Homer – Maintenance while fulltime living

Maintaining your home on wheels while living in it fulltime, has its share of challenges. Mobile techs are amazing and wonderful people and when they can come to you, if you need them, feel very fortunate. Given the newfound popularity of RVs across the USA, it can take longer and longer to find reputable service providers, whether mobile or stationary, and to get an appointment for some items you might not be comfortable doing yourself, can take weeks of advance planning.

If it’s broken, you must fix it:

Owning a RV and traveling around in it, we just assume something is going to break. Whether it’s a flat tire or something more substantial, when you move this much weight across the USA and on some very “icky” roads, we find it best to just plan for emergencies. Now, Dave and I are fairly good with the DIY stuff, although, we would not be nearly as comfortable attempting some items without the help of all the U-Tube videos that have been posted by the most amazing people. We absolutely love the wealth of information that is shared so freely via the internet and after watching hours of people so hard at work performing some of the most basic items, we are more than comfortable doing some of them ourselves. Just over the past year of full timing we experienced:

• a flat tire,
• a slide ceiling leak,
• multiple out of stroke errors on our leveling system,
• a furnace that wouldn’t run,
• a recalled propane valve,
• a tv that wouldn’t connect to our antenna system,
• front cap trim sagging,
• a broken taillight
• multiple missing screws holding our RV together
• a broken latch on one of our outside storage doors…..

You get the idea. From the smallest items to larger items, just plan for some breakage of “stuff”.

A big gotcha for us last year was the dreaded propane regulator. Wanting to make sure we could “safely” use our propane, we knew it had to be replaced. After finding the replacements backordered and no local dealership able to install them even when they did come back in stock, we did this one ourselves. Multiple UTube videos, some sealing tape and a different model of regulator and we are back in business.

We also experienced a bad sail switch on our furnace last winter. Evidently, the previous versions fill with dust and are unable to move and allow the propane and air to mix correctly and light the furnace. We U-tubed and googled and decided that was not something we were going to mess with and try to fix ourselves. We were able to find a mobile tech in the Mississippi area and he got us up and running again. Thank goodness we had the heat pump on our A/C unit and the electric fireplace to use, because that repair took over a month to get completed. We were also very thankful we were staying south and in one location for a significant period of time, otherwise, we would have showed up in Minnesota this spring with no furnace – and yes, we did need to use it quite frequently even in May.

Some items that break may need correction right away, while others can wait a bit. When we got the leak in our slide last year, we knew that needed an immediate fix and we were able to complete it ourselves in less than a day. Our example of the furnace not working, could wait for a bit as it wasn’t something we needed immediately. What this really means to us, is that having the right tools with us, makes it so much easier to handle some of these items ourselves rather than relying on outside help. I cannot even begin to state how useful all of these have been while living fulltime in Homer.

Maintaining Homer

I am a planner. Spent the majority of my career planning everything. I like to get my list of items identified that I need to take care of and then work my way through finishing them. (I like timelines as well, although to be honest, Dave is not a fan of all my planning skills, lists and timelines). Once we started this new journey, we realized that basic upkeep of a RV is no different than basic upkeep of our previous sticks and bricks home. There are just some tasks you need to do every year, or at least every couple of years.

Have you actually read your own manual? I am a manual reader but even I would have missed this page, so am thankful we had a great salesperson to point it out. According to our manufacturer, we are supposed to re-seal / re-caulk all these areas yearly and check them multiple times per year as well to stop leaks. We knew about the roof diagram, but not the entire outside of Homer. By the way, this took 5 tubes of caulk and 3 days to complete. I’m really glad we were sitting in a single location for a couple of months to make sure we got this done, because baby, it needed it!

So, here come my planning skills. I have created our list of items and the timelines we use to maintain Homer. After spending “lots of money” on this new home, I want to make sure we can keep it as long as possible and in its best working shape. I know this is not all encompassing, but after a full year on the road, it’s what we’ve come up with to share:

This list is probably missing some items we’ll probably have to add to it as we find more, but it’s our start. I think the biggest thing to understand in all this, is that some of these items are quick and can be done in a matter of an hour and while you are stationary for a short period of time. Others require planning and a commitment to be in one place for an extended period of time. Example 1: It took us 6 weeks to get an appointment for our bearings to be re-packed and included having to find overnight accommodations outside of Homer and a complete emptying of our fridge and freezer. We had this item taken care of by the professionals. Example 2: It also took us 3 days over the course of 2 weeks to re-caulk the outside of the RV due to weather in our area. We did this one ourselves. It wasn’t hard to complete, just time consuming. We also realized that having the right products and tools with us, make these jobs much easier and quicker, so we just carry them with us for whenever we need them and re-stock as we need to.

Maintaining a RV is very similar to maintaining your sticks and bricks home. None of it is unmanageable and the key to keeping it in tip top shape is just to make sure you plan for and complete the tasks. Whether you do the work yourself, or have it done for you, getting it done is the key.

Feel free to build on the list we created and remember to keep your “Homer” on the road and running to your next adventure by doing some regular maintenance. It’s definitely worth the effort.

** We are not provided samples by any company for testing and/or paid reviews and instead do our own research and use the products we recommend on a daily/weekly/monthly basis. ** Travelingsarffs.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. We may receive commissions for purchases made through links in this site.