Not All RV Mods are Big & Expensive

[Music] we've made many small improvements to our RVs throughout the years that add convenience and help the adventure go a bit smoother see some better days huh yeah travel isn't always easy so a focus on improving the small things can help the day-to-day of RV life and make any space a little more comfortable oh yeah good it's fabulous now that we have a new to us 30ft Airstream Globe trer we're getting it ready to hit the road this spring and we wanted to tackle simple DIY projects we've become accustomed to I can just go into Network and I can just choose hotspot or starlink and then boom it connects stream Netflix all is good we'll get to the big upgrade soon but for now let's start with the little things that make a big difference I'm like Michelangelo with this thing so if you're wondering what the very first mod is and maybe that's too strong of a word it's this right here we are tackling the small do-it-yourself things that create some level of convenience or maybe reduce a huge amount of annoyance there's nothing more annoying and I know if you can relate to this than like your fresh water or in this case the stabilizer the fresh water where there's a lock and you go down to put in your you go down there to put yourh water and you're like then you go back you walk around the RV and you grab your keys know why this annoys me so much but it does okay so this is operating the stabilizing Jacks so I'll be popping this thing off I'll put on my thumb locking one so it'll just be right in here should be pretty simple and just got to do it without cracking any plastic and I'll keep you posted on that hi hi need to hold a phone for you okay there easy oh wow look at that so all I did and you could use a pair of pliers or even even I'm thinking about it even a little screwdriver just to pop in on the top and the bottom I put it in the Locking position to get them out of the way and then I just popped it out so let's see so simple let's see if now the new one the new one has this which is pretty nice and I might have to let's see if I can get it off o ooh easy okay not so fast this is not maybe as simple as I thought this is the original one you can see the design on that oh little Notch this is the new one no Notch no Notch now I believe I did this on the bus too when we were in St Louis at the Gateway Arch Caleb and I tackled this and in some cases depending on your RV you might have to have that Notch so I think what I did in that case is I pulled this off which took a little bit of effort to get get rid of that it's not riveted on there but I forget what kind of Fastener that is I pulled that off and I used the existing so it lined up the other option you could do is take this screw off right here and bend it but that's that's that's quite a lot of bending so I think what's Happening Here is it's hitting the very top of the the notch inside there and that's why it's going like that it's rubbing on the top so I got a couple options if it's lining up I could take a grinder and just grind that off off and it would still reach or just deal with it making that little pop it's all about mindset babe maybe that pop maybe that's satisfying it's not satisfying it's annoying but it's less annoying than getting the keys so I just wanted to bring that up just so that you know what you're getting yourself into if you do that that little that little jog over might be essential for you so I'll see how they all are but um that's it so kind of simple ooh ooh oh that's definitely going to require something look at that that's a baby because it's this is not this doesn't have a big hole this has just a little too hickey hey hey you think that's going to work I think that's going to work okay great but can we do it like a little bit safer can you throw it on the back of your truck can you get I got my vest I just want to put a little thought into it you're tackling this like I tackle painting a room you just start put some thought into this babe did you just see all the thinking there's thinking happening every minute of this no okay now this one was a little bit harder to get off because it's the fresh water so as you can tell it's kind of it's kind of rusted so I bent this a little bit I did the best I could getting it bent back now take this off here's the one it came with this is the original one that I popped off with a couple channel locks the little latches back behind there so I think it goes like that locked open okay here's a moment of truth on the fresh water that's pretty good so before I spend a lot of time trying to figure it out I want to see how this lines up I just got to get rid of this a little bit at the top here we [Music] go okay simple mod DIY number two the microware Easy Touch RV thermostat okay last year everybody was telling me how great this was and I was kind of a slow adopter on this deal because I really didn't have any issues with the OEM dedic deal and I thought well it's cool but I didn't have any issues and so it's don't bro it's not broken don't fix it and then when I went to go visit Ronnie he's like oh we're doing this I'm like oh I'm not going to I'm not going to not do it super simple uh installation basically plug and play and now I can't live without it I did it we did it it really is awesome and some of the reasons the things I really like about it is um I think it has a better form factor on the screen it'll tell me the outside temperature tell me the inside temperature but Al also tell me the outside temperature for a lot of people that travel with dogs this connects to your router like a little hot spot in your RV so that you can access it when you're away so that's a great way you can keep tabs on what the temperature is and adjust the temperature from your phone when you're away it also the numbers light up red when it's heating blue when it's cooling white when it's just telling you the temperature reading and then after a few seconds it just goes black which is good because this is the primary bedroom so anyway so for all those Reasons I'm sure there's even more uh oh I also like the auto setting I I don't know if this the OEM version does that or not but the auto setting is kind of nice because they're cold in the morning and then it heats up we can turn it to run the heat pump like we can set it to 72 and have a little icon for the heat pump and air conditioning so it'll start off in the morning and it'll run the heat pump and then like right now as you can tell I've been shedding layers then the air conditioning will turn on so that's kind of Handy [Music] too here we go oh ain't that easy plus when you click it in the little phone cord in the back then you can see which way is up and which way is down there you go so when I put it back in here like this and I put these two screw holes right here those two holes get covered up these two will be exposed but they have these little Clips right here you get these in different colors by the way and then that covers those things up So speaking of the ordering process is you'll have to let them know which thermostat you currently have so when you go on the site it's it's pretty user friendly you can you can find your thermostat and you can order the correct one so when I reached out to microware and I let them know how much I like this and that I wanted to install it on the globe Charter they provided this just so we're transparent on the partnership relationship but the other thing that they provided which I really like is a promo code so that you can save some money if you decide to do this too like I said I didn't have any issues with this but I really liked the microware a lot of things about this DIY installed that are pretty nice you see how that has a zip tie here that lets you know exactly how far away to put them directly across this hole just make sure they're level because that's going to determine if this sits [Music] level [Music] that little that little zip tie that you break off just make sure it's stretched out all the way cuz I think it was I think it I could kind of bend it just a little bit so I had to finagle it but but it looks level doesn't it it's a little NightLight and it comes on you can set it dim or bright and you can set it on off or um when it gets dark it will turn on so it's very nice so that um if there's movement you have a little light in the bathroom without waking up the other person in the rig well un let's face it in the middle of the night these lights are blinding blinding bright so I'll put it the other way so that the other Outlet's open yeah put it right in there and then it's motion censored it's dimmable and it turns off after a while so it's not on all night no which is really nice it's only on for like 30 seconds actually yeah unless you're moving yeah and then it'll turn back on mhm I love it I think it's great yeah this was your solution to Caleb waking up in the middle of the night that was turning on the light waking up the whole rig and you're like no I was like oh Caleb would you mind turning off the light I know it's 2: in the morning and you're just going to bed but uh you know Mom and Dad are waking up in in only another 3 to 4 hours yes yes that's how you said it yeah the other simple DIY that I wanted to do now but I didn't have the measurements was the snap pads so I need to go measure the our stabilizing feet and then they also have a snap pad for the tongue jack foot which is round so I need to make sure I get all the right sizes I like to put on Snap pads as soon as you get an RV because the stabilizing feet can get a little um wonky yeah and these already are so and the wonkier they are the more difficult it is to get them on but you could also and what I'll probably have to do is unscrew them use a mallet flatten them out then use some Dawn soap put them on we should go snap it you think you just snap it [Music] on man that should be their name or something can you believe I don't even need the keys to do this isn't that great tada wow got a little we got a little repair right here when you're in a storage lot they almost always and many RV parks too require you to use um Jack pads stabilizing Jack pads so one of the reasons I like Snap pads is you don't have to really worry about it now many cases I'll use leveling blocks anyway just just to keep the snap pads from getting dirty but when you're on asphalt or concrete it's cool and it's relatively flat I can just lower them it's just one less thing to worry about so these are I gave you your phone so you could take a picture that's great five and a [Music] half our globe troter is a 20120 and didn't come with Smart TVs so if you want to stream Netflix Amazon or YouTube you need add an Apple TV or something similar and connect it to the HDMI cable in your RV or just replace the TV with a smart one and the only thing you'll need is an outlet I think the reason I chose this is because they're a little bit thinner you see that yeah no mm- I'm good you don't need any help no help don't need directions either that was a bit harder than I thought because the screws we're not compatible the they're the right size they just need to be longer okay we have um just the stock Airstream inverter and our batteries are kind of low so I don't know if it's going to work cool hey works so we have a fair amount of travel this year is we leave Arizona and we go across the country and we have a whole bunch of different stuff we're going to be doing I don't want to list the states but there's a lot of States before we do our install so I think it'd be helpful for people to see what you could do with two battleborne batteries and I think the stock Airstream inverter is like 12200 Watts so like what can you do with two battleborn batteries one 1200 W inverter I think we've got like one 100 wat panel on the roof I wanted to talk about power and what I'm kind of excited might not be the right word um interested in is before we get a big battery Bank what information can we provide when our system doesn't have a whole bunch of salt load and batteries and stuff like that I have found this South guard to be the best thing to use if you don't have an inverter or a big battery bank because you can charge um your laptop you can charge your cell phones uh I think you could probably even plug a TV into this if you really wanted to you could run your CPAP machine and you through the night um might want to look at the size I think this is the 550 if you're going to run something all night long you might want to get a bigger one but I think this is probably the best device to get you off grid participating in some Harvest host uh Cracker Barrel stuff like that um and then I mentioned that I've got a couple um battleborne batteries these are the GC 2s that fit in the battery box so I'm going to be installing these here soon um probably just right when we hit the road I'll put these in and then um I already replaced the converter but you don't have to and so that's one of the things I wanted to share is that you can switch from lead acid to lithium and you could just change the batteries and then time budget permitting you could replace the converter and then maybe a battery monitor uh system would be good so I want to install one of those and then you know we've got a small inverter couple lithium batteries very little solar on the roof so I thought that'd be kind of good to share how we're camping off grid until we go do everything did I mention that we're giving these batteries away in May I think I failed to mention that we're giving these batteries away in May so when we do our big install these two will go into some sort of um drawing well figure that out so stay tuned for that I think that' be pretty cool and otherwise all the links to the stuff we mentioned down below look for promo codes like for the microware uh thermostat and um point of this video is just to kind of like T tackle some of the convenient things that we've kind of grown accustomed to that we really like and so we're going to keep chipping away at the little stuff and we'll be sharing that with you and then we're going to keep going with the technical videos this year um which a lot of people have written in and said they really like that stuff so this year will be um some how-to the technical videos obviously repairs because we're rving uh travel videos travel routes it'll be good A little bit of family stuff and um T getting married there's that too surprisingly there's more storage than I thought oh good yes so um but it's like the wrong height and depth but that's okay I just need to reshape my brain yeah so um reshape your reshape your bins reshape my bins exactly wow you know this isn't really your territory so I don't know if you have the same level of excitement I I I do being locked out of anything is not fun no no and remember when we got locked out of this so we tried to send Caleb into the back hello you canot break in in the way that I thought you could so I'm actually happy and relieved to know that but that was really funny yes the first three screws okay Mr leech D doesn't understand this no no it's not that I don't understand it I like it I do it just needs to be about that big no no no I want to hear it in the comments down below I want to know what you keep your uh loose nuts in your spare screws a whole bunch of washers Trish actually came up to me about 3 weeks ago and she had this little bag of washers oh these are quarters and she was like you don't ever use these what so so anyway I want to know what you keep your spare stuff in but uh we use it uh we use nins okay listen goes right here no there get get out of my drawer okay

Channel: Keep Your Daydream

Views: 129,303

Keywords: rv life, rv living, rv mods, rv hacks, travel trailer, rv upgrades, rv modifications, full time rv living, rv lifestyle, rv living full time, how to rv, rv tips, rv travel, diy rv mods, full time rving, diy rv upgrades, travel trailer tips and tricks, rv maintenance, kyd, keep your daydream, airstream mods, airstream globetrotter 30rb, rv newbies, rv must haves, rv must haves for beginners

Id: Y1mljqrkRjY

Length: 18min 3sec (1083 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 19 2024