After doing this for several years and listening to many different owners come in and share their stories and pay attention to the different RV user groups and owners’ forums and stuff like that, I’ve compiled a bit of a list based on actual user owners and feedback. Very little of this is my opinion, although the one thing I am willing to die on completely in this list is the one hill I think you’ll find that pretty much everyone will also agree with.
I’ve come up with a list of things for you to consider not spending your money on. Save your money—either don’t get it or potentially get a better version of it rather than going cheap the first time. That’s what I want to do today. My goal is always to try to help you find your second thing the first time around, and usually, that’s related to a full-size RV. Sometimes, it must also be related to the little widgets and whizbangs.
So, kicking things off, the first thing I recommend you skip is the cheap wheelchocks. They’re very lightweight, they’re inexpensive—I get that. And for people who camp casually, you’re like, “Man, I just don’t want to spend more than I have to,” that’s why we still keep them on the shelf here. But frankly, I would skip these things for money and even the little bit I get to camp.
They always wiggle loose no matter how hard I nail them in place. Then again, with my chicken arms, I might be unable to whack everything in place as you’re supposed to. But these things also expire and decay over time, eventually rotting out, crumbling, and falling apart.
Well, instead, I’d recommend these—the big, heavy-duty rubber wheel jack suckers here with the handy rope that kind of connects them. Chances are, you want to stabilize more than one spot anyway, so having them hooked together is just one less way to try to lose stuff. They run a bit more money, but it’s the better buy. Even camping casually for me, this is probably what I would go for because they work better.
They work on wide stance axles; they work on any RV, really—it doesn’t matter what type of RV or what sort of suspension or anything you have, this will help keep the thing from rocking and rolling around. You understand they don’t wiggle loose near as much, even if you’re aggressively folding laundry.
And if you bounce around from place to place week and weekend, these can be great. If you’re going to be in one place for a long time, if you cinch these down, some people have expressed concerns that they may start biting into the tire and creating bad spots and divots or damaging or destroying it.
That’s more theoretical than practical. You’ll have to cinch these things down to become an issue. I do like these a lot, though, especially the new varieties that have a lock on them, so somebody walking by can’t just take these—because these aren’t necessarily cheap.
But the rubber aircraft carrier styles—these things, get something good to stabilize your RV. You can’t use these on a single-axle camper, but they make varieties for wide-stance RVs. That’s something they didn’t use to do years ago, but for the last couple of years, they have offered a wide stance stability version of various X-Chocks from a couple of suppliers.
Next up is something I’ve talked about before. However, in very opinionated terms, and that’s something that I don’t want to do here because there are always pluses and minuses to anything, certainly. But washer-dryers—and more specifically, combo units—I see so many people who have never camped before, have never stepped foot in an RV before, just bound and determined convinced they have to have a washer-dryer in an RV.
Yet still, to this date, less than two percent of washer-dryer-prepped RVs have a unit installed. And it almost reminds me of a microwave in a hotel. If you ask many people, “Do you need a microwave available in your hotel room to feel confident in booking that?” many say yes. But then you ask the same people, “Did you use it?” Like, “Well, no, never.” It’s just one of those funny things.
So here’s why I say this, especially about a washer-dryer combo unit—and hear me out. They use a ton of water. Combo units are also used—they can handle very small loads. You can’t put any big load of laundry in there, and if you have loads of sheets or something, you’ll probably have to find a public laundromat to handle them anyway.
Stackable or side-by-side but separated units are better because you can put bigger loads in them. But, like, if you have, say, even on-site sewer where the gray tank holding capacity of your RV is less of an issue because you could pull the valve and let it flush out after every load, you’re still going to be running that thing all day every day that you’re hooked up on that.
Take the clothes you wore yesterday, cut them in half, and wash them today—they take a lot of time. Again, the stackable units are better. The other thing is that these are way more expensive Than many people realize. And maybe for some people, it’s about convenience and peace of mind, not the money—I can respect that.
There are a lot of public laundry areas—some are skeevy, and some are very nice. If you look at the machines, many of them tend to be pretty clean on the inside because of their frequency of use. And if they’re not, then don’t wash your underwear there. Nobody wants to catch somebody else’s fuzzy bugs—I get that.
My suggestion and my recommendation here: you can always install a washer-dryer unit later. Try it first, a time or two without it. Do you feel like you’re still lacking a feature that you cannot enjoy the camping or the RV lifestyle and experience without it? Then get one put in. You could always do it later. But I don’t see the sense in spending multiple thousands of dollars on something that many people report not using or regretting having purchased.
And again, this is—I know that I’ve been very opinionated in talks about RV washer-dryers previously—but I’m sharing feedback based on what I see from owners and what I hear from people who come in or trade in their RV. They say, “Oh, you’ve got a washer-dryer—you want to keep that in? Move that to your new camper?” Like, “I never use the thing. Would you give me some money for it if I left it behind?” That’s the normal response we hear from most people—at least what I hear. Maybe my experience is different. But that right there could be something that might save you thousands of dollars. But again, you could always apply it later.
Now, I probably should have made this next one number two on the list, but the next entry here: big budget butt napkins. You see many of these things; I’ve previously talked about this. It’s not necessarily wrong—you don’t want to use just any toilet paper in your RV, down your toilet, and in your holding tanks. You want toilet paper designed to break down more quickly, especially when used in conjunction with RV chemical toilet tank treatment tablets and add-ins and all that stuff.
What I’m getting at here is to find the toilet paper that you like, but make sure it says “septic safe” on it—I probably should have held the package right side up—but make sure it says “septic safe” on it. If it’s septic safe, basically, as long as you use much water—and that’s the key right there—as long as you use much water in your holding tanks and down that toilet, you can use septic-safe toilet paper. Some of which actually will shred itself and break down more quickly than the fancy big-budget butt napkins over here.
Slide-out awnings, in certain circumstances, are fantastic. If you camp where there’s like a lot of tree coverage, much crap that falls onto your slide, it is nice that you don’t have to get up there and clean them off. But what happens is that they lull people into a false sense of security, thinking that the side awning magically makes their slide-out bulletproof and maintenance-free.
And if you’re in an area where much stuff falls on them, they can be nice. But a big slide awning like this one—if it’s raining cats and dogs, it will collect water. Many people think it will be like your main awning, with a lot of watershed runoff with light rain. Yeah, you’ll probably get that. But with heavy rain, the material will slack—because there’s usually extra material in that roller—and it will just lay down or create a bucket effect and collect water on top of that slide.
And typically, one of the only ways you can get it off a big slide is by retracting it. But talk to people who have been through this experience, and they will confirm for you—you can’t sit there and run the slide close, then run it back out. Because the slide awning is on top of the slide, it will tend to get pulled in and pinched between the slide seal, the slide wall, and the roof. It gets caught in there.
So you have to, like, work it in slow but sure—slow but sure—and try to get under there with something, lift it a little bit, and get some water out there. And it can be a process. Now, combine that with certain slides that are on, like Schwintec slide mechanisms, which should not be only partially opened or retracted—they should be done in or out. And you can very quickly create for yourself a tricky, sticky situation.
Again, this is one of those things—oh, and here’s another thing: if you live in wind country where it could get under that slide awning and cause it to flap, it will start smacking the top of your slide-out box. It could tear the roof membrane on top of the slide box because it is basically like the main cabin roof most of the time—although on a motorhome, sometimes you have fiberglass. You get the idea, however.
It can cause impact damage to your RV. That’s why the vast majority of our RVs are built without those—because there’s no way to predict if, you know, you’re going to be a good-quality candidate for them.
Now, they can also provide some benefits. They can help keep that slide-out shaded like the main awning. If you’re not under direct sunlight, it tends to keep the heat down in that slide. Installing a gas-electric two-way fridge in a slide box is very handy. Anything you can do to help it breathe and keep up since it cools more slowly can be a benefit.
Again, I recommend camping a time or two before you add them to see if you need them. And then, if you feel you do, you can always add them later. If you look at some of my older videos when I have the opportunity to cover trade-ins, you would see so often that if somebody had any problems with the slide awning, they would just cut the fabric off and leave the hardware installed because it just wasn’t worth it to them. They didn’t find enough benefit even to bother replacing it. That says a lot.
Now, on this last one, I will need your help. Again, I will source the community and ask you to chime in the comment section with a product you feel does a good job. But get the very dollar-cheapest variety of sewer tank treatment stuff. It might do a decent job of beginning that chemical breakdown process to break down the solid mass or the toilet paper to get everything out of the black tank properly.
But it might not do a good job of the odor control factor—the smell-o-vision 101. Some brands—usually not the cheapest things—do a better job of that. Again, I don’t want to sound like I’m specifically plugging any product over the other because I’ve used some perfectly sufficient things. One of the things you’ve got to watch out for—especially with these drop-in pods—is you need to read the packaging to see how many gallons of water each packet is designed to treat. Then, you need to check your RV’s black tank holding capacity.
If an RV has a 45-gallon holding tank, and this is only designed to treat 30 gallons of water—well, I’ll do the math—you’re in the red and will feel like you’re in the brown. At least, that’s how you’re going to smell. So, you can always double up the packet like Sir Mix-A-Lot, but it’s also nice to have something made to do a better job.
Is there something else from your experience that you would like to share that would help somebody else avoid making the same potential mistake or unnecessary expenditure? I would love it if our community came together, shared some notes, and helped one another.
