Mini Mods for Fulltime Living

We have done several “larger” scale improvements to Homer over the course of our ownership. They have been primarily focused on making our RV into an actual Home vs. just another fifth wheel trailer. What we haven’t talked about are the small, or mini improvements we have made that make it more livable and comfortable. None of these changes cost very much and yet have had a huge impact on the overall comfort to our home on wheels.

Improving Air Quality and Flow

There were a few items we switched up inside Homer to improve our overall air flow and quality. I have switched out the existing air conditioning filters for re-usable and washable filters that are a little thicker, which at least limits the dust that seems to fly around, especially after moving. In addition to keeping them clean, I noticed that whenever the furnace runs, it is hotter than ever in our bedroom and when the A/C runs, it seems to blow right on our heads no matter which way we point the ceiling vents.

A/C Air Flow

By adding a floor vent diverter over part of our ceiling cold air return, we are now able to funnel the air straight into the return vs. having it blow all over our heads. Besides moving that air off of our heads, we have also noticed that our bedroom A/C cools down the room much faster. We believe the benefit is that as the air is cooled from the A/C unit, some of it shoots directly into the return and since it was cooler than the air temp of the room when it entered, it helps the temp of the air coming out of A/C cool down much faster.

Furnace Air Flow

Another change over we made, was to remove the plastic vents from the furnace floor registers and replace them with metal, adjustable vents. If you are like me, having that furnace blow all that hot air on your side of the bed, right on your leg each night, can make sleeping uncomfortable. Covers on, covers off. Sound familiar? Swapping the plastic vents, which by the way are a pain to remove when wanting to clean them, allows me to partially direct the flow of that hot air so it keeps the room warm and isn’t cooking me.

The final air quality change we made, is for our furnace itself. We were one of the very lucky rigs to have our furnace sail switch fill up with crud and stop our furnace from working, just last winter. That’s fine if you don’t need it, but when you do, you want it to run. Our cold air return is located under the bottom of our first step. First off, what the hell were they thinking by putting it there? That is probably the dirtiest space in our rig on a daily basis. Anyways, I digress. To try and fix the situation, I found an adjustable, re-usable furnace filter that I could cut down to size and put under that stair. It at least blocks the “big” chunks of grass and debris that seem to gather in that space and it’s no longer sucking it into my RV basement and my furnace. As a side note, in the summer, I put a piece of cardboard against that step vent to stop all the heat and humidity from our basement from moving into the main living area.

Think Outside the box about inside the box?

Speaking of furnaces, have you found the access to yours? We do not, I repeat, do not have access to our furnace from the outside of Homer. To fix our furnace issue last winter, we had to remove a stud from our support wall in the storage area of the basement and the tech had to try and squeeze through a nasty mess of plumbing and electrical wires, on his belly while trying to reach around the side of the furnace to make a 5 minute replacement of our sail switch. REALLY? Earlier this past fall, we experienced issues with our black tank and guess what? That’s right, we had to try and access it through this same nasty mess of stuff, just to see where it was located in our underbelly.

Think outside the box!

While I was in there this past fall, waist deep on my belly, I happen to look to the left and discovered that our outdoor fridge compartment had a “wall” that was really just a piece of particle board screwed in place to make it look like a wall from the inside of the compartment. (We had removed the fridge as we didn’t need it a long time ago and use it for tool storage.) Since I was already 1/2 way in the basement, I committed myself and went in the full way. (Make sure you have a partner helping so you don’t get stuck!) I simply unscrewed that back wall on the fridge compartment and was rewarded with a new access point that I can easily fit through and now can access my hot water heater, all my tanks, my furnace and any other items that have yet to break. Thinking about your outside compartments and what’s behind them, has now provided us with an easy and free way to get to our mechanicals.

Think inside the box!

We seem to have plenty of storage in Homer for all our day-to-day items. We also practice the rule of if something new comes in, something old goes out. The one gotcha on this, is when I need to stock up on supplies. I will order items by the case and then try to squirrel them in every nook and cranny while we use them up. Think dog pooty bags. Much less expensive by the case vs. the small packs in the stores. We also need storage for a few items we rarely use. Our family is still in Minnesota, and it appears to be cold whenever we visit there. This requires us to keep our winter coats, hats and gloves. Think inside the box!

In our bedroom, we have this bench, which I absolutely love. It had three drawers across the bottom, that were the smallest area possible and a struggle to use. One day, I pulled one all the way out and discovered there was a lot of space between those drawers and the bottom of the bench. A couple of cuts and hinges and we now have storage for all those winter clothes and pooty bags! Think differently about your storage. Sometimes it only takes looking at it in a different way, to discover a whole new dynamic on how to access and use it.

When it’s all about the light

My final “mini” mod is all about light control into Homer. One of the main reasons we now live in the south in the winter, is so I can have sunshine all year round. I used to really struggle with the long, gray winters of Minnesota. The cold didn’t bother me, because on the coldest days of winter, usually the sun is shining, but all those other gray days, kept me inside and parked on my couch. Homer came with daylight and black out blinds. I really like that versatility, although the day light blinds still blocked almost all the sunshine that would stream inside and keep that light, airy feeling I’ve come to appreciate, out. Enter curtains. Cheap, inexpensive panels, cut down to cover my windows and installed right over the blinds. Now, when the sun is the strongest, I can keep the light, without burning my eyes and allowing all that heat inside Homer.

To wrap up, making mods to your RV or Homer, doesn’t have to cost much money. There are small, simple things you can do to make it more efficient and comfortable whether you are full timers like us, or just weekenders. Take a look at your rig with a new set of eyes and see what you can find and adapt to suit your needs.

See ya on the road,

Dave and Theresa