Are you considering buying a travel trailer, or are you new to RVing and want the nitty-gritty of the RV setup and breakdown? Thanks to you guys, we’ve had great responses showing what we’ve learned since then. We aim to show you more details in the setup and breakdown to save you time.Get a view of our campsite before we get back in. That way, you know where your awning will be, where your slides will be, and where your hookups will be next to your trailer. So, it’s always good to view your site before you return.
The first thing you want to do before you unhitch is level your trailer from left to right because once you unhitch, you won’t be able to do this again. I use a standard everyday level, which I like putting on the floor. According to this, this wheel right here is a bit low, so we will make that adjustment.Now, what we’re going to use for this are these levellers. We have a single-axle trailer, so we only need one of these. If you have a dual axle trailer, you would need two, and you only need them on the low side. This works because you put it underneath your wheel, and then when you back your trailer up, it will roll up on it and lift it. It’ll lift it to two or three inches. Then, you can use this on the other side. So not only does this help level the trailer, but it also acts as a chalk for this side.
Now that we’re level left to right and have this wheel chocked, we’re going to move to the other side and chock that wheel. It’s essential to ensure your trailer is choked before you unhitch it to prevent it from rolling forward or backward.Now that our trailer is levelled left to right and our wheels chocked, we will start the disconnect. The first thing you want to do is disconnect the lights and your hitch pin. Put that right there so you don’t lose it. We’re also going to disconnect our emergency brake cable.
I like to use these leveller blocks. They’re kind of like Legos. You can use these under your stabilizers. You can drive on top of them with your wheels, but I like to use these for my hitch. Put these under here. The reason you want to use some kind of block right here is that the shorter this hitch is from the ground, the more stable the trailer will be.Now, we’re going to lower the hitch. Another safety tip: leaving your safety chains hooked to the trailer is a good idea until you unhook everything. If the trailer decides to roll back or forth, you’ll at least still be hooked to your truck.
So now, we’re going to raise the truck and the trailer to take the tension off of these weight distribution bars so that we can unhook them. We still have our hitch connected to the car, and we will raise the truck to take the weight off these bars.If you have any questions about the weight distribution hitch we’re using, please see this video. The link will be in the description below. Now, we can take the truck back down. Now that the weight is off of the weight distribution bars, we can release the hitch and raise it back up.
Now that the ball is clear of the hitch, we’re going to disconnect our safety chains. We’re going to pull these weight distribution bars out of the hitch to get them out of the way, and we’re going to put them in our storage right here.
So, while we’re at the campsite, I like pulling the hitch off our truck. I wouldn’t want to leave it on here. It’s big and bulky. You can bust your shins on it when you walk by, so we’ll go ahead and take that off. You pull this pin, pull it, always put it back so you don’t lose it, and we keep our hitch right here. I like to put it here because I want to avoid cramming it inside this little storage bin right here. It takes up all the space.
Now that we’ve levelled left to right, we’re going to level front to back. You do that with your tongue jack. As you can see, we need to raise the trailer just a bit to level it out.
So now we’re going to lower the stabilizers. We like to use this electric drill with a three-quarter-inch socket to do so.Now that everything is unhitched and levelled, the next thing is the utility side or the hookups of your trailer. First, we’re going to get started with our electricity.
Our trailer has a 30-amp hookup. We have 30 amp, 50 amp, and 20 amp at this site. It’s a good idea to buy some of these dog bones or adapters because if you have a 30-amp trailer—and we’ve had this issue before—if something is wrong with the 30-amp breaker or the 30-amp plug, you can use your 50-amp to the 30-amp adapter and plug it into the 50-amp. Then plug your trailer into the 30-amp.
It’s a good idea to have as a backup. Also, on some sites, you get to have less than 30 or 50, and they might only have 20. So there’s also a 20-amp to 30-amp adapter, which you can use. If the 30-amp were not working, you would still have this option. With this option here, we can run our air conditioner, but you would only be able to run some things like the water heater and the microwave all at once. But these are good options.
So, the first thing we’re going to do is take our surge protector. It’s very important that you have one of these for your trailer because it protects it from voltage problems and surges from lightning or power interruptions.I’m going to always make sure that the breakers are turned off. We’re going to plug into our 30-amp and turn the 30-amp breaker on. Then we’re going to check the power.
If you look right here, if you have two green lights at the top, that means everything’s good. If you were to have any of these other situations, it could be an open neutral, an open ground, reverse polarity, or no power at all. You would want to know this before you hook your trailer up.
So, on our 30-amp hookup, here’s our connection point right here. The way this works is called a twist-lock plug. As you can see, one of these terminals has a little notch in it, which matches one of these terminals that has a little notch in it right here.
So, basically, you want to line that up, plug it in, and then, if you twist it, it actually locks. There’s also this ring that you can tighten up to ensure that the connection is dry and keep it tight.
So now we’re back at the pedestal. Another essential tip is always to ensure that your air conditioner is turned off when you’re not using your trailer so that it’s not pulling all that power at once when you plug this in.We have our breaker turned off again, and now we’re going to plug in our power right here into this surge protector. Then we’re going to turn the 30-amp breaker back on again. We have our two green lights.
We also get a blue light right here. If you go back to the other end of the trailer, you’ll see a red light on that cord, which means that everything is hooked up.Another thing I like to do is roll up all my cords and hoses underneath the trailer so they’re out of the way. This way, they’re not exposed to the weather and look a little neater.Okay, now that we have our electricity hooked up, we’re going to check our refrigerator to make sure that it’s on. It’s on auto, which is what you want because it switches from propane to electricity.
Now, we’re going to hook up our water. One thing that I highly recommend is a zero-G drinking water hose. It’s straightforward to roll up and stores very nicely in your small storage. It’s not stiff and rigid, and it also doesn’t kink easily.
Here’s your spigot. It’s just a standard spigot. The first thing we use is a water pressure regulator. Like electricity, you don’t know what the voltage will be, so a water pressure regulator allows you to set the maximum PSI of the water pressure going to your trailer. Sometimes, too much pressure can blow out your plumbing or cause leaks. Currently, we have ours set between 40 and 50 PSI, which should be acceptable for our trailer. We’ll go ahead and hook that up to the spigot. I always like to use a pair of pliers because I don’t want drips, and we’ll tighten this connection.
Another good idea is to use a Y-connector like this one. You can hook it up here, and if your trailer is connected, you can also have an alternate hose for other purposes. Next, we’ll connect our hose to the trailer side. On the trailer, you have your city water connection. This is where we’ll attach the water filter, an inline water filter. Ensure to note the flow direction, as indicated by an arrow on the filter. It shows which way the water should flow into your trailer.
We also have a 90-degree brass connector, which is very handy. It lets the water filter or hose hang straight down, preventing the fitting from getting bent or stressed. We’ll connect the filter and tighten everything. Additionally, I’ve added a valve to the hose, which allows you to turn it on or off. This feature helps purge air from the hose. I’ll lift the hose to purge any trapped air, turn it back off, and then connect it to the filter.
Once connected, we’ll turn the valve back on and check for leaks at all the connections. We’ll also check the water pressure regulator, which reads about 60 PSI. Now that the water is hooked up, we’ll purge the air from the water lines and the water heater tank by running water through the system. Finally, we’ll turn on the electric water heater.
This campsite does not have full hookups, but we want to demonstrate the process for sites that do. Full hookups allow you to dump grey and black water directly into the ground. This is convenient because you don’t have to worry about tank capacity or water usage limits. Since this site doesn’t have full hookups, we’ll use our Rhino 28-gallon portable waste holding tank. Instead of connecting the hose directly to the ground, we’ll connect it to this tank.
As always, wear gloves when dealing with the sewer system—it’s not pleasant but necessary. I keep all my sewer connections in a plastic bin dedicated to these items. This prevents them from touching anything else during storage. Our sewer hose is stored in the bumper, so we’ll pull it out and connect it to the trailer’s discharge port. Always ensure the valves are shut before removing the cap to avoid any unpleasant surprises.
After attaching the sewer hose to the discharge port, we’ll connect the other end to the portable tank. In an entire hookup situation, a four-inch PVC pipe would typically come from the ground. You’d use a 90-degree elbow adapter to connect your hose to that pipe. We’ll connect the 90-degree adapter to our portable tank for this demonstration instead. This tank is beneficial when full hookups aren’t available, as it prevents the need to unhook everything to empty your tanks at a dump station.
When using the black tank, always ensure it has water in it. Never use your toilet with a dry black tank—it should contain at least a few gallons of water. To dump the black tank effectively, it must be complete to empty. You can generally open the grey tank, but some people keep it shut to prevent sewer flies from entering the sinks or shower. It’s a good idea to close the grey tank a day before dumping to ensure you have enough water to rinse the hose after emptying the black tank.
Next, we’ll unroll the awning to provide shade. Remember, awnings are not designed for extreme weather but primarily for shade. Avoid unrolling the awning too far; unroll it just a little more when you see the flap. Leaving a portion of the awning rolled around the cylinder helps prevent it from tearing. Now that everything is set up, let’s cook breakfast. We’re big fans of bacon—it’s a staple when we camp!
As the weekend comes to an end, we’ll demonstrate how to pack everything up and get ready to hit the road. The first step is retracting the stabilizers. Then, we’ll hitch the trailer to the truck. Start by inserting the hitch into the receiver and securing it with the hitch pin. After that, back the car up to align it with the trailer. Lower the hitch onto the ball, ensuring the safety pin locks the latch.
Now, we’ll attach the weight distribution bars. Insert each bar into its slot at a 90-degree angle, then swing it around until it locks in place. Use the tongue jack to raise the back of the truck, which will relieve tension from the spring bars and allow you to secure them. Once both bars are attached, lower the tongue jack to preload the springs. This shifts the trailer’s weight evenly across the vehicle and hitch, ensuring a safe and smooth ride.
Back of the truck and push it to the front wheels and the back of the trailer. Now, we will hook up our safety chains, electrical brake, and light cable. For all you smarties out there who believe in crossing your chains on your trailer, in that practice, too. Unfortunately, crossing them makes no difference because our chains come from the same point. It makes a “V” no matter what you do; it will not make an “X.” so I hook them up that way.
Also, remember to connect your emergency breakaway cable. If your trailer comes disconnected and your chains fail, if this cable gets pulled out, it will activate the brakes on the trailer to prevent it from going down the highway. So, we’re also going to connect that.
It plugs in right here on our electrical cable. Ensure that it’s plugged in and that this part of the plug is behind this little notch to prevent it from coming back out. If it’s not pushed in all the way, that will not work. Also, another thing I like to do to keep my cable from getting caught or dragged is to go ahead and pull this pin out and put it right here to keep it out of the way.
Now we’re all hitched up. It’s always a good idea to go back and double-check everything. You also want to check your trailer’s lights and brakes before you take off. We’re also going to go ahead and turn our propane off while we’re travelling on the road.
Next, we will take care of the water and electrical connections. It’s the same thing we did: hooking it up backwards. We’ll go ahead and shut this valve off right here. You can go ahead and open this valve up to bleed off the pressure that’s in the hose. After you get that done, we’ll go ahead and disconnect the hose, disconnect your Y-fitting, disconnect your pressure regulator, and disconnect your hose from your water filter.
Disconnect your water filter, and it’s always a good idea to let any additional water drain out so that it doesn’t stay inside your hoses and your filter. It can leak all over your floor while storing it and get nasty. So, occasionally, I like to give it an extra shake to get any additional water out of there for storage.
On your hose whenever I roll up my hoses, I like to make them as small as possible to take up less room in the storage. Another great thing about these Zero-G drinking water hoses is that they’re easy to roll up and store. Also, using these Velcro wraps does help keep everything nice and tidy, and you can hang it. It has a loop at the top to help with your storage.
Now we’re going to do our electrical. You always want to ensure you turn your AC off before you turn off your electrical because when you come back, you always want to ensure it’s off so you don’t hook it up under a load. Now that Tonya has turned the air conditioner off, we can always turn your breaker off before you unplug anything. Then, you can go ahead and unplug your 30-amp surge protector. Make sure you permanently close this lid.
We’re going to go ahead and disconnect our twist lock. It’s locked right now, so if you twist it, it will be unplugged. Close that. And now we’re also going to roll up our electrical cord. Like I said, I like to make these as small as possible so they only take up a little space. Because our trailer doesn’t have ample outside storage, I will leave my surge guard connected to my cord because it’s tough to unplug this setup. Then we’re going to go ahead and hang that in the storage. We’ll go ahead and close our cap for our city water connection.
So that wraps it up for all the disconnect on the utilities. Next, after we leave, we’re going to go ahead and go to the dump station because our tanks are complete, and we’re going to dump our tanks over there.
Last, you want to come inside and ensure everything is put away. Just the little things could cause a major disaster if you had something like this pour all over your camper, things breaking. So, you want to make sure everything is secure. We put all of our things away, and then we also learned the hard way that if you have bins of any kind, which we have done since we made our bunkhouse modification—you can see that video as well; we’ll put the link in the description—we use bins now, and we want to make sure that all of our bins are secure before we leave. We forgot to do that once, and all of our bins were on the floor, so we learned the hard way.
You also want to make sure that everything is secure in the bathroom. So, we like to take down our showerhead because it could fall and break something.
Station — what we wanted to talk to you about today is one of the essential things about a dump station. Usually, this place can be bustling when everybody’s trying to get out of here on a Sunday afternoon.
The first important thing is moving through here as fast as possible. So, you need to ensure you have all your fittings and pieces required to do the dump in order so that you’re not holding up the line behind you.
Also, you want to ensure you’re as clean as possible so you don’t make a mess for the next person waiting in line. You don’t want them to have to trample through your spill while they’re trying to dump their trailer.
Remember that we do not have a campsite with full hookups, so we usually do this. If you had full hookups, you’d normally do this in the campsite, but we’re doing it on the way out at the dump station.
Our trailer is not equipped with a black tank flush or rinse, so you could hook the hose up to the side of the trailer and rinse or jet out the black tank after you dump it.
We’re using a device called the. It enables you to hook up a water hose to your tank and has a backflow preventer to prevent the water from returning to the hose.
It has a gate valve that you can open and close to dump and backfill your black tank several times until you get it rinsed out or cleaned. Because we’re going to go from here, we’re going to take it back to storage, and we don’t have any leftovers in our black tank that are getting nasty until we get ready to use our trailer again.
Here’s how this apparatus works. Also, it is always essential to ensure these things are shut before you take them off. If somebody has pulled this out just a bit, this pipe will now be full of raw sewage, and as soon as you take that cap off, it will spill all over at the dump station.
So, we will take this cap off and put our on here. Another thing about this is that they make a Rhino Blaster. Make sure you get the one with the gate valve. If you don’t get the one with the gate valve, this doesn’t work nearly as well.
We’ve got that. As you can see, it swivels around. We will get the water hose and hook it up to the spigot. Like most people, we store our sewer hoses inside our bumper, which is a four-inch bumper.
We have this magnetic cap. It holds the hose to keep it from returning to where you can’t reach it and acts as a cap. So, we’re going to take our hose out. Here’s the cap on the other end, and we’ll hook this to the end of the Rhino Blaster.
Make sure these connections are tight, as you do not want that to come off. Then, we’ll get our elbow and hook that to the other end of our hose, and you can see how these connections work. You want that little ball to snap. You want that ball to snap right inside so this will not come loose, and we don’t make a mess.
We’ll lift the hole, put it right there, and make sure it stays in there. So, we will go ahead and pull our black, make sure that this gate valve is open, and here we go.
This is our first pull. You probably don’t want to see it. It’s kind of like a film, so you want to wait for your first dump to go through, and then we’ll start the flushing process.Another thing about this process is that if you’ve got a line of cars behind you at a dump station, you won’t be able to do this. The best thing you’ll be able to do is dump and leave.
Fortunately, we can do this at our house in our driveway. We have a sewer cleanout right where we can return to the trailer and take care of that. But this is very It’s essential to ensure everything is secure before you leave. Double-check that your water heater is turned off since you’ve disconnected. We like to verify this as part of our routine. Ensure your awning is retracted; otherwise, you might hit trees on the way out. Always leave your campsite cleaner than you found it—do a walk-around to ensure no trash is left behind. Ensure all items are put away and the chocks are securely placed before departing.
Sundays can be busy at the dump station, so moving quickly and efficiently is crucial. Have all your fittings and equipment ready to avoid keeping others in line. Be mindful to keep the area clean and avoid creating a mess for the next person. Without an entire hookup campsite, we’re demonstrating the dumping process on our way out. We use a for trailers without a black tank flush or rinse system.
It connects a water hose to your tank and features a backflow preventer and gate valve for controlled flushing. Before starting:
- Ensure all gate valves are closed to avoid raw sewage spilling when removing the cap.
- Attach the water hose to the spigot and securely attach the sewer hose stored in your bumper.
- Use an elbow adapter for a snug fit into the dump station’s inlet.
Pull the black tank valve first to release waste. Once emptied, begin the flushing process by backfilling the tank with water through the Rhino Blaster. Repeat several times until the tank is clean. Do not leave the gate valve closed while water runs too long, as overfilling can cause backflow into your trailer. The goal is to flush out remnants effectively without overfilling the tank.
After cleaning the black tank, close its gate valve and move on to the grey tank. Pull the grey tank valve to release soapy water, which helps clean the hose. We recommend constantly dumping the grey tank to reduce mess. Once emptied, do a final rinse to ensure all soap and debris are cleared out.
Disconnect the sewer hose from the, draining any leftover water. Reattach the cap to the pipe and ensure all valves are shut. Add a couple of gallons of water and a scoop of Happy Camper for black tank maintenance. This helps prevent odours and buildup during storage. Flush the mixture into the tank, ensuring it’s ready for your next trip.
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