Tire Myths You Can't Afford To Believe

"If it has lots of tread left, it's OK!"
Personal experience with an elderly but handsome spare tire has proven to me that those microscopic sidewall cracks actually leak air! Think about that. If they leak air, there may be dozens (hundreds? thousands?) of tiny gaps in the flexible material that holds the air in the tire.

The same material also holds the tire's mechanical components together. Tire safety experts (truck fleet maintenance guys) say that any tire more than 5 years old is "suspect" and should be examined by an expert before making a decision about its safety. The bottom line is, replace tires every 5 or 6 years if you want to be completely safe. Well, shoot, it's only your life we are discussing here, and it might cost you $150 a year average. So ask: "Is my life (and that of everyone else in the RV) worth $150 a year?"

"Wider tires are better than narrower tires."
You are concerned about load rating of your tires, not their width. In fact, wider tires can cause serious problems if they restrict the turning angle in front by striking suspension or frame components, and if they rub together on rear duals, they can cause catastrophic failures at high speeds. The only potential advantage for wider tires is that they may allow lower pressure for a softer ride. But even this is not so simple; sidewall construction and stiffness have a great on tire performance, factors that you and I have no way of assessing until after we make the expensive decision to replace those tires. Also "softer" can be an illusion and might be better treated at the suspension level because it is a complex issue having to do with unsprung weight, suspension damping rates, and more; not just tire pressure.

"Bigger tires can carry more weight"
For the "truck tires" used on all type A and many type B motorhomes, the load rating varies with tire pressure. In order to know what pressure is required, you have to know how much weight is on each "corner" of your RV.

First, locate a commercial truck scale. Recycle facilities, salvage yards, and many commercial firms have scales and most will let you weigh your RV if you ask nicely. Explain that you need to weigh each wheel so it will take a few minutes, and you would like to avoid their busy times - they will appreciate the warning. The scale has to have enough space around it that 3/4 of your RV can be parked off the scale platform. Second, load up as you would for a trip; fuel, water, clothing, supplies, and your copilot! Third, at the scales, weigh the entire vehicle, then park so that only one side is on the scale, then so that [first] the front, then [next] the rear wheels on that side are on the scales. Record (A) the entire unit weight, (B) the left side weight, (C) the left front weight, and (D) the left rear weight. If you pull a towed vehicle or are operating a travel trailer or fifth wheel trailer, this explanation is not for you.

Now you need the pressure/load data for your tires: Sometimes this is available from the place you bought them, but (strangely!) you may have to go to the manufacturer. Even there you might have to beg and wheedle: I have no idea why tire makers should want to hide this information; ask them.

Now you must inflate the tires on each corner to the recommended pressure for the weight they are carrying. How critical is this? Not very, but then it is not trivial either - you must try to keep inflation pressure within a few percent of the recommended level if you want to have safety and the best ride and performance from your tires. E.g.: at a 90 psi level, the cold tire should not read less than 85 psi nor more than 95 psi. Don't forget, the gauge itself is not totally accurate and when you add its error the true pressure could be off by 10% or more.

All of this seems like a lot of fussy messing about with something you have happily ignored on your passenger car for the last 20 years, right? Well, a blowout at highway speed will quickly change your mind! And remember how upset you were when I said to replace tires every 5 years? Well, reduced pressure can shorten that interval to one year! Or ten minutes!

^^ Top of page ^^

Battery Myths You Can't Afford To Believe

"Modern Batteries never need water."
Yes and no. Talk to your local battery professional to find out if it is truly a sealed battery or if it can lose a little water when charging. If it is one of these more common "nearly" maintenance-free batteries, you should check the electrolyte level on a regular schedule until you know how it responds to your RVing style. Lotsa variables here, so just check the durned thing. Ummm - be very careful: (1) splashing a teensy droplet of electrolyte (sulfuric acid) in your eye can blind you. (2) Charging batteries produce hydrogen gas and a spark can blow the battery to pieces (Explosion. Sulfuric Acid. Bad news.) If this scares you, be smart and get someone else to check it for you. It's worth a buck tip at the gas station.

"Deep discharge batteries are nearly indestructible."
This one is easy: NO! There are several breeds of deep-discharge batteries, and you should learn more about them before selecting batteries for "house" service. House batteries are the ones that power your 12 volt appliances when neither the engine nor the motor-generator is running and you are not plugged into a utility power line. You have to understand how your RV's appliances demand 12 volt power, and how a battery responds to the cyclic demands of charge & discharge. I don't plan to try to explain it here (this is, after all, Course 101) so if you do not already know all about batteries this would be a good time to study the topic.

^^ Top of page ^^

Motor-Generator Myths You Can't Afford To Believe

"You will wear out your gen-set!"

You have noticed that when it comes to the motor home, you are your own utility company. This is true for water, gas, sewage, and electricity. These can sometimes be harvested from the big public utility companies, as when you find a RV Park that provides full hookups; but one of the real joys of motor home ownership is the independence that is yours when you choose to "boondock" or "dry-camp."

The water and sewage are pretty clear (no pun intended) but the electrical economy is somewhat more complex. To get off on the right foot, let me quote something told to me by a very competent genererator-set repairman (he had about 40 years of experience):

"I've never seen a gen-set that was worn out,
but I've worked on hundreds that failed from neglect."

In the simplest possible terms, you can't run the generator set too many hours. O yeah; watch the running time meter and change oil and filters when needed, but running under a partial or full load is not going to "wear out" your motor generator set.

Going to cross the blazing desert? Crank up the gen-set and run that roof air conditioner all the day long. Keep in mind that a 5,000 watt generator operating at about 1/2 load (to run a typical roof A/C unit) will consume about 6/10ths to 8/10ths of a gallon per hour, or less than 10 gallons of gasoline in a 12 hour day. Diesel gen-sets use even less, and propane sets may use a little more than this. In any case, the total amount of fuel used is insignificant when compared to the amount used by the propulsion engine in your motor home.

"Running without a full load wastes fuel."

Running a gen-set during the day to keep your refrigerator cold is perhaps a little more costly than operating that appliance from either 12 volts or public utility power, but our little dorm refrigerator saved us more than $1,000 initially, and that will pay for a lot of fuel for the gen-set. To keep the 'fridge cold, we run the gen-set for about an hour every 4 hours we are on the road. Our chief concern here is that the 'fridge uses so little power that the gen-set is running without any load some of the time. True, this is not the best way to assure a long life for its engine. However, the overall effect of this limited operation is unlikely to shorten the life of the engine, if it is otherwise well-maintained.

^^ Top of page ^^

Electrical myths you can't afford to believe.

"You can trust the public utility power to be 'OK'."

If you hook up to the "utility" power at an RV park, you may be tempted to believe that all is well in the world of electrical gadgets. After all, you are getting110 volt, 60 Hz power, right? Well, maybe -- and then again, maybe not.

Even taking for granted that the RV park started out with the right stuff at the "feed" end of their power system, what comes out of the socket on the pedestal at your parking space may be less desirable. Older, or poorly wired parks may only provide a fraction of the promised power, especially if a lot of spaces are occupied and most everyone is operating appliances like air conditioners, electrical heaters, or microwave ovens. By the time the power reaches your "gadgets" there may be as little as 80 volts left. This poor voltage is caused by resistance in the wiring and associated connections between you and the power lines out on the highway.

"GFCIs will protect you from incorrect wiring."

Ground Fault Circuit Interrupters will interrupt (well, duh!) a 110 v.a.c. (volts, alternating current) circuit if there is a small difference in the current flowing into an appliance and back to the power source. The current going in and the current returning should always be equal -- if they are unequal, the "lost current" has to be going somewhere, and the somewhere just might be through your lovely precious body! So, just to be in the safe side, these clever little gadgets "interrupt" -- that is, "disconnect" the appliance from the power line. However, they DO NOT protect you from electrocution if you touch the "hot" side of a power line and a ground (or "return") conductor at the same time.

GFCIs are good --- maybe even great --- but do not rely on the GFCI to save you from stupid mistakes like getting tangled up with bare conductors carrying regular utility alternating current electricity! Never work on an energized (hot) circuit or appliance. Any regular household appliance circuit can and will kill you if you become careless.

^^ Top of page ^^

Refrigeration myths you can't afford to believe.

"You have to buy a 3-way refrigerator if you want to boondock."

There are several alternatives to the expensive 12 volt / 110 volt / propane refrigerator (costing upwards of $1,000) used commonly in RVs. What really determines your choice of refrigeration is a combination of cost and convenience. Cost has to take into account the initial investment in the food storage device, the cost of operation, and the ongoing costs of maintenance and savings for replacement.

Convenience must take into account your personal tastes in food and the concommittant demand for preservation at low temperatures. I haste to point out that our ancestors, as recently as the early 1900s, lived without mechanical refrigeration in their homes; we might be able to do the same today in our RVs if forced to do so by cost or circumstances. You might think about what modifications to your diet would allow you to do so.

Consider reducing your dependence on low-temperature preservation of foods to the optimum low level, and you may discover that you can live comfortably without the need to store hundreds of pounds of perishable (or perhaps even frozen!) comestibles. If you reach this point, a small, high efficency food-cooling device will allow you to (so to speak) "have your milk, and drink it too." Although 110 v.a.c. compressor refrigeration is the least costly system presently offered (Left: a "dorm" or "bar" refrigerator can be had for less than $100 as of 2005.) Development of so-called "solid state" refrigeration systems is starting to make these low voltage devices widely available and prices are tumbling. We bought a large thermoelectric "cold box" in the fall of 2003 for less than $70. It keeps delicate perishibles safe on 12 volts while we are on the road.

^^ Top of page ^^

Water Myths you can't afford to believe.

"City water is safe."

Depends. How are your intestines? Not to get too personal, but your gut and my gut may agree to disagree about some of the microbes found in drinking water. What makes me deathly ill may not bother you a-tall! So; rather than take the chance, most of us like to avoid the risk of picking up bacteria-laden drinking water. Cryptosporidium parvum killed about 100 in Milwaukee in 1993. These are cysts about 4 microns in diam. that cannot be killed by chlorine. Giardia lamblia, another parasite, has cysts that are less than 5 microns in diameter. A micron is one-millionth of a meter or about 0.0004 inch. To put that into terms a bit easier to imagine: Those little rascals could march in a column 10 wide through the pores in the finest coffee filters. In November 2002 we saw this ". . . positive result for naegleria fowleri, a parasite that causes primary amoebic meningitis . . " reported in the municipal water system of Peoria, Arizona. Two small children are reported to have died as a result. Convinced?

And there are other bad bacteria: although a little chlorine will either sterilize or at least sharply reduce the bacterial count in the small quantity of water usually stored in our RVs (typically less than 50 gallons. Some larger units might store 100 gallons, you have to ask why that much is being routinely carried -- unless you are planning to boondock in the Sonoran Desert for a month), mechanical filration is needed to stop those cysts. For effective chlorination use household chlorine bleach that does not have scents or other additives. The percent chlorine in the bleach should be in a range between four and six percent. Add eight drops of bleach to each gallon of water; mix thoroughly and let it stand for 30 minutes. The water should have a light chlorine odor. If it doesn't, repeat the dose and let the water stand for an additional 15 minutes.

"But," you say, "Chlorine ruins the taste of my espresso!" O, I agree, mon cher'! So having killed the bugs, now kill the chlorine too. For this you don't need to filter the entire water system, only water used for drinking.

About 3 years ago the water treatment industry got the message that folks would PAY for nice tasteless pure water! Boy, it sure took them long enough to figure that one out. I am guessing that some executive from one of the water tretament outfits fell over a case of bottled water at the supermarket and was struck by inspiration. Several firms now make highly effective and inexpensive faucet-mounted filtration devices. These usually have a removable cartridge that takes out bad smelling stuff, chlorine and other evil tasting chemicals. The filter element also removes all "particulates" (including those cysts) down to about1 micron. We installed a "Culligan" model FM-5 monitored faucet-mounted filter (right) in Bye Way, used only for drinking and cooking water. After more than 2 years of use, we recently replaced the Culligan with a "Pür" unit.

"Clean, clear water is safe."

Oh come on! If city uilities can't keep their treated water safe, what makes you think that the average stream or lake is OK?

^^ Top of page ^^

Firearm Myths you can't afford to believe.

"Tear gas (Pepper spray, Stun guns) are not firearms."

Local and Federal authorities will have to be forced to reconsider by your lawyer, after they clap you in jail for carrying a "weapon." It ain't worth the cost, unless you are positively convinced that bad guys are waiting for you to show up. Besides that, the easiest place to rob you is when you step out of the RV to fuel up. Suggestion: If someone sticks a gun in your ribs while you are pumping gas, just turn the nozzle on him full blast, and tell him that if he pulls the trigger he is going to burn! My ol' pappy did that once about 1949. The last he saw of the gas-soaked hood was his backside; as he ran away - without his pistol.

"If you have a carry permit at home, you can carry anywhere."

Unless and until all of the myriad law enforcement agencies decide to cooperate and recognize each other's permits, your home area carry permit is, at best, likely to keep you from being held as a potential terrorist. You will likely be fined and lose the weapon, under the best of circumstances.

"You're better off not resisting."

Just in case you are thinking that my previous statements means that I do not believe in armed self defense, you are wrong. Long ago and far away, I was once an (volunteer) armed deputy cop. I value my life, and I would not hesitate to use deadly force to defend me or mine (lives, not property!)

I just want to warn you that an RV is not treated the same as a sticks-&-bricks home. An RV can be searched without warrant by any law officer, any time. Nevertheless I carry a single-barrel 12 gauge shotgun aboard: (A) I better not need more than one round, (B) #9 birdshot is unlikely to do much damage to the RV in the next camping space, (C) the guy trying to get into ByeWay's door probably will not stop to measure the size of the bird shot or debate the chances that it is a double-barrel or pump gun with more rounds ready. The single is sawed off (yes, officer, it is more than 18" bbl. length, and legal) and easy to stow inconspicuously.

If challenged by authorities, I will immediately admit to having it and offer it unloaded and broken open. If lost, it is worth less than $150.

^^ Top of page ^^