Maintenance

8 posts in How-To Guides

RV maintenance is mostly small jobs that are cheap now and expensive later.

These guides cover the ones we actually run: greasing the wet bolts in the suspension, which most owners have never touched, installing a whole-rig water filter, clearing a mouse infestation and keeping ants out, and what a full-timer does instead of winterizing.

The macerator post belongs here too. A pump with power that will not spin is usually seized rather than dead, and we came close to buying a replacement before we found that out.

Water & Tanks

RV Macerator Pump: How It Works, and What to Do When It Will Not Run

Published on Aug 2, 2026

A macerator that has power and still will not spin is usually seized, not dead. The fix takes a screwdriver and thirty seconds, and we nearly bought a replacement pump before we found it.

Maintenance & Repairs

What Full-Timers Do Instead of Winterizing an RV

Published on Jul 26, 2026

Winterizing assumes your RV sits empty and unheated all winter. Ours does not, because we drive it somewhere warmer. Here is the full-timer version, including the one job we do not skip.

Maintenance & Repairs

How to Grease RV Wet Bolts (And Check Your Undercarriage)

Published on Jul 15, 2026

Wet bolts are the greaseable pivot bolts in your trailer suspension, and most owners have never touched them. Here's the full undercarriage routine we run on our fifth wheel, done the way Lippert and Dexter say to do it.

Pest Control

How to Get Rid of Mice in an RV (And Keep Them Out)

Published on Jul 15, 2026

Traps on the travel routes, steel wool in the gaps, and care about what's safe around pets. What we learned clearing a mouse infestation out of our fifth wheel after six weeks in storage.

Pest Control

How to Keep Bugs Out of Your RV

Published on Jul 15, 2026

A trail of ants marched into our fifth wheel and Fabiola declared war. Here's the full defense we ended up with: vent screens, a perimeter spray, and a borax bait mixed at the right strength.

Water & Tanks

How to Install a Whole-RV Water Filtration System

Published on Jul 15, 2026

A step-by-step guide to installing a three-stage canister water filter on your RV, based on our Blu Tech AR3 install, with the manufacturer's guidance on stage order, regulator placement, and flushing.

Water & Tanks

How to Dump RV Tanks With a Portable Tote Tank

Published on Jul 15, 2026

A portable tote lets you stay parked for weeks and haul only the waste to the dump station. Here's the right way to fill, tow, and empty one, plus everything we got wrong trying it the first time.

Camp Cooking

How to Season a Blackstone Griddle (First Cook Included)

Published on Jul 15, 2026

The full first-day routine for a new Blackstone: the one soapy wash it will ever get, three rounds of heat and oil, the first burgers, and the two minute cleanup that keeps the surface slick.