RV Tech & Maintanence
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NO WEIGH!
To many RVers, the acronyms GVWR, and GCWR are familiar. But how many of you know what OCCC stands for? For those who don’t know, the first two are: Gross Vehicle Weight Rating(How much weight your RV can safely hold.) and Gross Combined Weight Rating(How much your RV and tow vehicle can safely weigh together). OCCC stands for Occupant and Cargo Carrying Capacity, which is on that yellow sticker on the inner bottom your RV screen door. That's how much cargo the manufacturer estimates you can carry in your RV without exceeding the GVWR. That means that, if you subtract the OCCC from the GVWR, that your RV is significantly lighter than the GVWR (this weight usually includes just a full tank of fuel). How does this apply in the real world you ask? First, you will need to get your coach weighed at local truck scales to get an actual baseline RV weight. You won’t know how you’re your RVs baseline weight is until you load it with fuel, fill the water tank, and load all your usual gear and people (if possible). This ensures that the baseline weight will be as accurate as possible. This baseline weight will be used in the calculations to determine not only how much cargo you can carry (in addition to what you have already loaded), but also how much weight you can safely tow as well. Next, you will need to do some math. Let's say that after getting your coach weighed at the truck scales, you discovered it weighs 20,000 lbs. This is your baseline weight. Now, you need to take your GVWR weight figure, which in the case of this example is 22,000 lbs. and then subtract the baseline weight from the GVWR; you will get 2,000 lbs. This weight is how much more people and things you can put in your RV and not exceed the GVWR as specified by the manufacturer. To determine how heavy a trailer, car, or truck that you can tow behind your RV, you'll need to subtract your baseline weight from the GCWR weight, which for this example is 26,000 lbs. This difference is 6000 lbs., which is what you can safely tow up to and not exceed the GCWR. If you add additional cargo to the RV after its been weighed, you'll need to subtract this additional weight from the 6,0000 pound result. I hope you found this article useful and happy camping! -- Ben
Don't do it! Don't let your tires lose contact with the ground when leveling your motorhome! The motorhome leveling jacks are for leveling and stabilizing only! The Jack's are meant to level the coach and prevent suspension travel so the coach doesn't shift when sitting or moving around in the motorcoach. If the tires are off the ground, it defeats the purpose. When the tires are airborne, all the weight of the motorhome is fully on the jacks, something they were not designed for. Plenty of these systems can and will fail when abused as such. Whenever our tires lift during coach leveling at a resort, campground, or boondocking, we place an appropriate amount of rubber pads to ensure constant ground contact. Dont be like this guy...*See Picture*If the site is not relatively level to start with, relying on the leveling system to correct it is a bad, bad idea. Move the rig to a more level site and try again. -Ben W
RV Transfer Switches
The basic design of RV transfer switches is to sense current from the genset and switch current from the shore power incoming( if hooked up), to the genset power. This ALWAYS involves some measure of current to do so. It's purely a mechanical operation, so there's always going to be a small electrical arc when switching. The only thing that might shorten the life of the contacts would be if the air conditioner would start up EXACTLY at the moment of transference, producing a larger arc. In the real world, this is really unlikely to happen that often enough to make any difference in the life of your transfer switch. When switching from shore power to generator power, turning off the A/C is a good idea, but leaving it on is not necessarily a bad decision either. You can check and maintain your transfer switch, assuming no current is coming in from either shore power or genset. I cannot over emphasize how important it is to make sure that shore power is disconnected, and the genset circuit breaker is set to OFF when checking and/or maintaining your transfer switch contacts!
If any minor pitting is evident on your transfer switch contacts, you should file the contacts with some sandpaper or emery board. This should remove the minor pits and restore efficient transfer switch operation. If you don't feel comfortable doing this yourself, or if the pitting is more severe, contact your friendly neighborhood RV Service Center. I'm sure they will be all too happy to help you!