10 Easy RV Mods and Upgrades Less Than $50 each!

hey everyone I'm Jim Thomas Thanks for clicking into today's video you know my wife Lynn and I have been camping for 41 years ever since for a honeymoon we took a pop-up pulled by a old Cutlass and drove it from Massachusetts to California in 30 days and had the trip of a lifetime and we've been campers ever since we've learned a couple of things over the years and we're happy to share those with others so today special video I've got for you 10 ways you can make your RV better and more useful and each of them cost less than fifty dollars you're gonna like this five outside five inside let's get started well we're going to start right here actually because right here is our water heater on the left furnace on the right and if you notice they have insect guards on them these insect guards are super useful you can get them from Camco they're not very expensive and they keep things like mud daubers out of your important stuff let me tell you if you've ever had a mud dauber get inside of here and build a nest and then you had to go to an RV dealer and ask them to fix that foyer you're looking at hundreds of dollars worth of bills these are super simple to put on they're just held on by Springs insulation takes less than a minute and man let me tell you if they do what they're supposed to do for you just once you're going to be glad that you had them all right that's number one let's move to number two well number two if you're like us and you take some Furry Friends With You camping this is Faraday Faraday's 14. he loves to Camp doesn't like to ride much but he loves to be at camp well when cats want to go out they can be pretty hard on screens I don't know if that's ever happened to you at home or happened to you camping so we've got this this is called a screen Defender this is metal mesh it goes over your screen on your screen door and it makes it pretty impervious to pets they can bang on it they can scratch at it but they won't put a hole in it if you don't have one of those you've just got this screen well it doesn't take our guys very long to make those into shreds because they're pretty insistent when they want to go out these are from Lippert not very expensive under a 50 limit and they will save the screen in your screen door installation super simple they just pop in takes you just a minute or two to put them in and it's done you may notice ours is in well upside down if you believe the little sticker but they actually fit better that way and they stay in the door better that way at least that's what we found so there you go screen guard number two let's move to number three oh we don't have to go far we're just gonna go right here well if your campers like ours it came with a handle here that starts at this bottom just kind of Loops up and goes right over to the top there and the problem with that when you get a fifth wheel that's up like this one is and you've got four steps oh there's our other cat that's Ellie you get four steps just to get in when you're at the bottom you can't reach that handle it's out there somewhere past where my arm goes so this one is an extended one and it reaches out a little further and they can reach that from the ground so before you get to the first step you've got a good hand hold and just like the standard stock ones it folds up and over like that in front of the door when you're going down the road and but when you need it it boom there she is uh this made a big difference for my wife especially getting in and out of the camper making it easy easier and having a good hand hold to get in and out again less than fifty dollars got it from I think from Lippard and there it is hey and just as a reminder we don't have any affiliate links we are not sponsored by anybody we don't get discounts or anything for showing you things and videos this is purely to help you find stuff that might work for you that also work for us so just we're clear about that part all right let's move on to number four Quick Connect for your propane grill now if your campers like ours it probably came with something like this down here is this little nice quick connect to connect your propane grill there's only one problem with those they're a low pressure LP connection and if your grill is like most people's your grill requires high pressure LP connection you know like you screw a bottle right onto the grill in order to use it so hooking it up to that connection on the side of the camper doesn't do you any good because it can't flow enough gas for your grill to work properly so you've either got to buy some finagley little regulator which makes the people who make the grills very upset that you do that or you can connect directly into your existing propane tanks so number four on our list is an LP quick disconnect and it's actually just a t on the outlet of one of our tanks and that mimics the connector that's on The Grille and then you buy a hose that goes from here and connects directly to your Grille and then you can get high pressure propane directly to your grill and it works great now propane compartments are generally very well ventilated because they don't want propane to accumulate so there's plenty of room here to connect the hose here run it down through the hole underneath and come out and you can put your grill out here beside it and keep that door closed while you're using it and it all works fine so we just have one of those on this tank and it also came with a gauge which is sort of accurate but you know I wouldn't trust my life with it or anything so he but there's two tanks so normally we run on this tank and then we use this tank for the grill and uh you know when we're parked somewhere and we've got hookups we're on an electric water heater and so the only in if it's summertime there's no heat going on so really the only thing you use propane is cooking and if I'm just cooking inside one of these tanks lasts us a whole summer and we're in Northern New England by the way and so we don't Camp all winter in fact our Voyage fifth wheel is here in the driveway it's about to get put to sleep for the winter uh and winterize so that's next on my list for today but I want to get this video done first so we run on the left tank we don't do the put the lever in the middle thing some people do that and that's the auto change over so if this tank goes empty then you go over and you run on this tank uh we have no I've never liked that system just because I'd rather get this is going to sound silly but I'd rather get woken up at two o'clock in the morning because I ran out of propane for the furnace than to not know which tank I'm running on how much is in them because I know if I put it in the middle this one would run out and I'd forget or never know and then this would have run out then we had none and then well I'd hear about that from somebody so we run on this tank for the camper we use this tank for the grill and if this tank runs out we switch over to this tank and run everything off of this tank we'll go get this one refilled not a big deal all right so there you go quick disconnect number four quick disconnect T fitting on a propane tank so you can run your propane grill directly off your tank let's go to number five now I don't know what your password storage looks like but mine kind of looks like this we're not full-timers we're going to be in the not too distant future we're hoping to retire and go do that and so we sort of planned out the space but you'll also see that some of those bins are empty just sort of placeholders so that we can get an idea of all the things that we're going to take with us and how much space are going to take and how much weight they're going to be but this when you're planting these chairs I'm not going to make the cut for full time and they just take up way too much space we have the fold them up and put them in the bag chairs as well and they'll go but these are great for summer camping but sometimes you want to stand stuff up and so we have against this wall of the pass-through storage uh tables and other things that are more easily stood up and so what we did is we took some of these uh straps hold down straps and then I mounted eyelets into places where there was real wood behind this thin stuff and then we just one at the top one at the bottom and then we just strap stuff in standing up which then leaves this area much more wide open for other stuff that we use more commonly when we're camping so again quick and easy not very much money and it provides you and just a better way to do storage so that's number five but while I'm in here a quick bonus tip 5A how about that I added a 12 volt what you used to call cigarette lighter receptacle here in the corner of this pass-through there wasn't one there before and that's because we also take with us when we're camping a Green Mountain grilled pellet stove smoker and we bought the Davy Crockett model which is the one that will run on either 110 volts with a brick or it actually has a cigarette lighter plug on it and so you can plug it directly in so when we're dry camping and we're off-grid it doesn't make any sense to have batteries and inverters and make 120 volts and then use a power brick on your grill and turn the 120 volts back into 12 volts so that you can run your grill there's losses every time you convert electricity and when you're off grid dry camping you need to save every little bit you can so this allows us to run the Grille directly off at 12 volts with an outlet that I added right in here and then again there's a spot for it to get out to get outside so that we can keep the doors closed when all that stuff is on that's five and five eight we got five more on the inside let's go check them out our fifth wheel is a Winnebago Voyage 3134 RL which means you know that's sort of the standard layout that every RV manufacturer has for fifth wheels it's a rear living room kitchen in the middle and then as you go towards the front you get a bathroom on the left and then bedroom on the front uh and it's a great layout we love it but when you get to be our age there's occasionally times and by occasional I mean every night that you might want a bathroom break in the middle of the night and you can either turn on if you're in a dark place you can either turn on lights and wake up your partner which has never been a good idea for me or you can find a way to get to the bathroom and be able to see without waking up your partner and so here's the answer of that friends these are little battery operated motion sensor lights we have one down at the floor level here at the top of the hallway next to the bathroom and then if I'm not making you too dizzy there's another one down here on the floor near the entrance door so we can move through the camper at night and where they're down so low they light up the floor so you can see where you're walking but not so bright that they're in people's eyes especially if they're in bed and unfortunately it's too bright out now for me to make those come on so they won't but they come on and they you know the LEDs are right in the bottom of it and they put out light at floor level for about 30 seconds after you go by it and then they turn off and takes three AAA batteries and they last for months and months and again I think we bought a two pack of these at Ocean State Job Lot or Big Lots or something like that for 10 or 12 dollars and they work great in fact they work so good that we use them in other places as well trying not to make you dizzy here not go oh I'm going too fast there we go so if we come down here one of the other nice features that we love about this camper is that on this back wall next to the couch we've got these end table side tables power and USB and then they've got this great storage bin underneath there but let me tell you something you're not seeing anything that's back in there so each of those also has one of these lights on it the motion sensor there and you can see the LEDs in the bottom and as you just start to reach your hand into that cabinet this mounts up on the top here it lights that whole thing up and you can see everything that's in there and we got one of those on each side there and also in these cabinets on either side of the fireplace very inexpensive but man bang for your buck these things are great all right that's number six let's go find number seven one of the ways that you can make camping better for you is to do things to make the camper your own you know you gotta decorate and things like that Lynn found this little camper clock that she likes that's up there on the wall above the pantry and there's lots of other things here and there there's some artwork and things like that and then you can do this this wall was all just the color of this wall covering stuff here in Lynn bought some inexpensive peel and stick faux tile these aren't real tiles they're actually little rubbery plastic stuff but it has 3M tape on the back of it and it's really easy to work with and in just less than an hour's time she made a backsplash with this coffee bar area that looks great in our color palette you know if you notice it's mostly sort of Browns and Grays in here and so we kind of picked sort of a teal blue as our color that we're trying to Accent with so you can see stuff there in the couch and then there's a little artwork up on the wall and then flowers and then well even the clock I guess and then this backsplash it takes so little time I don't think it cost us 25 for all of that and Lynn did it in less than an hour and it looks fabulous again you personalize you make it your own you make it look like it's yours and it just feels so much more like home and less than some less like something you bought off a camper lot that looked like everybody else's so there's number seven one of the things we loved about this camper is it came with this really nice large pantry which is right next to the kitchen slide there's the refrigerator obviously and and a lot of campers though these pantries come without any lights in them and unless you know you've got a flashlight sometimes it's hard to find stuff in your own pantry and a lot of times manufacturers will include a light and they'll like put it in the ceiling of the pantry and then it sort of lights up the top shelf so I bought one of those 15 foot long LED strip lights and install it in here and I ran it across the top and then all the way down this left side and at any time or day or night or you can see how bright it is in there you can see everything that's in the pantry those strip lights you might spend 15 on one of those and I chose to use a push button switch to activate it so so you can see how much light there is with the light off and then with the light on and this is just activated by the door when you close the door the lights turn off open the door and the lights turn on and so and it was really easy to wire in let me see if I can get you a view of the lights themselves um I think and then this was actually fairly easy to power because right here in the coffee bar there's a 12 volt wireless charger for your phones and so the power is right there and so I just poked it through to this side and ran it up the wall here up to the switch and then to the lights I don't know that I've done anything this camper that's made Lynn happier than the light in the pantry because it has really made a big difference into how well that's good to use and how low she can see it I think that's eight isn't it is that number eight I think there's only two more we're gonna run out of video here we go number nine you know when Winnebago was making these Voyage fifth wheels like everybody else they're trying to hit a price point and from our perspective when we looked at it they were trying to slot in somewhere between The Grand Design Reflections and the solitudes and so you get some of the higher end features we've got six point Auto leveling not four point uh we've got the 10 gallon hot water heater we've got a super large two-way refrigerator propane and electric and then you know convection microwave so I mean they did a lot of stuff nice and well and then in some other places they did things maybe a little less expensively the lighting fixtures for example that's the light that's over let me get it that's the light that's over the um island in the kitchen which you know is functional and but not particularly you know no big beautiful pendants or anything and really it was the same thing over here these lights were just those same Puck lights that you see everywhere else in this camper and so we went uh on the Camping World website don't normally buy a lot of stuff in Camping World but we did in this case and found these lights are actually on clearance full price full disclosure these have been more than fifty dollars for the pair but we found these on clearance in a very simple installation took the puck light out this had a base that was large enough to cover up the hole that the puck light was in uh disconnect the wires connect the wires boom less than an hour new dining room lights nice pendants that look good in the space and again personalize it and make it look like something that's ours and not like every other one although if I'm being honest they didn't exactly make a million of these voyages before they stopped production that's another video we'll talk about that some more all right number nine new pendant lights over the dinette one left hold on well now we're here in the bedroom and uh in the bedroom they again using the puck lights that they put all over this camper there's two nice lights over the bed and a good reading position for someone in bed um but the way they chose to do it was they put a switch over here in the wall which you can turn on and off and turn both of those lights on and off together that wasn't ideal for us because we don't although we may go to bed at the same time we don't always go to sleep at some time same time and Lynn sometimes stays up and likes to read and so I'd replaced you know it was Puck lights just like these I took those out and replaced them with the ones with the switch in the middle so now those Puck lights can get turned on and off individually the switch is still there and still connected so I can turn them both off from here but each light can be turned on and off independently these lights uh 10 to 12 dollars a piece on Amazon and I saved the other two and now I've got two spares in case you know one of these other 76 Puck lights and this camper go out we've got Replacements and ready to go so again comfort thing making it your own thing simple thing inexpensive thing that my friend is number 10 I am go going to leave you with one more bonus one and that is this when you buy a camper they often put one fire extinguisher a tiny thing by the door by law it has to be a b and c rated fire extinguisher that's just an RV code so I would tell you that whenever you buy a camper one of the very first things you should do was buy additional fire extinguishers um we put the one in our bedroom because that you know if it's the middle of the night that's where we are and that's where we want a fire extinguisher that may look like it's sitting on the floor but it's actually on a bracket that's holding it above the floor and it is ready to go in case of an emergency we have another one and the pass-through storage underneath and uh if you ever watch videos of how fires start and spread in RVs whew that's scary stuff so 10 a uh bonus tip get some fire extinguishers put them in your camper I hope you never need them but if you do you'll be so glad that you had them all right there you go there's 10 my 10 top tips of small modifications improvements that you can make your camper a to make it your own B to make it more functional and I hope that at least a couple of these you find valuable if you thought so I invite you to hit the like button subscribe I've got some other videos about solar installations and refrigerator troubleshooting and stuff like that more videos to come uh and I hope you enjoyed this one leave a comment down below I'd be happy to respond if you have any questions or comments maybe you've got tips of your own maybe the one of the first things you did when you your camper share that in the comments below so the others can see it and thank you for watching we'll see you soon bye-bye

Channel: Adventures of a Seabee Camper

Views: 204,275

Keywords: rv, rv living full time, rv camping, rv renovation, rv hacks, rv upgrades, rv did

Id: uk_IyNGjFAg

Length: 23min 0sec (1380 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 26 2022