RV Storage Tips: Tucking Your RV in For a Long Winter’s Nap

When storing your vehicle for an extended period of time it is important to take a little bit of time and get it ready. If you're going to be storing it outside, exposed to the sun, UV rays are really harsh on sidewall material, rubber roofs, especially decals. The first thing I would do is wash the entire vehicle, check all the seams, make sure that they are all filled, that there is no place that moisture is going to get in. If you can get a cover, that would be the best thing. It's going to keep it nice and clean, or store it inside like this unit's been. But I want to make sure first of all, I don't do any wax on these decals, the decal manufacturer says they need to be open and breathe. I want to wash the unit and then put some sidewall protection on it, just a UV protection that you can get from ProtectAll and so forth. The next thing I want to look at is the generator. Now there's a big problem with generators out in the market today, because they varnish. If we let them sit for extended period of times without running them under load, we are going to have trouble starting it. So, before I put this unit in for storage, I'm going to come in here and I want to run the unit for about half an hour under load which means I'm going to run the air conditioners, I'm going to run some space heaters inside, something that actually gets me up to about that 30 amp load. So that I clean this out. Then I'm going to put some type of a stabilizer in the gas tank. Now the generator manufacturer recommends that we disconnect the fuel line, run the generator out of fuel, put the fuel line into their recommended stabilizing, run that for about five to 10 minutes, disconnect, run it out of fuel again. Now, we're not going to do that. The average owner generally isn't going to take that time, be able to do that procedure, so, it's really important. Now, I do know some people that actually come out during storage if it is going to be for six months, they'll come out once a month, run the generator, I even know some that will bring a movie, play a movie inside and run a couple space heaters. Just to work that generator and keep it going. Now, it's more important in the gas models. Diesels you want to run every so often just to keep the seals pliable, they don't have quite the varnishing in it, so take a little time on that generator. Also, before you put it into storage, make sure you put a little silicone spray on all the hinges, especially in the lock mechanisms here, just to make sure that they are nice and pliable, when it comes out into the spring. You also want to put a full tank of fuel. The gas tank in these, or the fuel tank in these, is painted on the outside and it's got a protective coating on the inside, but if I don't have a full tank of fuel then I'm going to get condensation then I'm going to start to get rust, so you'll want to fill that tank up, put a fuel additive in it. On the tires, then, I want to make sure that the tires are pumped up to the recommended pressure on the sidewall. Now keep in mind here when I'm driving this on a day-to-day basis I may not go clear up to 90 PSI like this one says here. I'm going to weight the coach, find out what kind of weights on it and find the recommended tire pressure. But when I'm storing it, I like to have the pressure that's recommended on the sidewall. I'll bring it down when I bring it out of storage to get a little better ride out of it. But that gets the tire filled up. If I'm going to be parking in a place where I have any kind of an asphalt or snow or salt or anything like that, I'm going to want to put a cover down underneath it. Either a piece of plywood or a piece of plastic. So that I don't have any of the chemicals that can leech up into that tire. I also want to check the sidewall and make sure that it doesn't have any weather checking on that sidewall before I put it into storage. And make sure that the inside dual as well on this is going to be filled up completely. And the last thing on the tires is we want to do a good, thorough cleaning of the tires with just a mild detergent soap and water. Now a lot of people like to use the tire shine on it. But the tire manufacturer recommends just soap, a mild soap and water and no tire shine. Don't make 'em gloss. It actually has a petroleum base in it and will enhance the weather checking and deterioration of those tires. As we move forward here, there's a lot of places that have a spider that actually likes the smell of the additive put into propane. And they will come into this furnace vent and weave a spider web in there and they'll block the exhaust in it. So, you might want to put a cover over the top of this, but make sure you remember when you take it out of storage that this is here. Otherwise, that's going to heat that up and you could have some real problems. If you're able to plug the vehicle in, you're converter on board is going to charge your batteries. But if you're going to be an extended period of time you want to do a little more battery maintenance than just that. Because you're going to get sulfation if you just leave it topped off unless you have a multistage charger. So, if you are not able to plug in, the best thing is to take the batteries out and bring them back to a storage facility where you can actually maintain and condition them the proper way. So let's go take a look at those batteries. This unit the batteries are stored underneath the step compartment right here. And we see we have two AGM batteries and then our start battery here. If I'm going to be storing this out in cold weather, I'm going to take these in, I don't want them to freeze. Even if I'm able to plug in, I want to take them inside and condition them. Keep them from freezing. AGM batteries aren't going to sulfate quite as bad. But then I also have my start battery here, and keep in mind, if I take this start battery out, it's going to reset the CPU for the engine compartment and I'm going to have to go through a few steps when I bring this out of storage. I'm going to have to let it run at a certain RPM. Check your owner's manual to see what that's going to effect your computer in your engine compartment. Now, this unit has the two batteries in here if I leave this plugged in, I'm just going to basically top these off. So I could get some sulfation in your typical battery. Now over in this fifth wheel, we have a different example of a battery conditioner that is ideal for storing your batteries. Let's take a look. Batteries are in this compartment right here, in the front, they're vented. Up out here, since they're in this compartment itself. Take this vent cover off. Now these are a typical group 24 battery, lead acid. So they are going to be prone to sulfation. But what we've done in this unit here, Is we've actually installed a battery minder. Instead of just using the regular converter that's going to keep them topped off When this is plugged in, it's actually going to send high impact waves into these batteries and break up that sulfation and so while it's stored, we really don't have to do anything as long as it's connected to a power source. Now if you're going to be out into a parking lot or some place, a storage lot that doesn't have electricity, you can also get this version with a solar panel option, so it will really help restore, restore and condition these batteries. So taking a little bit of time just to make sure these batteries are topped off conditioned, they'll extend the life of the batteries. Now, let's take a look on the side of the unit. If your unit has awnings, they should be extended out, cleaned, make sure there are no tears or anything in them, and then make sure they're dried before you put them away. We're going to check the awnings in this one, I see we've got two large awnings. Off to the side, so we're going to bring them out. And I see these were put away wet. We can start to see some mold and mildew underneath here. So we see all the condensation that's in here, we've got a lot of mold that's going on, we're going to need to clean all this off. And let this dry up before we put these back away. So we're just going to pull our ladder over here. Take a look at some of the specifics. Definitely want to get any debris off of this. See a lot of sap stuff starting up. And I can clean this- they do make a vinyl cleaner, an awning cleaner, I've got a good, smooth vinyl on this side and remember on the outside here, or the top of this I'm going to have more of a fabric. So I will want to use more of a brush but on this vinyl I can even use just Windex. And see it's starting to come off but this has been here for a little while. Some of this stuff like right here, probably have to use a little bit more industrial type of a product, maybe even some TSP. In some water solution. A good, stiff brush to get this in. But I'm going to want to get all this cleaned off and I'm going to let it dry before I put it back in for storage. Keep in mind that if you have slide rooms, also, you want to check the awning over the top of the slide room. If you don't have an awning then make sure you get the top of that slide room completely cleaned off, you don't want any debris sitting inside there, rotting, as you have your unit in storage, so. Now let's take a look inside and see what preparation we can do for storage. If you are going to be storing your RV in cold weather then you definitely want to winterize it. You can either run RV antifreeze through the hot and cold lines inside or you can blow it out and get all the water out of it. So drain your tanks, drain your black, greywater, and your freshwater tanks but keep in mind you want to put a little bit of RV antifreeze down each one of the sinks, get them in that P trap that's underneath because you'll have water sitting in there, so pour a little bit in the kitchen, the bathroom, any place you've got a, you've got a sink. And it's also a good idea to shut of the LP system. This is our stove here, it's going to be supplied by LP gas, I'm going to go outside and make sure that the tank is shut off. In this unit, travel trailers, it will be up front. I'll have two tanks actually. To shut off. On a motorhome, it will be typically on the passenger side and one shut off for the tank there. Then with your refrigerator, you wanna make sure that you defrost the refrigerator. Let it, open up completely, get everything out of there. So we don't have any, any moisture inside and make- dry it out. And then put a box of baking soda inside of it. And make sure you prop the doors open. They make a couple little nice little blocks that will actually allow you just to prop the door, and leave it open like this. Also, pull all the blinds on the inside of it. This will help keep any sunlight and UV rays from coming inside the coach and fading all your fabrics, leathers, even, even wood grains in here. So make sure all the windows are shut first of all so we have no moisture penetration and any vents that you may have on the top are shut unless you have one of the vent covers. That, like fantastic vent cover, then you can leave that open and get a little air flow in here. Also, any place you have a dry cell battery, like a smoke detector, LP leak detector, carbon monoxide, your radios. Make sure you take those batteries out so they don't corrode inside that device. And then be ready for rodents. Depending on where you store your vehicle, you want to make sure that all the compartments are closed on the outside, you want to look underneath to make sure there's no openings, there's no silicone, there's no holes they can crawl up through. And inside here you want to make sure you get rid of all the food on the inside. Don't give them anything tempting to come in. Now, my dad likes to use moth balls in his, but it takes, it seems to work for him, but it seems to take about three to four months to get rid of that smell. There's a lot of new products out on the market. Traps, different types of repellents and baits that are out there, so take a look at those. This is just a partial list of what you'll do to store your vehicle. If you have appliances and products inside your vehicle, the more you store it, the more you'll customize your storage process for you.