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Accessories / Add ons  we plan on doing this year.

Already installed or in the process:
·    2 over the door towel racks.( 1 for bath towels.. the other for dish towels and cleaning  rags.
·    Pelonis 1500W Ceramic Oscillating Safety Furnace Heater. Saves propane when at 3O amp campgrounds etc.. Very powerful, very light, and very small.
·    Sink strainer (mine didn’t come with one?}
·    Wood sink mounted cutting board. {More counter space and we use a plastic mat over that if actually cutting}
·    Under cabinet paper towel, paper plate, and coffee filter dispensers. Gets the stuff out of the cabinets for more available storage space.
·    Wall mounted spice/utensil rack. I am mounting this with industrial Velcro.
·    Vanity mirror on bathroom door facing out to the living area. Mounting with Industrial Velcro.
·    3-speed Fan-Tastic vent fan in bathroom. We installed this after the 1st outing and it works great for bath venting, living area circulation and… as a stove vent fan!! We hadn’t anticipated that plus!
·    I purchased a usb TV tuner for my laptop. We use the local TV stations for weather forecasts and are addicted to a couple of weekly programs. I use the laptop for my photography… I know, I know.  We’re hopeless. 8-}   ..   BTW, the antennas on the KZ’s are amplified and surprisingly powerful.
·    Propane tank cover… cheap vinyl, but it keeps the tank out of the weather and will last a few years.
·    Barker 22-Gallon RV Tote-Along Portable Holding Tank. Great for toting black and gray water to dump station if full hookups are not available. It has an included hitch devise that allows you to use your tv to pull it to the dump station. We store this in a plastic trash bag and always carry a little Clorox. However this is a very sturdy-secure system.

.    1O gallon plastic potable water jug with spigot. This is from Wally World for $12. This is a good supplement to our water needs. We like to use our home water supply for drinking and cooking if at all possible.
·    We found no need for a load equalizing hitch assembly with the Santa Fe but do use a Reese sway control stabilizer. We are pleased with the towing aspect of the RB and Santa Fe combination. Plenty of power, braking, and stability down the road. We are only getting about 11-13 mpg though.. not that great but OK under the circumstances I guess.
·    2 ea. BAL 5k lb. stabilizing scissor jacks on the front corners.
·    BAL Light Trailer Tire Leveler. It comes with a heavy duty ratchet and is very easy to use. It takes me 3-4 minutes to level and chock the wheels on our RB. Pretty slick. On our 22’ Nash without this device it could be 15-2O minutes of frustration.

Mods we plan to add:
·    Wire shelves in several of the cabinets.
·    Pegboard installed in back side of outside storage area to keep most used tools at hand. The rest we’ll keep in tv .
·    2nd set of speakers for the outside of the RB. Mounted in the outside storage locker.
·    Beefed up rear bumper mounted brackets to carry the portable waste tank.
·    Lightweight plastic tile "surround" cut to size for shower area walls and kitchen are back splash. I’ll use industrial Velcro to secure it and run a bead of silicone caulk for sealing.

·    Someone here suggested small wooden brackets and railing above the window valances. (More storage possibilities!} A good idea that we are going to do also.

·    Digital programmable thermostat for the propane heater..

.    You know the framed, recessed area of all of the wall cabinet doors? We plan on using those areas for my photofraphs or Barb's quilt art . Changing it out as we feel like.

As soon as I get my camera back from my son next week I'll try to post some pics if I can figure out how to do that…

Teaspoon said:

Where do you get  "industrial" velcro? Your Mods sound great ! Keep on posting

Kim

Hi Kim,

I buy it at Home Depot here in Portland but it is now available at many online retailers. Here is Amazon's posting for example:

http://www.amazon.com/Velcro-I…..B00006RSP1

Great stuff for very tough, heavy applications. It's probably overkill for our use in these applications but with the travel vibrations and knocks etc. I just wanted to be sure.

Steve

smilinjohn said:

Steve, will you explain the particulars of a usb tuner for laptop…….sounds like a good mod for my laptop, also.

Thanks, Steve & Barb for sharing mods with us.

While out on our maiden voyage last night, the RV next to us was using a very clever idea for supporting his slinky sewer hose….."expandable dispersing rain downspout trough spillway", for carrying rain water away from a home.  He had his slinky sewer hose supported by the above trough, therefore, a straight down-hill shot to the sewer dump pipe in the ground.  He said he purchased device from Menard's.  I'm gonna get one, too.

John

Hi John,

Here is the one we decided on:

http://www.amazon.com/Hauppaug….._pr_sims_t

This one is about the mid price point of usb tuners and had mostly good reviews at the time.

This unit comes with software that I did load but I decided to use Windows Media Center instead. (Folks reviews stated the included program didn't work that well anyway ) The tuner  works seamlessly  with WMC… pretty slick. The non usb end of the tuner has an antenna jack that you attache your antenna cable (not included) to. That obviously plugs into your RK's antenna jack. Press the power button next to the RK's antenna jack and you are ready to open up WMC and do your TV set up. The set up is pretty much automatic and self prompting and only is required the first time you use the tuner.  The hi def digital picture is great on most channels and in stereo when available. They include a small antenna and a remote control with the tuner also.

We paid $60 at Best Buy.

Have fun out there!

Steve