The Motorhome Is Stored

Today, the motorhome was put away for the winter. It is now residing in Rob and Chantal's spacious back yard in Val Therese until spring. Thanks to both of them for the generous offer of the space.

A couple of weeks ago, I took it into Don't RV for regular roof maintenance, which included cleaning, UV treating, caulk checking and TV antenna gear greasing. This is something that I will eventually learn to do for myself. To make access easier, I had Andrew install a ladder on the back of the unit. The water systems were also drained and winterized with non-toxic anti-freeze and the two house batteries were pulled so I could take them inside and put them on battery tenders. If I had known there was power available at Rob's, I would have left them in place and simply plugged in the shore line to keep them charged.

Everything was removed from the RV and put in the basement at the house. We will decide in the spring just what needs to go back in because we were certainly over equipped this year. We filled the fuel tank and added three cans of Sea Foam, about right for the 55 USG tank. The propane tank had been filled after the last trip.

Today, we hooked up the trailer and drove it out to the Valley. I pulled the tire pressure sensors off the wheels and will replace the batteries before re-installing them in the spring. I taped plastic sheets over the external vents for the fridge, furnace and water heater. I climbed the new ladder and put a cover over the A/C unit. Sandy liberally spread fabric softener sheets throughout the unit to keep rodents at bay. Then Rob hooked up and backed the trailer into the yard and I moved the motorhome back beside it, parking the wheels on sheets of 1/2" plywood. I cracked the roof vents, which are protected by Max-Air covers, to enable the moisture to escape and Rob and I put the tire covers on using the awning pole technique sandy devised last year. The fridge was left open. And we locked it up. All that remains is to pick up a tender for the house battery.

I hope everything is good to go. I see many units stored outside all winter and, barring last year when this one was in Alabama, it was stored the same way. So we'll keep an eye on it and start planning for next season.