↓Episode 174 – Preparing Your RV for Summer: Essential Freshwater Tips

So staying on the road today, we're going to talk about fresh water

and being ready for summer, then enjoying the RV life. We're

going to talk about RV decals, or if you're in Canada, RV decals

and what to do when yours takes a turn for the worse. Then

in the next stop, we're going to visit Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Then in Shadows of the Past, we're going to hear a story about

Centralia, Pennsylvania. Then in RV Envy, we're going to talk water

pumps that can freeze by air. Excel the env. Hey there, Smart RVers.

Welcome back to the Smart RVer podcast, where we keep your wheels

turning and your adventures rolling. So let's talk everything

RV. Today's episode is 174. So now let's open the door and see what

side what we have inside here. And Alexis, you're back one more

time.

Again, you let me back in. I know I had a knock for a while, though,

but here I am.

Like that song, you can. No, that's cheap. You can keep a knocking.

Keep a knocking.

All right, so here we go. So, you know, I found this pin. You guys

can't see it out there, but from Radio Arizona, RV days. Very

cool.

Very cool.

It's got to be worth a million.

Bucks, I would think.

Have to auction it off.

Yes.

All these little trinkets we find like this that we think are

really value, but actually they're not. Yeah, but we think they

are. But anyway, so we got a great show planned today. We don't

want to waste a bunch of your time while we sit here, knickknack

and patty, whack about a pen that's not advantageous to be an

RVer.

Not quite.

All right, so we're here, and I do want to make a mention about

Rodeo Life magazine. A lot of our RVers, our listeners, are into

horses, and they maybe already, you know about this, but

Rodeo Life has this great magazine. They have an awesome website,

rodeolifemagazine.com. i just thought I'd throw it in there for

somehow, for some reason, I got on their emailing list and it's

pretty cool. I don't really not into rodeos, but I like looking

at it.

Yeah.

So, hey, there you go. That's my freebie for today. And then as

a reminder, if you're looking at a new rv, a used rv, and you want

an extended warranty, check out wholesale Warranties. There'll

be a link in the description for the podcast where you can just

click on that link or tap on It. And it'll take you right to a

page where you can get a free estimate. So that's pretty often.

Awesome. Can't talk today either. It's been a long day, man.

A long day. Yeah.

Normally we do these in the morning.

I know.

Now it's the afternoon.

Yeah.

And, you know, the guy at the radio station told me I shouldn't

do anything like this in the afternoon. He said, morning. Eric's

much better.

Well, so we break the rules around here.

So sorry, everybody, if today's, like, filled with slurs

and, you know, mispronunciations. It's not that

we're drunk. It's just the afternoon. I mean, it's been a long

day. All right, so in enjoying the RV life, we're going to talk

about RV decals. And so Alexis is going to take us into that. And

if you are in Canada, they're called decals, but here they're called

decals. So just everybody gets that. I wasn't making fun of Canadians

or anything. It's just the way it is. I remember the first time

I heard that. I can. I can see it. I was in a store in San Bernardino,

California. Customer said, do you have any decals? Like, what is

a decal?

Yeah, you're like.

You know, you start like, what does that mean? And then you kind

of figure it out after a while. You know, after they slapped

me a couple times. Yeah, I said a. I get it now. All right,

so anyways, Alexis, what do you have to say about it?

Ah, we're gonna talk about decals, eh?

All right, Putting you on the spot there.

I'm gonna get canceled. All right, so today we're diving into

something that might not be at the top of your to do list. Okay.

We're talking about RV decals. Now, I know what you're thinking.

They're just decals. Why do they really matter? Well, the answer

is they do matter. They're very important, because when you

have faded and cracked decals, they make your RV look like poop,

old and worn, and it just doesn't look good. So over time,

we know that sun, rain, all these things, Road grime can really

take a toll on your RV's exterior. You've probably seen it

before, your decals. Now, I'm saying that your decals get all cracked

or they peel or they're just completely faded, and that doesn't

look good. And with new ones, you can make your rig look just beautiful,

brand new. And not only that, but it protects your RV exterior,

which is super Important because we are the smart RVers. We

like to DIY things so we do it ourselves. So it's not about looks.

Of course. Like I said, when decals start to peel, they leave

behind exposed areas. Right. You have these weak spots now on

your rv, which is not good because dirt, moisture and. And a

lot of stuff can get in there and make it look even worse. It can

damage your fiberglass, which is not good. You want to get those

replaced. And not only that, but you can personalize it to your

own style. You don't have to stick with what you had before. You

can do something completely new, fresh, super cool, and you make

it really fun. I've seen a lot of things on the road, a lot of like

custom things done. I saw one with Bigfoot, a family of Bigfoot

all over it. It can be really fun, really great. It's important

to do that for the maintenance of your rv. It can also be fun and

stylish and you can have a lot of creativity there with it.

There you go. You know, one thing about decals too, is that when

they're on your rv, if they start to crack and stuff, it's better

to take them off.

Yeah.

Than to leave them on because it can be much harder to get them

off later on.

Yep.

Or if they start peeling, just help them along and peel it to where

it stops and just kind of clean it up, you know. But on, like

on fiberglass one, sometimes it's easier to do with fiberglass

siding versus a aluminum sided one where a little more difficult.

But it's doable. But just try to stay ahead of it and putting them

on isn't a big deal. It's taking them off. Yeah. You know.

Yeah.

So you could do it. So just to help you out there, if you need a

place to get your decals, you can go to RV decals direct. Now they're

in Canada, so it might be. I don't know. There's one in California

too. RV graphics store dot com.

Right.

Either one, I think is a good choice. And they're kind of. They're

not identical. They're. They're two different entities. So

you're going to do business differently. Prices are going to

be different and they'll do custom stuff. But they do do it by

the year. Make a model of your rv. But it's what they have.

Yeah.

A lot of decals disappear right away. So I don't know if these

guys are like designing them or they're just buying them from

the factory or not. The decals but the artwork. So I don't know.

Yeah, but check that out. A lot less expensive than paint and

a lot easier to do. And you know, there's. I've seen guys actually

put decals over decals. Really? That's not a good idea. I

want to do that.

Waste of money.

Yeah. You see the outline looks kind of cheesy. You know, that's

what they do in Yuma, Arizona sometimes. Oh, that's Yuma.

I know about Yuma. No.

All right, all right. So now let's go try in the money saving

tip covered RV decals, RV decals direct and RVgraphicsstore.com

I just want to emphasize that one last time. Now, our money saving

tip today is buying the right product the first time. In other

words, you're not going to buy a less expensive product and save

some money and then wait for it to break a few months later or

prematurely, then have to replace it again. If you buy another

cheap one, then the same thing's going to happen. So if you

buy a more expensive one, usually it's a better quality product.

And I think you can tell when you're buying better quality or not

when you're looking at products. We'll say online at the

Jungle website, you can tell the prices. You know, if something's

$3 on one, you know, one brand is $3, the other one's $33. Eh, there's

something going on there. And not to mention there's more counterfeit

products today than there ever has been before. And some of those

you find on the garage sale website, I'd follow in recently.

And it was, it was very interesting. It was such a disparity

in price. So it was a knock, not a knockoff. It was a counterfeit.

Wow.

Trying to make it look identical to the brand. And it was

a sure microphone. And it was $400 difference in price. And there's

no way. And there's tons of them. So. And I did a little research

on it. Turns out they're knockoffs. So if you buy it, it'll

look just like it until you go to use it. Then you go, oh, man,

you know, I just got ripped off.

Right, Right.

And yeah, anyway, so I'm not going to go on that any longer. But

for example, in an rv, if you bought a water pump, let's say you

bought it on the Jungle website and it's, you know, 40 bucks,

that's pretty inexpensive. Now I've seen brands on there that are

inexpensive too, like SureFlow. But you know, the Sureflo

ones sold on Amazon are not the same ones you get in an RV parts

store. They don't have the same warranty. They're completely

warrantied differently if you can even get a warranty done on it

if it failed. But if you buy them in RV store in the box, they

come with a two year warranty and you can handle. And that warranty

is very easy to get taken care of. Even the store might do it for

you depending on the age of it. So if you're saving a lot of

money on a water pump, it might be because it's a lesser quality

and the Internet's flooded with knockoffs and everything else.

So like a real Shurflow a FLO jet, a like I'm going to introduce

one today at the RV Envy, one that can freeze made by Air Excel

which is owns the Envision brand and Suburban and others spend

the money and get a better quality pump. Like in our store we

only sell the better quality pumps. We could get some really low

quality ones and have a $49 water pump, but it's doing a disservice

to our customers. So that's why we don't so stick with quality.

Solar panels could be the same thing. In fact, there's going to

be. There's an article on our website about this. It talks about

water pumps, solar panels, tires as examples. So if you go to

money saving tips on the smartrver.com you'll be able to find

this along with enjoying the RV life, the bigger article on RV

decals and so forth. So that's just direction to go with to help

you save some money. And I think it's something most people

know, but sometimes it's, well, I'm going to get the cheaper

one now because that's what my budget will afford it. I get that,

you know, you got to do what you got to do, but if you can afford

the better quality and buy it once, just go ahead and do that and

save yourself some grief.

Good tip.

So now we're going to get into staying on the road and in this part

section, section of highway. Staying on the road. Yeah, like that.

Okay, there you go.

So we're going to talk about fresh water ready and prepping your

RV for summer. Now, a few episodes back we talked about kind

of prepping your whole RV and I went through the water system but

not as in detail as we're going to today. And it's a nice reminder

because this time of year, you know, it's starting to thaw out everywhere.

Like here in Montana, we're still having freezing at night. So

it's not time to de winterize your RV yet. But we're getting close.

We're just days away. Other parts of the country, it's just,

you know, you don't have freezing, but you might store your

RV and kind of go through that winterizing process where you drain

the water and do some things like that. Other parts of the country,

well, whatever it might be. So this is just a coming out of winter,

whether it's winterized like for with RV antifreeze in it or just

winterized for winter storage because you're not using the rv.

Some nice tips here. So basically winters in the rear view

mirror, we're not looking at it anymore. It's long gone. So the

campgrounds are thawing out, if they're not already thawed out

and they're ready for you to come back and hook up your RV and

start camping again. And so we're going to talk about that in

greater detail so we can get your RV in tip top shape because

we care about your rv. We want you to be happy when you're out there

RVing. So it's whether you're hooked up at an RV site or you're

running off your pump, or maybe you just got a hose out in

a bucket and you run it through the kitchen window. That's

your water source. Whatever it is, we're going to walk through that

today and kind of help you with this. And the reason why is

there's people that don't do any of this stuff. And sometimes

you can get away with maybe one winner. You know, you don't do

a whole lot of anything afterwards other than just put water

in it and go. But it kind of reminds me of a story of somebody

I knew, Jerry. But you know, this is right up Jerry's alley.

Oh, Jerry.

So his name was Mike actually. So it's not any mics that we know.

It's not a microphone either.

Okay.

So Mike, you know, he would just hop in his RV after the winter,

he'd just put water in it, the tank and he'd go out and dry camping

someplace. And so he'd do this year after year and never did any

kind of cleaning. He just didn't care. So then he opens up

his tap, the first campground he goes to or the first camping weekend.

And you know, the water comes out and it just smelled really nasty.

You know, it's like drinking swamp water. Who wants to do that?

So he didn't sanitize or do anything to prep. So he paid the

price. It basically ruined the weekend for him. You know, they didn't

have any water to get anywhere else other than what was already

in the rv.

Yikes.

So they dealt with it for better or worse. You know, they made

it work, and that's great, but we don't want to find ourselves in

that situation, so we want to avoid that at all cost. And we can

do that. And that's why this time of year is so good to do it.

So we're going to break this down into steps. Inspecting and cleaning

the system. Then a little recipe for sanitizing the system.

Pressure testing on city water, on water pumps. We're going

to walk through this. So first off, you want to inspect your water

system, which isn't that hard to do. You know, it's a flashlight,

opening up cupboards, looking at all the water lines. But probably

more importantly, if you can check your freshwater tank and a

lot of RVs, you can't do it because they're underneath, they're

under in the belly. You can't see it, and it's not really worth

the time to get to it unless you're doing other maintenance. And

hey, why not? You know, and also, they're under. You know, they

can be under a bed, a bunk, a cabinet someplace. So if you have

one like that, it's much easier to check out and see what

you have cooking. And fresh water tanks sometimes will, you know,

distort. They'll crack eventually. They get dry, they get

brittle. Extreme cold, extreme heat causes problems for them. So

that's why inspecting is a good thing. So you want to inspect

it, make sure that there's nothing obvious with it. And then

when we get into these other steps, you'll find out whether it's

leaking or not. So that's a simple thing to do. And a flashlight

is great for cabinets and stuff because you got your eyes.

You know, it doesn't matter how good your vision is, sometimes

it's hard to see things. Something shadowed, a fitting might

be cracked or a clamp's coming loose. You know, it's just giving

it a nice eyeball and checking it out. Now, with that being said,

you're going to want to sanitize your water system. And so

the sanitizing can come basically at the same time as pressurizing

it and testing the system as well, because you're not going to

sanitize it. Well, to sanitize it, you have to put water in it,

run everything, and go through those motions. So you're kind of

killing two birds with one stone, at least. Two birds, yeah.

Two birds. We'll stick there. Not three or four. Two birds. All

right. That's pretty. I wonder where that came from. Two birds with

one stone. Anyways, as I dig your ass. All right, so to sanitize

the system, it's really simple. Now you can buy something

at an RV store like Thetford makes a great product for sanitizing

fresh water systems. And Camco has some stuff for putting in the

fresh water system that cleans it up. But I don't think it's the

same. Works the same as the Thetford. The Thetford is more of

a process you go through and if you don't want to do that, and

I prefer, obviously people to buy stuff like that because I have

a brick and mortar business and I want to sell parts. Right.

But I'm going to cheat right now. We're going to give you a little

hint on how to do this for less money. And it might just be

an easier process. So if you just get some unscented bleach, make

sure it's unscented. If you get something with fragrance in it

or anything else, you will regret it. So you're talking basic

bleach, the stuff that will eat through the bottle after about

four years of sitting around. I remember a kid, yeah, I'd clean

out the garage and because I'd made a mess, sawdust everywhere or

something, I'd pick up the bottle of bleach and the bottom would

just fall out. You know, there's our washer and dryers around

the garage. Kept telling my dad move someplace else, but he want

it. But anyway, so that's, you know, bleach will do that over time.

And it's good to know that because if you buy like a gallon

of bleach and it sits around, eventually you're just going to throw

it away. But make sure it's unscented. And you'd use a quarter

cup of unscented bleach for every 15 gallons of water. Now you

can change that around, do the math and turn that into 30 gallons,

60 gallons, whatever you want to do, you can google it and get

the formula as well. So there's no secret here, but what

makes it kind of nice. You know, most people have a 20 to 40

or 60 gallon tank for their fresh water. So if you just make

your mixture in a bucket, a five gallon bucket, or a two and

a half gallon, whatever floats your boat or whatever you have, you

can just pour that water into your fresh tank. Fresh water tank.

And then you kind of know where you're at. And actually, if

you don't know the gallonage of your tank, you can do that, you

know, a gallon at a time, or put in 10 gallons and go a gallon

at a time until it maxes out. Then you know you're at how many

gallons your freshwater tank really is, because guessing doesn't

always float the boat. So you do that, you make that mixture, you

pour it in the tank, and I would recommend 15 gallons, because

that's a good amount. You can run your water for quite a bit and

flush out those lines and not run out and have to make another

batch. So that batch would do it. So what you're going to do is

mix that up, pour it in the tank, and then we're going to go

to the next step, which would be to pressure test the system. You

don't need to use air pressuring like that. That would

be crazy, right? Let's just use water. It's a water system. All

right, Eric, you're very smart. You're the smart rver, Eric.

You are.

All right, I like that. So you have a city water hookup. In other

words, your house, or if you're an rv, park the pedestal.

Wherever you're going to get water from a hose to your rv, we're

going to call that city water hookup, because that's basically

what it is. Now, make sure before you hook it up, you have a

water pressure regulator that is on the hose bib or the connection

where the hose goes not at your rv, but the hose bib. That's

what that thing is called, a hose bib. And you want it there because

it'll protect the hose. Going to your RV now, you're going to see

a lot of pictures, I mean, tons of pictures with that regulator

hanging on the side of the rv. In fact, camco does that in some

of their images. And it's wrong. It's falsely wrong because

that protects the rv, which is great, but it doesn't protect the

water hose. You'll want to protect the water hose. You're going

to protect the hose and the rv. So make sure you got that water

pressure regulator. Unless you just know you have really low water

pressure, you know, below 50 psi. Yeah, you don't need one. But

most. Most homes and RV parks are above that. RV parks sometimes

are closer to 80, 90 psi. So you want to drive that down. So you're

going to hook up the water as you do this. It's kind of a process.

And it's a little easier to have two people to do this. And the

reason why is you can have one person inside and one person out

at the hose bib, turning it on slowly. One person inside, they're

going to open up one faucet. You know, the hot or cold doesn't

matter. Cold might be better at this case or at this point in

the journey. Open it up, the water starts coming through the line

and you're inside. So if you notice a problem right away, a leak,

water starts spraying out somewhere, you can tell the person

outside to shut the water off right away. And you know, if you

have phones, you can have them on speakerphone, you can just scream

at the other person. Or if you have walkie talkies or something,

you can do that. But I think the phones be able to scream at one

another is better. Yeah, you know, it reminds me, years ago in

San Bernardino, we had a dump station at the store we worked at.

Yeah.

Oh man. Husband and wives backing up the RV out there screaming

at one another, back up, stop backing up, go forward, go backwards.

All right, explicit is hilarious. Waiting for someone to

shoot the other person sometimes be done with it. So anyways,

back to the reality here. So you're going to check that out. You're

going to look through the rv, open up the cupboards, and if you're

turning on the water, make sure the person in size knows where

to look. And always use a flashlight when you're shining under

cabinets and such under sinks. Because the water dripping, if it's

just a small little drip, the flashlight will catch that, the light

will reflect. So it makes it real easy. And then shine it on the

floor, follow the water lines, put your hand on it, make sure there's

no leaks. All that's good, then you can turn that water on all

the way and you're, you know, get the air out of the system. Open

up all your faucets one by one and check as you do that, because

as you get air out of the system and water starts getting in

there, that's where your leak will come. So keep an eye on that.

Still have the person outside ready to turn off that water in case

you get to that point. Now if there's no leaks, everything's cool

and that's your hooked up to city water. Now this next step would

be using your water pump, which if you can't use city water,

you just do the same thing with your water pump. It's virtually

the same thing other than the water pump has A different line or,

you know, it gets its feed from the fresh water tank that supplies

the RV where the city water gets its feed from. City or your

home, whatever. And then it comes into the RV and feeds the rest

of it. So you have a couple different lines there that could

leak in different ways. So once, if you've done it, the city

waterway, then you turn on your pump and make sure there's no

leaks at the pump or anything like that coming from the fresh water

tank. If you've only done only using your pump, then it's the same

thing. Just check for those leaks and so forth. Now if your water

pump doesn't turn on, I mean, you don't hear any noise or anything,

it just flat doesn't turn on. It could be a blown fuse, the water

pump could be bad, something's gone wrong. And generally it's a

blown fuse or the pump is bad. Hey, we were just talking about water

pumps. If you gotta buy a new one, buy a good one. If it's, you

know, a fuse, you replace the fuse. But fuses typically don't blow

unless there's a problem. But you know, it might have the water

pump sat and the initial startup might pop that fuse the first

time. But then once the pump starts running, it's got to get primed

so you're going to hear it making more noise. And then you open

up a faucet and as the air starts getting out of the system,

because the pump will introduce air into the system again,

it'll spatter and all that. Then eventually you get all the water

or the air out of the faucets. And sometimes it can take a while.

So you want to get all that out and then the pump will calm down

and it should just turn off after it's satisfied with the pressure

in the system, if it continues to run, you have a water leak, you

have an air leak, you have something going on. The pump could

be failing. The diaphragm inside could have a crack, a split

or something like that. But there's a problem. That pump should

shut off eventually and only come back on when you crack one of

your faucets open. So check that, go through the motions there

and get the pump to stop. Turn on a faucet and it should start back

up again. And you're going to want to do the same thing on the

hot water too. Make sure all that water gets circulating through

the water heater, all the air out of the system. He falling asleep

over there. He really is. You know, we have Steven Spielberg Come

in. Who runs the videos here? And he's dozing off over in the corner.

This is getting bad. Oh, man.

Oh, man.

It's been a long day. Okay. Anyways, these people don't want

to hear all this. That's a pretty simple thing. And I think

a lot of RVers know that drill. But if you're new to it, that

water pump can be a funky little thing sometimes because they

don't work, they don't prime. Sometimes you got to help get water

into it. Getting the air out of the system can take a while, and

it might throw you off thinking you got a real problem there,

but you don't. It's just sometimes it takes, like my rv. It

takes a while to get the air out of the system. It's kind of an

annoyance. Okay, so now we've done that. You've pressure tested

it. You got the air out of the system. There's no leaks anywhere.

You've looked at all the lines, and let's just say there was

a leak. Most water leaks in an RV are easy to fix.

That's good.

Unless you can't reach it.

Oh, yeah.

Because sometimes, in the infinite wisdom of these engineers

that draw these plans, they'll put a fitting someplace where you

got to have an arm that's 25ft long and skinny or a drain valve

or something. I remember one RV we had here. The drain valves

were in the bathroom cabinet, and you had to lay on the floor partially

in the hallway, stick your arm down this cabinet, and you could

barely get to them. So if you had to replace anything, you'd actually

have to take the cabinet apart. Jeez, it's ridiculous. So

that's what I mean, if you can get to it. But normally they're easy

to fix. And most RV stores have the parts in stock. And if you

have one of our water fitting kits that we sell on sunpromfg.com,

then you'd already have the fittings because we got the most

awesome kits there is ready to go.

We do.

Okay, now we're going to move on to step four, having filters for

your rv. Because, you know, you. You do all this work and you

don't want to run bad water through your system. And it happens.

A lot of campgrounds just have sketchy water, horrible water, water

that tastes like sulfur, mud, dirt, all sorts of stuff. And, you

know, even with the filter, some of that stuff might get through.

But if you don't have a filter, let's say I went to a place

and the water Tasted like sulfur. When you get home, you want

to or even when you leave there, if you can, sometime soon,

flush that water out.

Yeah.

Because that'll kind of embed itself into the water heater and

the lines, and it might become a real chore to get rid of it later.

So don't let that happen. That sounds like something Mike would

do.

Yeah.

This water is nasty. I like it.

Gross.

So filters can solve that problem. You should just have a filter

no matter what, especially if you go to RV parks. You never know

what you're going to get. And you can get simple filters that are

in line. Cameco has them. They're blue. They work absolutely

wonderful. And there's other people out there that make some that

claim they're, you know, a million times better than the Camco.

I don't think you'd ever know the difference.

Nope.

So who cares? Just get the Camco ones. You know, you got a decent

filter, they're in line, use it for the season. If you're, you

know, just casually RVing, you throw it away and buy a new one next

year. If you're using your RV a lot, you know, or living in it,

you might be two or three months on it, but, you know, it's

worth the money.

Yeah, I agree.

I'm not going to throw a price out there because they have singles,

they have double packs and so forth. But they're great filters.

And, you know, Volterra makes them, too. Everybody has them.

Yeah.

But, you know, we just kind of wheeled it down to Camco because

it's kind of the best. I shouldn't say the best, but it works

really well. And then if you want to go beyond that, you can get

a single canister, dual canister, triple canister system

where it, you know, you got three filters that the water works

its way through. And it, you know, the first filter gets rid of

all the bigger stuff, the rocks and boulders. The second filter

gets the other kind of stuff. The third filter gets it down to

the nitty gritty, you know, where nothing's getting through there.

None of those dangerous bacterias and whatever.

Yeah.

I don't know those words. Big words, bigger than I can say. So,

you know, filters are reasonably expensive price. So I

kind of like the bigger ones, the canisters, because you can replace

the filter and that's a cheaper way to go over the long haul,

especially if you do a lot of RVing or you go to a lot of crummy

RV parks or place where water is just nasty.

Yeah.

Then it's definitely worth the money. So those are some pretty simple

things to do. And, you know, checking out your water system, now

is the time to do it because, you know, you go through a winter

one season, and it can leave scars in the water system.

Yeah.

And it's always a nightmare when you're out on the road or at

a campground and the water starts leaking, especially someplace

where there's no parts available. Then you're trying to

makeshift something, you know, your kids are screaming at you, dad,

dad, where's the water? You know, so we want to make that so

everybody's the happy rver, the smart, happy rver, right?

That's right.

So it's a great time to do it now. And now if we go back to Mike,

good old Mike. So he actually ended up sanitizing his system and,

you know, that cleaned out the mess. It got it back on track for

him. It took a little bit more than what he wanted to do, but got

the system cleaned out. And there you go. Now he's happy as can

be. So he became the smart rver, but he learned it the hard

way. So we want to be the smarter rver and do it now and stay

ahead of it. So we want to stay ahead of the maintenance and

learn from others mistakes, not ours.

Yeah, that's true.

And sometimes it cost a few bucks to be ahead of it, but it's

well worth it. So again, all this information is going to be on

our website, the smart rver.com/do it yourself articles.

Now, moving right along, that brings us to the next stop. And we're

gonna go to Pennsylvania. Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Yes, we are. Yes, we are.

Now isn't. Okay, so you have Hershey chocolate. Hershey, Pennsylvania,

right?

Yeah, I've always wanted to go there.

Then you have Pennzoil from Pennsylvania. Yeah.

Now you have Allentown with all the Allens.

Yeah, the Allens. All the Allens are there. That's nice. Okay.

All right. So, Alexis, now quit lying to us about the Allens

over there. Why don't you tell us some truth about Allentown, Pennsylvania?

That sounds good. My avid next stop listeners. Here's an ode to

Allentown. Eric, did you know Allentown famously hid the Liberty

Bell in its church during the war to hide it from the. From the

British?

I didn't know that.

How rad is that?

Pretty amazing.

Pretty brave, to be honest. And that's just one of the factoids

that makes this place very unique and very worth traveling to.

They also have a museum that has a collection of over 13,000 art

pieces. I thought that was a lot. That's, I mean that would take

you a whole weekend just to get through, I would think. And they're

pieces from various cultures and different periods of time. So

that's a really extensive museum. Pretty neat. You got to check

it out.

So we could probably get them to display my radio errors on RV

pin. Right.

They would talk to the head, Allen.

Talk to him.

Yeah, curator, he runs that place. All right. They also have

a really, really popular farmers market there that as far

as I could tell was open all year round at the fairgrounds. And

it's open from Thursday to Saturday every weekend. They have

a lot of fresh like ready made food. So if you're looking for like

that locally sourced, really good, probably organic food, that

is a good option. And they have things, I mean they are going

to want, probably, honey, all the good stuff they have at farmers

markets. And of course we always talk about food and this is

no exception. We've got a lot of options for restaurants in Allentown,

Pennsylvania. One very mentionable one is Union and Finch.

I just, I really like that name to start with, but the menu

offers things like really amazing burgers, salads and they

have brunch, hearty brunch on the weekends. So that, that sounds

good to me right now. So this is really an opportunity for Urvers

to get a taste of the local cuisine. And as far as RV parks go,

we've got some top ones really well equipped with lots of amenities.

We've got Allentown, KOA, Quakers Woods Campground and Stony

Brook RV Resort. So a couple options for you RVers out there.

Check them out. So any final thoughts, Eric? Maybe about a certain

service center.

Oh, that's right. You know, I actually had two thoughts. One seems

like a lot of stuff from civil war era and on the east coast has

two names. Was the name of that place to eat something and Finch.

Yeah, seems like they're all like two names.

Union and Finch.

Union and Fence and everything always has a Union in it.

Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Anyway, so that's kind of cool. That reminds that tells

you what, where you're at.

I love it.

So also in Allentown, Pennsylvania there's an RV store

named Stearns rv. So if you're there and you happen to have a problem

with your rv, they have parts and service. They're not a dealership.

Don't say it. It's a good thing, right? So you can trust.

You know I'm not going to say it. Okay. I say it too much. But

anyways, they don't sell RVs. And I emphasize that they don't sell

RVs, but they sell parts and service. And if you go there, talk

to Mark, he's the man. He will help you with any problems you have.

Yeah, just spoke to him the other day. Great guy. So you can

talk to him. There's other places there too. Don't get me wrong.

He's not the only guy in town. Right, but he is someone we've spoke

to and, well, he's there. He's ready to help you.

Great.

And his information will be on our website along with this other

information about the next stop on the smart RV comm. Okay,

so now that takes us to our next place, which is Centralia, Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania. So I like this Centralia. This is a very unique

place.

It is. Truly.

You know, when we were doing this. That sounds familiar. I know.

I've heard about it somewhere in my life.

Okay.

But this kind of is very interesting. So I'm going to read

this story. It's another one we found great grandpappy Popeye

gave to us quite a long time ago in the book of stories. Okay,

alright. So this is about Centralia, the last ember of Centralia.

In the heart of Pennsylvania coal country, Centralia once hummed

with life. Rows of modest homes lined its streets. Kids played

in the yards and miners trudged home with soot stained faces.

But beneath the town, a secret smoldered. Something no one saw coming

to tidy up for Memorial Day, hired volunteers to burn trash in

an old strip mine pit. A routine chore, they thought. But

the fire found a coal seam, a vein of black fuel threading deep

into the earth. It caught and it wouldn't let go. The flames sank

below, out of reach, gnawing at the roots of Centralia like a

hungry ghost. At first, no one panicked. Smoke whisked up through

the cracks in the ground. A curiosity more than a threat. Kids

dared each other to poke sticks into the streaming fissures.

But then the ground grew hot. Basements filled with choking fumes.

A gas station owner found his fuel tank simmering at 172 degrees.

a sinkhole yawned open beneath him. He survived, clinging to roots,

but the town's fate was sealed. The government stepped in,

offering buyouts. Families packed up, leaving toys in the yards

town, its streets empty. Save for the graffiti artists and thrill

seekers drawn to the apocalypse of it all. The fire, though,

didn't care. It kept burning, a slow, relentless beast, fueled

by the cold that could last 250 years. Today, Centralia is a

whisper of what it was. Route 61, once a lifeline lies cracked

and rerouted, its abandoned stretch painted with fading skulls

and curses. A handful of holdouts, five souls as of the last

count, cling to their homes, defiant against the smoke and the

silence. Steam still rises from the hills, curling like spirits

into the gray sky. The church on the ridge, once a beacon, stands

alone, its pews long gone. They say the fire talks if you listen

close. A low hiss, a rumble, a warning. Some swear they've seen

shadows moving in the haze. Miners who never made it out, tethered

to the blaze. Centralia isn't just dying. It's being consumed inch

by inch. A town erased by its own heartbeat. And down below, the

embers glow on patient, eternal waiting for the day. The

last light fades. Wow. What a place.

Right?

That's pretty cool.

It is.

Or interesting Ever. How you want to look at that?

Unlike anything else I've ever read about.

Right? Yeah. I mean, it's like, you know, the coal, just that

thing, you know, normal chore, and all of a sudden your town's on

fire, but you can't put it out.

Nope. Still can't. Still going.

That was crazy. Yeah, but, you know, I like where, you know, the

government stepped in. That's probably where it all went wrong.

That's how it goes in the movies.

Anyway, that's why everybody packed up in the last. We're here.

We can help you. All right, I'm gonna stop on that one. Right?

All right.

All right. So now that's going to bring us to RV envy. And we're

going to talk about water pumps again. So what's really cool

is Eric Cell, who owns a division called Envision. A division

called Envision. Hey, I'm a poet and I don't know it.

Yeah, you are.

Airexcel also makes Suburban and other product lines. Coleman.

Coleman Air Conditioner. So it's a well known company and I think

for the most part, they make really quality products. So they

have this water pump, it's in Vision line, and it looks identical

to a Sureflo pump. You guys can't see this, but I'm holding up

two pumps. Well, unless you're watching this on YouTube. But there's

two water pumps, a Sureflo and an Envision. They look identical.

They do.

I mean, same Size, physical shape, the footprint's the same.

So they go in the same screw holes. If you replace the SureFlow

with the Envision. So the Envision is a three gallon per minute,

which is. But it actually rates it like 3.3 or something like

that. So it's a little higher than what the Sureflo 2.8 is, or

3 gallon. That was 2.8. Now it's 3 gallons. Little better that

way. But what really makes this water pump cool is that it can

freeze. You know, most water pumps, when they freeze, they crack

open. You can't use them. Sometimes they'll survive a freeze,

but, you know, they might die a few weeks later, a month later

or something as you're using it. But the envision can withstand

a freeze. Now, I'm not going to say that you want to go freeze

your RV or let it freeze, you know, just to test it out. But if

you didn't winterize it in time or you caught, got caught off

guard, you're traveling someplace and you know, the cold

weather made your water system freeze, well, you don't have to worry

about it. The thing will thaw out and continue to work. And that's

pretty darn cool. And what's even better is the price is not over

the top. It's actually less than the SureFlow pump, but it's

not so much less that it throws in that category of garbage

water pumps. It doesn't do that. It's still priced as a quality

pump. Good for you out there. If you're interested in one of these

water pumps, we have them on our website, sunpro nfg.com and there'll

be a link to it in the description of this podcast. And

there's going to be a promo code which is freeze. And if you

use that promo code, you'll get 10% off until April 16th. So

you can buy it and try it and you'll absolutely love it and the

price will be reduced. I don't know what the price is right now,

so I'm not throwing out a price, but it's gonna be better than

what you're gonna get it probably anywhere else.

Awesome.

For the same water pump. Apples to apples, right? So now I

think we're all done with water.

All right.

We're all getting kind of tired here talking about water, sick

at water. All right, so now, anyway, so now you guys got some

things to do, some places to go to the website. You can check

things out, save some money today. And I also want to say, you

know, our last episode 173. I mentioned Propane lines and I mentioned

a discount on our SunPro website. And if you went there, I

apologize. We forgot to set that up.

Yeah.

There wasn't a link in the description the podcast. There is

one now. If you went there and there was nothing there, I'm sorry.

And if you want the propane lines we talked about, which are

the ones we make, you can go there right now and get them. We're

going to keep them on there for a while. Just because of that.

Just so you know that we'll actually have a link in the description

of this podcast as well. We'll try to make up for that.

Yeah.

All right, so we had a great episode today. Did you learn anything,

Alexis?

I learned a lot.

Are you smarter now?

I am.

Okay, I think. Too bad the people in Centralia didn't have RV

filled with water that might not have worked.

So sad.

Or a sureflow water pump.

Hey.

All right, so we had a lot of great information today. Like always,

we're trying to make everybody's RVing a much more enjoyable

part of their life to enjoy that RV lifestyle, but doing it smarter

and becoming the smart, smart RVer so you don't have all the problems

and headaches that everybody doesn't listen to this podcast has.

This is the place to learn. So I want to thank everybody for coming

by today, and thanks for listening and sharing the podcast

with all your family, friends, and everybody else you know. We want

to make this podcast the number one in the world for RV smarts.

So this is Eric Stark with the Smart RVer podcast, your go to guide

for the smarter RVing and unforgettable adventures on the open

road. So never stop enjoying the RV life.