, like Eric said, sometimes we haven't been to these places personally, but we do do research and put them on our lists to go visit.
So we're headed into the Verde Valley in Arizona, specifically Cottonwood, which we. When I realized that was the name of the town, I. I didn't really think of it being green and lush at all.
But it is in the higher desert, so, you know, I thought it was going to be all hot and brown. But the Verde river runs alongside the town.
You know, verde means green, so I looked it up, and it's green all the way down the river, which is beautiful. There's greenery all along the water. It's just gorgeous. You have to look it up, or if you live there, I mean, you know how special it truly is.
And then this town kind of gets overshadowed by Jerome. We all know Jerome. It's the ghost town that's, you know, creepy. Not really creepy, but it's very cool. But Cottonwood, it's his own destination.
You can go there. It's a great base for RVers who want to see the Verde Valley go all over. But it's a neat town on its own.
If you're going to go there, I mean, you got to see Cottonwood. It offers a little bit of everything. History, culture, wine, outdoor adventures.
And it's close to Jerome, Sedona, and the whole valley is just gorgeous. So it's a perfect hub for travelers.
Eric Stark:So there we go. The perfect hub. So that's it. It becomes that hub. And that's what most of these towns we choose are their hubs. They're not your final destination.
You get there, set up your base camp, prepare for the coming storm, then you go out and do some exploring.
Alexis:Correct.
Eric Stark:So you mentioned Jerome, Arizona. That's interesting. Because you know what? Just the other day I was talking to my great grandpappy Popeye, and he gave me this.
Alexis:Oh, look at that.
Eric Stark:This is a story of Jerome, Arizona. Okay. And what's more interesting is we are going to talk about Jerome, Arizona, in the shadows of the past. The towns that once were.
Alexis:I love it. I love the connection.
Eric Stark:Isn't that just amazing how that worked out? It is. It really is. It's just phenomenal. So let me go ahead and read this. This is very interesting. I'm just gonna read it. Okay. Okay.
So everybody ready? You guys ready out there? Listen, picture this.
It's the late:Let's dig into why Jerome is one of the most fascinating places in Arizona. In its heyday, Jerome was no ordinary mining town.
It was a booming metropolis perched precariously on Cleopatra Hill, home to the United Verde Mine, one of the richest copper producing mines in the world. With 15,000 residents. Saloons lined the streets, gambling halls thrived. And, well, let's just say it wasn't known for its bedtime prayers.
hen the copper ran out in the:Today, Jerome is home to just four hundred and fifty residents. But some say the spirits of his rowdy past never moved on. Take the Jerome Grand Hotel, for instance.
This former miner's hospital is now a hotspot for the curious. Or the sliding jail, a building that no joke. Slid 200ft downhill thanks to unstable mining land. If walls could talk, Jerome's would scream.
hosts and old stories. In the:Today, it's a vibrant haven for art lovers, with galleries like Piera Verde and Raku showcasing everything from pottery to stunning copper jewelry. You'll find quirky shops, antique treasures, and even the chance to sip local wine. Talk about electric. And let's not forget the views.
At 5,000ft above sea level, Jerome offers jaw dropping panoramas of the Verde Valley and Sedona's iconic red rocks. Feeling adventurous? Hike nearby Mingus Mountain or take a scenic drive. The kind where you roll down the windows and just breathe.
Want to explore more? Just a short drive away, you'll find the attractions at the Verde Canyon Railroad and Tuzygote National Monument.
Whether you're a history buff, a wine enthusiast, or someone looking for a thrill, Jerome is the place to be. So there you have it. Jerome, Arizona. A place where history, mystery and creativity collide.
Whether you're hunting for the past, savoring a glass of wine, or just soaking in the views, Jerome is waiting to tell you its story. Thanks for tuning in. Until next time, keep exploring. So there you have it, Alexis. That's from my grandpappy, Popeye.
Wow, Papa, isn't that just amazing?
Alexis:That's beautiful.
Eric Stark:That's just like history right here. Taking place at the Smart rver podcast. Who would have thunk? All right, so there we have it. That's Jerome, Arizona.
So two places right next to each other. Cottonwood, Arizona. Jerome, Arizona. You got to go see it. That's what you gotta. That's two T's and an A. So now let's move on to RV envy.
And today in RV Envy, we're going to talk about the heat line. 12 volt heat cable. We're not going to call it heat tape. That cheapens it, right?
So again, Craig from Texas turned me on to the heat tape, thinking because 12 volt heat tape in RVs just typically hasn't been, well, that really good of a thing because there's so much out there on the market that's just junk. The quality isn't there.
Or people are taking 110 volt heat tape and wrapping it around pipes and melting them around sewer hoses and melting them, not understanding that that's not how it works. Wrapping, making their own heated water hoses and failing at that. Throwing away good money. Heat line makes a great product.
And there'll be a link to the website in the description of this podcast. So it's heat line.
And just to give you an idea how this works with them, now, they're a Canadian company, they ship to the States, they're shipping there a little bit of time. But all their heat tapes are made to order. Now they don't go by the foot, they go by five foot increments, but that's okay.
You know, any extra tape or line or cable, you're just going to wrap it around. Let's say you're doing a pipe with your 3 inch valve on there for your waste tank.
You're just going to wrap it around it and the excess goes there and it just does a little extra heating, that's all. So to give you an idea, the cost of it, because I know you want to know the cost. Everybody wants to know the cost.
I wanted to know the cost when I'm talking to him. Get to the cost. Get to the cost. It going to cost me. So a 15 foot section ready to go 12 volts is $277 plus shipping.
Now depending where you're at, the shipping could be 20 bucks, could be 40 bucks. I don't know. Shipping's a lot today. It's gone up quite a bit. And I don't know exactly how they ship, if they'll do flat rate boxes.
Well, they don't have USPS though. They're in Canada, so wonder if they have Canada sps. Does that work? No, whatever, whatever. Canada pull.
Anyway, it seems kind of pricey and here's what Craig said about that.
Because when I was telling him about it, you know, he says, well, you know what, you scream once in the beginning and then you never scream again because you don't have a problem. And I like that because when you buy it, it seems like that's a lot of money for 15ft.
But if it works and you have no problems, that's going to be the best $277 you ever spent. And it's made to size so you don't cut it down after you buy it, you get the sizes you want. So you might need 2, 3, 4 runs to do this.
So it might get expensive. But if you're protecting your plumbing, it's well worth it.
And the other thing is too, what shows this is what to me says how good this product is that you can actually wrap a sewer hose with it and it won't melt the sewer hose. It works that well. So that's definitely worth consideration. If you're buying or trying to heat your plumbing or sewer hose in the winter months.
And for people that live in certain areas, this probably doesn't mean a thing to you, but it's good to know.
If you travel someplace you might need to heat some plumbing up because you can't let water freeze in an rv, things break, stop working, you spend more money. So we're trying to help you to avoid that.
So again, the link will be on our website, thesmarterver.com under this podcast and it'll also be in the pod description if you're listening on itunes, Spotify, whatever your flavor is. So there you have it. Heat tape for everybody. And seems expensive, but really it's pretty reasonable considering the money you can save down the road.
Now, again, we're recommending these RV extended warranties through wholesale warranties. And you got to talk to them. They're totally transparent on everything. They're going to give you the whole package before you ever give them a dime.
And that's what's important. And it's geared towards you. It's not one of these warranties. One size fits all that you'll get at a dealership for a lot more money.
Henceforth, wholesale warranties, right, Alexa? Wholesale. What does that mean to you? Cheap. Save money, save money. Cheap. Cheap. All right, so there we go. That brings us to the end of the show today.
We had a great show today. In two more weeks, we'll have episode 169 with some more great content. So, Alexis, thanks for coming by today.
Alexis:So much fun. Thank you.
Eric Stark:Sharing Cottonwood, Arizona with us or. Yeah, with us. And. And there we have it. So this is Eric Stark with the smart RV.
Your podcast, your go to guy for smart RVing and creating those unforgettable adventures on the road. So thanks for stopping by.
