I met my wife 34 years ago when we were camping in an "upstate" New York campground. I was on my motorcycle and was staying in a small tent by myself. Theresa and her girlfriend were traveling by car on a long road trip, and pitched their tent in the site next to mine. Theresa made the mistake of offering me some tea she was brewing over their campfire. Two years later, we got married; and two years after that, we bought our first camper.

 

After 30 years of getting campers ready for Summer, you'd think I'd have things down to a science. Not so. I lugged the battery out of the basement (I'm about ready for a technology breakthru that reduces the weight of batteries by 90%), and hooked it up on the front forks. Of course, I managed to make some sparks fly first by getting distracted and touching the negative cable to the positive pole. Then I went inside and lifted the cusions and cover board to get at the hot water heater, water pump, and plumbing hoses. I found myself just staring at things for a couple dumbfounded minutes, because I couldn't see the drain valve. I finally went outside to remind myself where exactly the drain is. That's when I re-realized that this camper doesn't have a drain valve inside. That was our last camper. This one just has a screw-on cap at the end of the drain pipe. While I was out there, I wrapped some plummers thread around the hot water heater plug, and screwed that back in.

 

Back inside, after staring at things a little longer, I twisted all the right valves to redirect water from the pump to the hot water heater and cold water tubing.

 

Everything fired up fine. The water pump ran steadily until the hot water tank finally filled, then it turned off just like it should. I always seem to have to get the propane flowing by opening the stovetop burners for a few seconds after opening the tank valve for the first time. I lit both burners to make sure the propane had reached that far; then I turned on the hot water heater, and I could hear the igniter click a few times before that reasuring sound of flame starting up.

 

I let the water run from all the faucets until the sputtering was over and the water had turned from pink to clear. While I was at it, I tuned on the A/C fan in the hi and lo settings. I didn't start up the refrigerator or A/C, because I didn't want to use the electicity it would have taken just to test them. I did let the hot water heater run about 15 minutes to make sure the water got hot, and all was well.

 

Then I washed the past year off the camper, and applied a coat of Protectall. Scrubbing the roof and rubbing Protectall onto the curved areas was a little tricky; and I needed an IPA assist to muster the nerve for climbing on top of that egg shell. But, it sure did look shiny and all the fiberglass surfaces felt nice and slippery when I was done.

 

We're ready.

 

Sam

After several years of almost killing myself on my 6 foot ladder I realized I could use the railing on my back porch to easily clean and access the roof and curved ends.  A bit of a pain getting the pod in place and then turned around to do the other side, but a heck of a lot safer.  Maybe you have a similar option?