Preparing Your RV For Winter Storage

Ah the life of owning an RV.  It is an exciting one for sure and offers so many amazing opportunities.  We have an RV but we no longer move it.  It is parked at a resort campground and stays at that location year round.  The result is that it really is our home away from home.  Everything you could want in a summer home – we have with our RV.  I really enjoy the life of not having to pack and unpack all the time – for the most part.

Here are some things I didn’t know about or hadn’t considered when we first bought our RV.

• In theory we aren’t packing things and unpacking all the time.  In reality, we spend a good hour or more unpacking when we get to the campground and probably two hours packing up when we are ready to leave.  We camp mostly on weekends so we don’t leave everything out at our site when we are gone during the week.  We find having a generator is extremely helpful and this is where you can find the Best RV generator.
• We bought a really nice RV because we thought we needed all the amenities.  In reality we spend all our time outside and really only use the camper to sleep in.  We watch TV outside, cook outside and do all activities outside.  Even when we are working on our computers – outside…
• Even when a campground says it offers internet access – yeah don’t count on it.  Factors that come into play are remote locations, full campgrounds which can’t support the high usage, and blackout areas in the campground.  In our case I really have to sit by the pool to have internet access.  That sounds ideal but sometimes I just want to hang out by the campfire.
• You can’t just “close” up the RV at the end of the season – for the Winter…

Preparing Your RV For Winter Storage – NOTE – everyone has a different process but this is ours

• All blankets, pillows and stuffed animals are placed in very heavy duty plastic bags.
• Any feather beds or thin mattresses (like the kids bunk bed pads) we roll up and place in thick plastic bags.
• FOOD – all has to go.  Naturally anything non perishable needs to come home or be thrown out.  But one year we left canned goods there as well as unopened bottled/jar items.  That was a mistake – yes we learn from them.  The glass jars and bottles all broke open from freezing.
• Bag up all silverware.  We could bag up dishes but we just wash them when the new season starts.  If you have room for storage totes, then putting dishes in the totes would be ideal.
• Empty the refrigerator and freezer.  We then let it dry out and wipe it clean.  We also leave the doors open for the winter – one year we didn’t leave it open and we came back to huge amounts of mold in the refrigerator.
• Remove propane tanks – we bring ours home and store them for the Winter.
• Some people put covers on their camper – we haven’t ever done that since they are so expensive.  Maybe someday.
• Leave your camper in a location that offers pest control services and/or Pocomos pest control software.
• Do what you can to keeps pests at bay in your own RV.  For us we have had some success with placing cotton balls soaked in Peppermint Oil throughout the RV; Bounce dryer sheets (must be Bounce – not any other brand) throughout the RV; we cut up bars of Irish Spring soap and place throughout the RV; and lastly – we put mothballs UNDER (not in) the RV.  Remember if you put mothballs in your RV you will never get the smell out – EVER!