Top 10 Internet Pop Up Camper MYTHS & MISCONCEPTIONS! Don’t Fall for These…

[Music] okay [Music] [Music] what's up pop-up camper family so today i want to dispel some pretty common pop-up camper myths and misconceptions i see out there on the internet i don't know about you guys but of course i keep uh keep up on the pop-up camper forums facebook youtube etc etc and there's a lot of things that i see commonly pop up pun intended maybe and it's it's evident that there are some misconceptions and miss out there and as you guys may have seen in the lead into this video probably the most common one is that pop-up campers take forever to set up so what i did and this was as you saw just by myself so no help from the misses nothing of that nature so i and i actually surprised myself on how quick it was now i did everything deliberately wasn't like i was drinking a cold one and taking my time and chatting with the neighbors who are also setting up but yeah everything was deliberate and actually probably shaved about five minutes off what i thought i could do it in now granted i didn't hook up to any electrical the camper was already level both front to back and left to right but let's be honest let's say you have a hard sided uh pull behind or fifth wheel or anything both camper types including pop-ups they all need to be leveled they all need to be hooked up or not depending on the type of camping you're doing so i thought it's a pretty fair comparison and so stick around to the end of video i'll show you exactly how long it took me by myself to set up the pop-up camper so misconception number two and i don't think it's really an overt misconception but i see it almost insinuated every once in a while and that is that not all pop-up campers are the same of course here as you can see we have a jayco select 12 hw and you know it's just not all pop-ups are made by jayco it could be a starcraft like we've had palomino forest river etc etc you name it it's all out there so just a i don't know almost helpful reminder to those of you who might be starting your pop-up camper journey is that not all pop-up campers are the same make year or model so if you're asking questions i would always lead in with what you have because everybody you know makes their pop-up campers differently they use different parts they use different list systems um etc etc so it's important to always preface any questions you might have with what what you're working with essentially all right number three so next up these guys these are called stabilizer jacks and they're called stabilizer jacks for a reason and that's because as you saw me during earlier they're just meant to go down and just snug up to whatever ground you're on these are not leveling jacks i repeat these are not leveling jacks so stabilizer jacks in essence are meant to as you walk around in your pop-up moving back and forth it's so your camper doesn't rock so once again do not use these for leveling it's only to keep you know the pop-up from rocking back and forth too much if you're going to be doing any leveling it's going to be with your front tongue jack front to back and then of course there's a myriad of options for left to right we commonly use a ball leveler um and also one of the curved levelers so it's your decision but uh just don't use these so for number four we're going to move to the back side of our pop-up as you can see right here we have our refrigerator so because we have a high wall we have a larger than normal refrigerator but most pop-up campers have a three-way refrigerator refrigerator and as you can see ours typically just like every other one is kind of dirty in the back but as you can see there are no controls unlike our old starcraft which had a dometic three-way refrigerator which had controls on the backside so the reason i bring up the refrigerator is because and i commonly see this uh you know for beginners who just got their pop-up campers maybe you haven't read the manual yet or maybe haven't watched our pop-up camper refrigerator basics video but those controls and as you'll see i'll insert some footage from our old pop-up camper those controls are only for controlling the refrigerator so of course you have your gas if you're boondocking or otherwise not hooked up to any electricity you have your 120 volt if you're camping with shore power you know state park or private campground things of that nature and then finally you have your 12 volt if you're trying to keep your refrigerator cooled down while you're hooked to your tow vehicle you know going to wherever you're camping so just reiterate those are just for your refrigerator they have nothing to do with the rest of your power or you know battery or anything within your pop-up camper it's solely to control your refrigerator so for this next misconception i wanted to show you the full expanse of our pop-up camper so our pop-up camper is oh shoot i would say right around the 3 000 pound or so range dry and the reason i say that is because you know we have a refrigerator we've added in you know new flooring etc etc so even if we took out all the water the propane the batteries etc etc we would still be pretty heavy at about 3000 pounds so that's our dry weight whereas the total weight that our pop-up camper is capable of holding is 3 500 pounds and that's because of the axles which are rated to 3 500 pounds so that means we can carry an additional 500 or thereabouts right pounds of stuff you know whether that's dog crates or food or all of our camping gear in the front propane batteries et cetera et cetera we get a limit about 500 pounds so that brings me to my next misconception and that is making sure you know the difference between your dry weight and your gross weight so dry weight like i said that's without any of your gear essentially as it comes from the factory and even the air conditioner believe it or not is not included in your dry weight most of the time i would say so whereas with gross weight that's your max you know carrying capacity of your pop-up camper itself and of course you'll have your actual weight hopefully somewhere there in between so just make sure you know the difference between those different terms so for the next myth and misconception i want to bring you inside so this is um not so common but i do see it crop up every once in a while and that is and it's usually posed in like the question of hey my outlets aren't working even though i have my battery hooked up well and and that's a simple answer that's because your outlets will not work um without you being plugged into shore power so if you have ac outlets like that or like that etc etc um those will not work solely on battery power and that goes along with things such as the air conditioner which i don't know kind of dark in there but it's plugged in right there that's plugged into an outlet and things like perhaps a microwave um that is also plugged into an outlet so if you're only on battery power things like your wall outlets and things that plug into those wall outlets will not work all right so moving back outside the next myth and misconception is that you might see in it it could be from some of our videos but you might see that some pop-up campers have safety support brackets that go on your roof lift arms wow that's a loud crow so if you see that but perhaps your pop-up camper doesn't have those safety supports don't worry those safety supports as far as i know are exclusive to those pop-up campers using what's called a goshen lift system and there's a whole myriad of different years makes and models that use the goshen but like for example our 2008 starcraft had it the 2008 palomino had it a lot of your newer rockwoods and flagstaffs have them but if you have for example a jayco or a fleetwater coleman you might find that your lift arms do not have any safety bars and that is because your full-size door like we have right here is intended to be that safety support if a cable or spring or pulley or something fails in your roof lift system all right so moving right along and this myth misconception whatever you want to call it is actually a big one and i think partly in it it's because of the misnomer that canvas and vinyl and things that comprise of your tinting if you will on your pop-up camper are kind of all bundled into one so historically and i think commonly you would have seen that this whole tinting material was made out of a true canvas material um and in more recent years it's kind of become a hybrid but that name has colloquially if that's a term colloquially stuck with this whole apparatus so it's important to know the difference between what a canvas is and what a vinyl is and sometimes it's important to know that when people are referring to both vinyl and canvas they say canvas but i just encourage you to figure out what each material is on your particular canvas right so here as you can see it's kind of a shiny almost fake leathery that's going to be a vinyl whereas your more cloth like material and ours is hidden behind the screen it's that's actually a true canvas which and i've hit on this repeatedly in multiple videos the canvas is the only thing that might need waterproofing from time to time especially if you give it a deep clean whereas your vinyl here that should be inherently waterproof and should not need any like waterproofing application or anything of that nature so here's a big one for you guys this right here is called a converter so what a converter does as you can see power converter what a converter does is it takes 120 volts as you can see the input 120 and maybe you can i'm sorry that's really small but it takes your 120 so essentially your store power and then converts it down to 12 volt so that all of your 12 volt systems and your pop-up camper can work without having to draw off the battery so you know your overhead lights maybe you have a fan um cassette toilet radio um furnace fan all those run on 12 volt power and obviously that's a good reason because if you're also boondocking then you can draw off your battery so if you want to learn more about the difference between what runs on 120 volt what runs on 12 volt we have a whole video on that but the important thing here and the myth slash myth cons conception that's a funny word um that uh i see commonly is calling the converter which like i said before converts 120 down to 12 volt an inverter so this is an inverter and this does the exact opposite it takes 12 volt power and inverts it to 120 volts so for example you have your common household plugs there so you can plug things in um you get really more into inverters and things of that nature when perhaps you um are big into boondocking or off-grid camping maybe you have a solar panel which might necessitate um installing an inverter so that way you can you know charge laptops or or run things uh that you might not normally be able to power off at just 12 volts so just keep that in mind converters uh 120 to 12 inverters 12 to 120 all right so here's another one i commonly hear and that is cassette toilets or really any toilet for that matter that you might have in your pop-up are really smelly and actually that's not the case in our experience we've found that when we use the appropriate chemicals that you put in the um in the cassette tank essentially itself it really doesn't smell at all and coupled with the fact that of course you can close um there's like a physical barrier right you physically close the cassette toilet off it really doesn't smell that bad so that's another one that i wanted to dispel just from personal experience that it's really not that bad really not that smelly and if you're considering getting a cassette toilet or pop-up camper with a cassette toilet or even one of the stand-alone ones they're super worth it late at night or early in the morning when you don't want to run all the way to the shower house if you even have access to one all right guys so there you have it 10 myths or misconceptions misconceptions if you will about pop-up campers and as promised the setup time that i was able to do this solo by myself and i was actually like i said a little surprised i thought i was going to do it in 15 minutes that was my bet i'm curious to see what you guys thought i could do it in if you haven't already throw your guess or your bet in the comments below but as promised i was able to do it in just a tad over 10 minutes and 10 seconds so i was pleasantly surprised shoot maybe if you have a partner some help you could drastically cut down on that time now i know everybody else has you know stuff to put out you know their favorite rv mat maybe their blackstone their favorite camp chairs etc etc so i know total time always takes more but that's camping everybody no matter if they have a you know a million dollar rv they got to set up the same stuff outside if they want it so that's my biggest myth and misconception is the time it takes to set up a pop-up camper especially as you get more experience so hopefully you guys learned something um as always hopefully we see in the next video if not hopefully we see out there camping

Channel: It's Poppin' - Pop Up Camping

Views: 70,659

Keywords: Pop Up Camper, Pop Up Camping, Pop Up Camper Basics, Pop Up Camper Myths, Pop Up Campers for Beginners, Tent Trailer, Pop-up Camper, Pop Up Camper Misconceptions, Pop Up Camper Mythbusting, Truth about pop up campers

Id: _wcxkG8VxAk

Length: 16min 19sec (979 seconds)

Published: Mon May 02 2022