7 DIY RV Upgrades That Had The BIGGEST IMPACT

hey Brian here from RV with Tito calm how's it going hey this channel is all about DIY projects for your RV so if you want to learn how to do your own upgrades and repairs that'll save you money build your skills and help you get the most out of your RV then start by subscribing to this channel now in the 12 plus years that I've been making upgrades to our Class C motorhome I've really done a lot to a customize the interior exterior and some of the components here to really make it fit our specific needs now I've wanted to share this with you because there are some projects that have really had a huge impact on the overall quality of our RV life and I've narrowed it down to seven that I want to share with you in this video now I'm going to go ahead and start with seven and work my way back up to number one and I think our top project the number one it may surprise you now I hope this gives you some ideas of what's possible and things that you can do to improve your RV now let's go ahead and get started [Music] now if any of the upgrades that I'm gonna show you are of interest to you that's something that you might want to take on for your own RV then I'm gonna go ahead and link to some detailed videos that I've put together in the past sometimes multiple videos on some of these topics that'll walk you through my thought process now the materials that I used and just completing the overall project so don't worry about the fact that there may be some project detail missing from this video there's a lot of resources that I'm going to link to that'll definitely help you out if you want to make some of these upgrades on your own so let's go ahead and get started with number seven well this is what we call the business end of the RV and it's one of the least glamorous things about owning an RV that we store our own waste and in these tanks but you know that means that we have to dump it periodically and somebody's got that task and and it's usually me and part of that is is that you have to store a sewer hose like this and sometimes more than one and you also have these attachments you know to be able to connect to different types of sewer inlets in this compartment there isn't a whole lot of extra space so coiling up sometimes wet and maybe even stinky hose you know we call this a stinky slinky sometimes it's it causes a problem because where do you put it I don't want to mount it to my bumper or put it in my bumper or you know do a lot of those things so I came up with a different solution and what I can do now is actually make this hose disappear into the side of my sewer compartment here and you don't even see it check it out and even have room to store the attachment again disappearing into the side here and it's gone where'd it go I can also put an extra hose stored in this secret place as well let me show you where that is okay under the RV mounted to the back of that compartment is this vinyl fence post that I've painted black and I've just put a little L bracket here and made a hole so that goes inside the compartment so this is where the primary sewer hose is stored and like I said it's it's got enough room in there to actually store the the connectors as well and next to it this isn't connected to the compartment but I can access it from the back and this is where I store my secondary or you know extension a sewer hose as well so again totally out of view you don't even see it and don't even know it's there now to get to the second hose I can just go underneath here behind the bumper you can see the two tubes here and the secondary one is here I just remove this here that's holding the cap on and take the hose out one of the things that really started to become clearer the longer we owned our RV was that this space here that was right inside our door part of our living space was just not very well utilized we used to have a little jackknife couch here which wasn't comfortable at all and it wasn't long enough for a full-size person to even sleep in so recently we decided what we really needed and what we've always wanted in this space was a you know a a desk and we wanted a place to to use as a table and we also wanted to relocate our TV which was up there which is in a really poor location for actually watching TV so we wanted to locate it here more centrally to kind of simulate a more of a living room kind of feel in here so I we removed the couch and came up with this design for this kind of combination desk bar TV stand and the table we can sit out and eat and a shoe rack on the side and this was a fairly recent addition that was part of a bigger remodel project but it really has proven to be an amazing piece of furniture that really utilizes this space well and I've even made some changes here I've added a sound bar underneath here the TV comes right up out of the middle of the counter here but for the most part we sit here and eat and I can look out the window we can have a glass of wine and enjoy the view right from this spot and it also frees up a lot of extra space here in this room but yeah this this piece of a new piece of furniture here has really been has really been a game changer here in the RV and it makes it much more comfortable what do you think of this floor pretty nice huh well it hasn't always been like this in fact this part of the RV was carpet and this part of the RV was linoleum so he had carpet linoleum and then in the bathroom was also linoleum we really wanted to change it to something consistent throughout so putting in a new floor in the RV was definitely a huge improvement over what it was before it looked really really good in fact we wish we would have done this years ago it really updated the entire space and gave it a much more elegant look to the RV and we really really loved it now one of the things that can really make a difference in your RV is having adequate places to plug in your electronics your phones anything else you know our lives just run off of electricity these days and one thing that we hate is actually wires so we you know if you have to run a long wire somewhere it really becomes a pain in the butt where you have wires hanging all over the place so having convenient places to plug things in like here where we sit where you sleep where you work and where you drive or ride can really make a big difference RV manufacturers often put AC outlets and in convenient locations that are convenient for them like underneath this cabinet here there's another one under that other cabinet over there instead of where we might want it which is in our case here don't have any cords hanging and I can plug stuff in on the floor without a cord hanging from the cabinet oh yeah well this one should be a pretty self-explanatory you know if there is ever something that you really needed but you just didn't know it this is it you know some sort of a recliner or reclining couch of some sort in the RV is one way that you can really make it feel like home and get super comfortable everywhere we would go in the RV for over a decade we'd be looking for a comfortable place to sit to really be able to stretch out and relax whether we're watching TV or playing games or whatever you know you always want to kind of get comfortable but there was really no place like that you know we had that uncomfortable couch over there and we had a dinette in this location here so the dinette is gone is replaced with these uh rec pro automated fully automated recliners you know it's really really cool to have these and they've really made a big difference here in the RV and we just love hanging out here in these recliners it's totally been a game changer now if you want to check these out these are from rec pro and I'll put a link in the description if you want to find something that might fit your RV and I even have a way for you to save a few bucks if you're interested but these have been great for us and definitely has improved our quality of life here in the RV right across from the TV by the way which is just like our living room look at that almost flat I can go to sleep now this next one is is a really big one because there are a lot of different upgrades that we've had to make to make this happen and that is to allow us to be completely off the grid when it comes to electricity now one of the great things that we love about our being is to be totally self-sufficient and being able to travel and and be wherever we want to be without having to be plugged in so you know we've added some pretty major components to our v2 to make that happen like you know a very large battery bank you know that has an inverter attached to it so we can provide AC power to the RV as well as DC power and we have a monetary system to be able to monitor what that state of charges at any given time as well as being able to monitor how much energy is coming in from our solar charging system to see where we're at and how much energy we're bringing in from the Sun and all of that comes together in in in this this whole system that allows us to be completely off the grid and it's completely changed the way that we use our RV today versus how we used it when we first got it or for the first you know five or six years when we would travel from RV park to our v park well there certainly is a lot to learn in order to put together an off-grid system like this for those of you who are new and want to do something similar I've put together some free information that you can download and I'll put a link to that in the description if you want to check that out and it answers a lot of the common questions you might have but it's certainly been a game changer for us it's opened up a whole new way of our Ving that we've always wanted to experience ok here we are at number one what do you think it is well if you guessed suspension upgrade you'd be right so when we first got the RV this is a 32 foot Class C which is a pretty good sized Class C kind of teetering on the Class C size and this thing was kind of a bear to drive because with the stock suspension stock shock absorbers it bounced around a lot it was really impacted by those trucks that would go by you need to be white-knuckling it you know to keep the RV from jumping into another lane even and you know when the wind would hit it from the front or the side or whatever you know you'd really be holding on to keep this thing steady manufacturers they put this giant house on this stock chassis it's just not designed to support that that kind of a top-heavy house on top of this chassis so what I've done was to replace the the stock anti-sway bar in the front with an upgraded one from Hellwig and I also replaced the rear anti-sway bar with a Hellwig sway bar and I was able to do that particular project myself and I also had new Bilstein shock absorbers put on the front and on the back to replace the stock shock absorbers now after making those suspension upgrades the the front and rear anti-sway bar which I actually did myself and actually had a shop do the do the the shock absorbers and I also didn't had them do an alignment at the same time after doing all that the experience behind the wheel here driving was dramatically different it actually felt like I was driving kind of a large SUV as compared to before where else white-knuckling it quite a bit at the time especially when a truck would go by or you know the wind would kick up in fact now when I drive down the highway and there's a bit of wind I don't notice it as much in fact sometimes I hardly notice it at all until I see how the trees on the side of the highway kind of bending over a little bit like oh that explains why it just feels a little bit off because it's pretty windy so it's been it's been a huge upgrade for me the reason is this is probably my top upgrade is because it's improved the safety and drivability of the RV and when I first got it I wasn't sure if this is just what driving in our view is like but now it's completely different and I really enjoy driving it now and I feel safe you know getting us from point A to point B at the end of the day it's a vehicle and you know and it and it needs to be safe and drivable so you know that was it oh one last thing that there was a kind of an unexpected consequence of the suspension upgrade and that was that well even parked the the our view was a lot more stable where before you know the kids or anybody in the front of the RV be moving around you know the back of the RV be bouncing all over the place but now you know there's no need for any kind of stabilizers or anything like that because the anti-sway bars and the shocks really kind of firm up the suspension so even while parked you know at a campsite you know the RV doesn't move that much when people move around inside so that was a really unexpected benefit to this upgrade as well well I hope you've picked up something here that you could definitely apply to your own RV and I would love to hear about any projects or upgrades you've made that have really had a significant impact on your RV quality of life go ahead and share it with the community here on this channel in the comments and I'd love to hear about it and for those of you who are subscribed I will see you in the next one take it easy

Channel: RV with Tito DIY

Views: 557,688

Keywords: RV remodeling, diy rv remodeling, diy rv remodeling ideas, rv renovation, rv renovation before and after, rv renovation class c, class c rv remodel, rv solar, rv solar install, rv off grid, rv off grid living, rv off grid solar, rv flooring, rv suspension upgrade, rv anti sway bar, ford e450, tv lift cabinet, rv recliner, recliner for rv, rv recliners wall huggers, recpro recliner, sunpower solar panel

Id: prs0SiMeclQ

Length: 16min 49sec (1009 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 06 2019