As your friendly neighborhood certified RV tech - Here are 5 things that I would NEVER do in my RV.

Run Water Pump With City Water On

Have you wanted your RV to have a waterfall feature on the outside of it? I’m talking about waking up in the morning to water gushing out the side of your RV?

No?

Well then I would avoid running your water pump while you are connected to city water.

I’ve seen a couple of customers doing this now and its lead to sadness every time.

If you’ve been through my RV Basics to Badass course (its my FREE RV Beginners course. Go check it out if you need that in your life.) then you will know that there are two ways to have water in your RV.

You can EITHER be hooked up to city water OR use your fresh water tanks and your water pump.

If you are hooking up to city water then your water pressure is entirely dependent on the pressure that was coming out of the hose before you hooked up.

I’ve seen people try to use their water pump while hooked up to city water to try to boost the water pressure.

While I love the ingenuity here unfortunately this has some pretty major downsides.

You see the water pump has a check valve on it.

What’s a check valve you ask?

Its just a one way valve that only lets the water go one way though it and not the other.

So the check valve on the water pump is there to make sure that we only pull water OUT of the fresh water tanks and nothing gets pushed INTO the tanks.

Using your water pump while hooked up to city water can put undo stress on this check valve and cause it to fail.

When that valve goes all of a sudden the water pump can be pushing water INTO your fresh water tanks.

There’s no warning light or siren that goes off when this happens. So you may be inside your RV living your best life watching the newest season of Love is Blind, blissfully unaware that you are adding 600 lbs of weight to your RV.

And if the tanks completely fill (like what happened to my last customer who was doing this) then you’re eventually going to have water pouring out of your fresh water tank overfill lines.

Not an ideal senario.

Plug in without an EMS

Would you rather spend $200 or $2,000 in your RV? That is the question. (said in my best Halmet voice.)

The answer?

As a tech I would never plug my RV into a park’s pedestal without using an EMS.

What’s an EMS you ask?

It stands for Electricity Management System and it will look something like this.

It’s basically a very fancy surge protector that you plug in in-between your RV and the pedestal.

It’s going to protect you from massive power surges that could literally melt all the wires in your RV and damage your expensive appliances.

But what makes an EMS different than just a surge protector is that it’s also going to check for bad power coming and bad wiring coming from the pedestal.

I don’t want to get too in the weeds here but if even just two wires are reversed on the pedestal are reversed you can get a situation called “Hot Skin” on your RV.

This means the entire outer skin and everything metal in your RV now has Hot AC power running through it. And if you walk around barefoot outside and touch the RV, you can get a pretty good shock. Not fun.

Waaaay too many RVers are out there plugging into bad pedestals without knowing it because they aren’t using an EMS. And they are at risk for having a major repair bill come up if there is ever a power surge in the park.

I know EMS’s aren’t a sexy purchase. But think of it as insurance. You’re spending $200 - $300 now to not have to spend thousands of dollars later replacing all your appliances.

Drive With My Fridge On Propane

This next one is controversial my friends. I as a tech would never drive with my propane on.

I know. I know. There are people out there who will tell you that they have always driven with their propane on and they have never had a problem.

I’m happy for these people. Go live your best life.

Driving with your propane on is just a risk that I, as a tech, knowing the risks, am not willing to take.

This is for 2 main reasons.

The first is actually for my wallet because I don’t want to have to replace my fridge prematurely.

I know the main reason people want to run their propane while driving is for the fridge. You want to be able to keep your food cold while getting to your campsite.

Unfortunately though that fridge wants to be REALLY level.

Follow me on this one. Behind your fridge when you’re running it on propane is a small flame. When you’re at your campsite and perfectly level that flame gets to stand straight upright - the way it was designed to be.

When we run the fridge on propane while driving down the road that flame starts dancing around from side to side a lot. This exposes parts of the pipes in your fridge with some pretty delicate welds to direct heat that weren’t designed to take it.

This drastically increases the chance that you get a leak in your fridges cooling unit.

These cooling units aren’t serviceable - meaning we can’t fix that leak. Once they start leaking, the fridge stops cooling, and you are looking at a pretty hefty repair bill to either replace the cooling unit or the entire fridge.

Also Inside that cooling unit is the fridges refrigerant. That refrigerant has four ingredients

1. water

2. ammonia

3. sodium chromate

4. a fourth ingredient that we will talk about in just a second

The sodium chromate in the refrigerant is there as a rust inhibitor to keep the water from deteriorating the pipes.

When the fridge is level the sodium chromate normally works its way gently through the pipes in your fridge via gravity.

But when you’re driving (especially uphill) the sodium chromate can’t make its way through the pipes the way its supposed to.

So this leads to water getting to parts of your unprotected pipes and can rusting them away. This can also lead to cooling unit leaks.

AND when that sodium chromate isn’t constantly moving it can crystalize in place, creating a blockage so refrigerant can’t get by. These blockages also aren’t fixable so you’re looking at, you guessed it, replacing your who cooling unit and a hefty repair bill.

Okay so we’ve gone over all the reasons why driving with your fridge on propane is going to wreck your wallet. Maybe you’re like “Emily I hate this damn fridge anyway. I’m just going to change it out when it dies.”

Well… Let’s talk about that mystery fourth ingredient in your fridges refrigerant.

It's hydrogen.

Like what we put in the Hindenburg balloon.

So if you do get a leak and that hydrogen gets out it can work its way to that flame that’s dancing around in the back of your fridge. And this can turn your fridge into… the Hindenburg balloon.

So yes live your best life. Drive with your propane on if you’d like. I’m just not doing it.

P.S. Please keep in mind that no matter what it is illegal to drive with your propane on when going into gas stations or through tunnels.

You got this.

Get My AC Recharged

Tell me what you would do:

You’re sitting in your RV enjoying your mimosa when all of a sudden you notice that your AC isn’t pumping out the same sweet sweet cold air that is used to. You call a tech and they say you have a refrigerant leak and they are just going to recharge the system.

Do you let them?

I wouldn’t.

Unlike residential AC units RV AC systems are hermetically sealed, meaning there are no ports to pour more refrigerant in.

If a tech is telling you that they are going to “tap into your lines to pour more refrigerant” (in bunny rabbit quotations) then in my opinion, they're trying to scam you.

In order to tap the lines, they have to drill a hole into one of your refrigerant pipes, and it is very difficult to drill that hole without introducing metal shavings into your RV AC.

Those metal shavings are going to wander their way through the pipes and eventually get into your compressor and muck it up.

The compressor is one of the few parts of an RV AC that is not replaceable. When that thing goes, you have to replace the entire unit.

So you’re just introducing more problems and as we’ll talk about in just a second, you aren’t really solving anything.

Reason number two, it's a bad idea, is that you haven't actually solved the underlying problem. You see 80% of the pipes in a RV AC are inside of the fins, meaning that there's a good chance that your leak is in a place you can’t get to.

We can't patch the leak, so just putting more refrigerant in is just putting a bandaid on the problem.

Like a bucket with a hole in it - you're still gonna be leaking refrigerant everywhere, which not only is an environmental hazard, but also hasn't fixed your AC.

A tech that is telling you that they are going to tap your lines to recharge your system, in my opinion, is trying to scam you. They are going to put a Band-Aid on the problem just long enough, for them to get their money and drive away.

Don't fall for the scam.

Don't recharge your AC. I'm sorry. If you have a refrigerant leak, it's time to get a new AC. It's hard. It costs a lot of money, but let's not waste more money trying to fix an AC that isn't fixable.

Don't fall for the scam. Don't waste your money. Get a new AC.

If you’re not sure if your RV’s AC problem is do to a leak or an electrical issue head on over to RVRepairWoman.com/acguides.

I have step by step pdf guides that will walk you through how to diagnose your AC for like 1/10th of the cost of RV tech. You got this.

Keep Sewer Valves Open

RV black tanks are one of the parts of an RV that intimidate new RVer’s the most.

And opinions about what to do with your sewer tanks are like the buttholes that fill them - everyones got one.

I do NOT claim to be an RV black tank expert and as of 2024 I no longer do black tank work. I’m very happy about it.

But Sue over at Royal Flush RV is a black tank expert. And here is one of her biggest black tank no no’s.

Do not leave your sewer tank valve open while you are hooked up at a park spot.

I know, it would be suuuper convent if once you were hooked up to your spot you could just leave that valve open and never have to think about your poo again once its exits your body.

It just doesn’t work like that in reality.

If you leave that valve open all of the time it's going to allow the liquids in the tank to slowly drain out while leaving behind the solids.

This is going to leave you over time with the dreaded “poo pyramid” - a giant pile of solid poo in your tanks that can be very difficult to get out.

And lets not get started about the smell…

Sue recommends leaving your black tank valve closed until its time to empty the tanks. This way the weight of the liquid in your tank can help push the solids out.

Bonus Tip: When you’re doing your first tank dump at a new spot I recommend you dump your tanks in this order.

1. After you’re hooked up, Open up your gray tank first to let a little out. Keep the gray tank open until water makes it all the way from the RV to dump station. This way we can confirm that we have no leaks with poo water being involved.

2. Then close the gray tank and open the black tank. Keep the black tank open until its completely empty.

3. Then close the black tank and open the gray tank. The water from the gray tank will help push through anything left behind in your hose from the black tank. Less mess this way.

If you would like more RV tank tips check out my free ultimate guide to RV maintenance. It’s got a 3-4 page spread talking specifically about black and gray tanks.