A Women's RV Forum run by Women RVer's!

Picked up my little Class C yesterday. It has neither a fresh water hose nor a sewer hose. So, ladies, what are your suggestions for lengths of hoses? One long hose of each? Two (or more) shorter hoses? Will probably go to Camping World Thursday or Friday. How about pressure regulators, water filters, and surge protectors (it's 30 amps)? Any other words of wisdom for me about fittings, etc.? Sure wish I had paid more attention to all this stuff when DH was still with me.
Fancy

Get 2, 25' water hoses. You will usually just need one but can add the second hose if you need it. That's better than having to lug a 50' around all the time.

The simple brass water regulators will do. Don't need anything fancy. A water filter is good if there's any grit in the water. I never used one but some people like to use them.

I prefer to avoid the light weight sewer hoses. Get one that's a bit heavier duty. The light ones are just too thin. You may never need more than one section of hose but if you do need to add on to it you've got a nasty, dirty job to do joining the two hoses. So you might want to get two hoses and a coupling and put them together ahead of time while the hoses are new. Be sure to use a hose clamp on each fitting. Even a small drip is bad.

I never used a surge protector so someone else will have to weigh in on that.

Get some spare washers for the water hoses. Don't be without some. You never know when you'll need a new one. They are dirt cheap.

When you disconnect the water line to head down the road, drain the line as you roll it up, then screw the ends of the hose together. This will keep bugs and dirt out of the hose while traveling.

If your water line connection at the rv sticks straight out of the trailer, buy one of those 90 degree brass fittings that screws into the rv and allows your water hose to hang straight down. Without one of these you hose can kink and wear out prematurely.

If your rv has replaceable fuses (the small glass ones, or maybe plastic) find out the rating of the fuses and have spares for them.

Most screws used in rv's have a square hole in the head of the screw instead of a slot or a phillips head. So get a screwdriver that fits those screws. You'll need one sooner or later as screws do work loose.

If you'll be using propane to heat up the hot water tank, buy a spare thermocouple and keep it on hand. Sooner or later they all crap out. When it fails you'll be without hot water unless you can switch the tank to electric. If you boondock you won't have electric service available so you'll have to use propane. So have a spare with you. You can buy a thermocouple at any hardware store. You don't have to pay more for one at the rv store. They are all the same except that they come in a couple of different lengths.

Have a set of common tools on hand. Screwdrivers, adjustable wrenches, pliers, pump pliers, a roll of electrical tape, etc. Keep a small tube of caulking around. You can buy caulking in a tube about the size of a toothpaste tube. Get clear instead of white so that you can use it on anything. Buy silicon instead of latex. If you need to caulk the roof use rv caulk, not the common caulk.

Ask lots of questions and learn as much as you can. Rv repairs are very expensive and most are easy to do. Everything you can do for yourself will save you lots of money.

Good luck

If you look in the maintenance and Tech section you see threads on these subjects.

As for surge protectors let me tell you a story. When I was workkamping we had a bad lightening storm and lightening hit the transformer. We had two big class A's; one with a surge protector and one without. The one with had their surge protector blown up. The other guy lost his TV's, microwave, computer and everything electrical that was plugged in. Now which do you think was more expensive? The surge protector or replacing all that stuff?

And I can give two stories where the only rigs who had a problem during an electric companies brownout had surge protectors. Not to scare you, but it made me not be the advocate for them most are.

Putting my two sections of sewer hose together, if necessary, is as simple as twisting the two connectors together. Not a problem at all.

The last sewer hose I bought was one of the Rhino kits that already has the connections attached. I'm not sure if it is 10 ft or 15 ft. It's a heavy duty hose and you can get an extension. Most campgrounds want you to have the screw type end that goes into the sewer pipe. Don't waste your money on anything other than a heavy duty hose. The lighter ones don't last any time.

Martha

Thank you Deeann & Acadianmom! Feel like I have had a crash course in hoses and will advance to Camping World with confidence.
Thank you Melissa D - went to the Maint. & Tech section and found a wealth of info there.
As for the surge protector, Retiredhappy & Bethers - I am a black/white kind of person and do not deal well with balancing pros and cons so this should I/shouldn't I thing about the surge protector is a real stress maker. We did have a surge protector get fried early on in our travels and since I already have one from the MH, I will probably use it with the thought of not letting it go to waste - as if that should be the deciding factor?

Bethers wrote: Putting my two sections of sewer hose together, if necessary, is as simple as twisting the two connectors together. Not a problem at all.

Not quite, Bethers, not quite. I got my 5r last week (I live in it and will travel in the Class C), and a male friend with lots of camping experience helped me get it all set up. He hooked the two connectors together on the black hose - that should work, right?, because he is a man? So glad that I started flushing with my gray tank first, (you know, just in case) cause water leaked out all over the place at the connectors. THANK GOD IT WASN'T THE BLACK TANK! So I unscrewed the plastic pieces, looked at them, and screwed them back together. They still leaked. Called the man - he said he would come by in the morning to find out what was wrong. Did not want to wait on the man! Would have used Gorilla Glue at that point if I had had any. Remembered that I had something called, I think, plumber's putty. So I rolled some out, unscrewed the connectors and dried them out, and put in the putty and screwed them back together so tight they may never come apart again and, walah!, no leak! Finished flushing tanks and poop (almost literally) on little plastic pieces that should screw together but don't.
Fancy

Mine is the Rhino like Martha's - and the connectors are the same as what you connect to your rig - never have had a leak with them. But I know sewer hoses can leak - and I don't trust the one's that aren't made specifically to connect like the Rhino is.

That said, you were lucky to be doing grey water - but you know that in the future you do want to do the black first, then the gray, right?

Yeah, I do, Beth. But this time there was a little voice saying "Try the grey water first." Sure glad I listened to the little voice.
Fancy

Beth, I did not say that connecting two sewer hoses together was hard to do. But if the sewer hoses are not new, then you're dealing with dirty hoses. Therein lies the problem. Of course you can wash your hands afterward but it's much easier and cleaner to buy two hoses and connect them before ever using them. And I did say to be sure to use hose clamps at each connector. Then you don't have the leaks.

Plumbers putty will do just fine.

Hose clamps won't work with the Rhino - different method of connecting and I like it. When I was using the old method, I purchased a longer and a shorter hose - used one or the other as I didn't like leaks and connecting. Shoot, I had a hose that I used specifically for dump stations. With the Rhino, I'm perfectly fine using only the shorter length and connecting if necessary when I need longer. I must admit though, the only time I had a leak was after a park mowed - knicked my hose - didn't tell me. After I saw it leaking and knew it hadn't the previous dump I noticed they had mowed. Only a short time before that they ruined my kiddie pool I used for one of my dogs. Needless to say, I went to the office and had a conniption fit.

Fancy, I was sure you knew - but sometimes we get people that don't - I didn't when new. I didn't know when connected to sewer that the black tank shouldn't be left open. I didn't know much of anything ... And still learn new things all the time.

As to hoses and hand washing and dumping tanks. First thing we bought was a big box of gloves. We never handle sewer hoses without gloves. Wash too after but glove up for sure.
DH, the retired Navy Computer/ electronics tech says a brown out can cause as much as a surge. I have seen an rv (fortunately not ours) lose everything that was plugged in after a surge (which can come after a brown out or during or totally separately) and its not a fun thing to recover from. More so if your RV is your full time home.
Velda

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Doesn't the Surge Guard protect again low voltage situations (brown outs), too?
That's what I thought, anyway - high, low, reverse polarity, etc.

One thing I just learned at Vickie's last week - had my Surge Guard plugged in to her house and had to go get my extension and cord out of the lawn for her to mow (knowing her, she would have mowed over them just to be mean).

I just separated the two and tossed one one way off the grass and the other the other way off the grass. When I plugged them back together, the electricity came back on in the rig immediately. I was surprised. Vickie and I determined that because I hadn't unplugged the Surge Guard from her post, that in its little mind (similar to Vickie's), nothing was out of line.

I'd never be without my Surge Guard, even here at home, plugged in to my house.

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I always use a surge guard as well. Like Mitch, I was under the impression that it protected against all sorts of electrical mayhem.