De-winterizing checklist

Upon further review, I probably shouldn’t give you superpowers equal to my own. The two of you might decide to turn evil and destroy us all! I have enough trouble already battling the “camping gods”.

I can imagine many “Rube Goldberg” contraptions that one could tinker together to lift the mattress. However, they might be a bit too complex and troublesome to make. Since I am not familiar with the layout of the RP171, I’ll proceed forth with the following assumption, based upon what I have read; The water heater is located underneath the mattress - near the corner where the bed and fridge meet and is accessed by removing a (guessing) 2’ X 2’ panel. I am also going to assume that you need to lift the mattress only enough to reach in and turn the bypass valves.

Harkening back to my days working on the rescue squad, among the “tools in our arsenal” were these pneumatic (air) bags that we could inflate, to say, lift a vehicle off of someone pinned underneath. If you go look at your vehicle now, you will find it held off the ground by four circular “air bags”, with about 30psi (+ or -) of air (your tires).

Now, if my assumptions are correct, you could lift the mattress about 10” (+ or -) by obtaining a rubber “inner-tube”; such is on the rear wheels of my lawn tractor. Slip it between the mattress and supporting wood - but not covering the access panel, and then, inflate it. You won’t need anywhere near 30psi to do the job. When you are done, deflate and remove the inner-tube. If additional height is needed, stack 2 inner-tubes. For the sake of safety, you may want to wedge a stiff container between the mattress and wood - should the inner-tubes shift/drop.

So, you can have super powers for the price of a lawn tractor inner-tube! If you would like other ideas, just ask. However, I will not tell you how to make a “repulsar beam”, no matter how many times you ask! (see first paragraph)