Storing an RV for the winter

With winter fast approaching, many are planning on storing an RV for the off-season. This week, we talk about the most efficient ways to do that and what procedures should be followed so that when spring comes, the RV is ready for the road again.

Our guest on RV Podcast Episode 419 is Master Certified RV Technician Todd Henson. Director of Education for the National RV Training Academy. Also known as “the Beard,” Todd is the lead technical instructor for a very popular home study RV tech training course that teaches everyday RVers how to do basic maintenance and repairs.

In Episode 418, Todd passed along RV Winterizing Tips. We continue with the second part of that conversation - all about storing an RV.

You can watch the video version of the podcast from our RV Lifestyle YouTube Channel in the player below.

If you would rather listen to the audio-only version, you can catch it on your favorite podcast app or by clicking the arrow in the box below.

What's involved in storing an RV during the off-season?

Here's an edited transcript of our interview with Todd Henson:

Mike Wendland:

Todd Henson from the National RV Training Academy is back with us, and Todd, thank you for agreeing to do two of these back-to-back interviews for us. We sure appreciate it. We got the RVs winterized last week and now we're going to put it away. Where do we go from there when we talk about storage?

Todd Henson:

You go south.

Mike Wendland:

Store it in warm weather, yeah. I like that.

Todd Henson:

I mean, that was one method of winterization and storing we didn't talk about, and that's to go south.

Mike Wendland:

Yeah, yeah.

Best Practices for Storing an RV in the winter

Todd Henson:

If you can do that. All right, so first and foremost, I'm from Texas, and so we winterized and then we store it in our yard, but let's go over a lot of the considerations. I mean, we have a large investment sitting in the cold weather, and the one thing we don't want to do is just simply just leave it out there, and in all cases, so let's look at some of the best practices.

So number one is, if it's possible, to store it indoors, right? Store it indoors.

The worst thing that we can do is leave this out in the field by itself, okay, but I know that in some cases, we've got no option, so how do we protect that investment?

Store the RV away from Trees

If you can't store it indoors, I would recommend storing it even outside of trees. I know some people would say, "well, if I sit it next to trees ..." The problem with that is that most trees, of course, they go into winterization mode as well, and that's when we get a lot of foliage that drops, and then of course we get limbs that drop, and guys, most of our roofs are either some type of rubber membrane or PVC membrane and falling objects are not desirable, so, I would recommend storing it in an open air situation.

Our dispersed camping boondocking spot in the Pigeon R...