RV Slide outs – How To Information and Videos

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RV Slide outs – Extra living space at the push of a button!

For a really good introductory article on RV slide outs click here!. This article should help you get a better understanding of the slideout and help you enjoy the videos below.

As a quick side note, you’ll see several terms and spellings for what I believe is the same thing:

slide out
slideout
slide-out
tipout
tip out
tip-out

An RV slide out ( remember there are multiple words for this such as – RV slideout ) is a portion of the RV’s square footage that slides in and out of the RV.

When the slide out is slid in, the space is not usable in the RV, but this is how the RV can be transported safely. When the RV is parked and in use, the slide out is slid out freeing up the space inside the RV that the slide out originally used AND then making the extra square footage in the slide out now available.

The RV slideout can make an RV change from being a cramped affair to a very livable portable house. 8 feet wide “feels” very narrow and the slideout solves this problem.

If you assume that the largest RV’s are 40 foot long by 8 feet wide, then the maximum square footage is 320 square feet. But with slide outs, the maximum allowable square footage ( by law ) is 400 square feet. So by using slide outs, you can get an additional 80 square feet.

Eighty square feet may not seem like a lot, but when your available square feet is 320 square feet that is almost a 20 percent increase.

Slide-out Ins and Outs (pun intended)

Slide outs are not perfect. Because of that you might need to learn how to do any of the following :

Unstick a stuck slide out
Extend or Retract a slide out without any power – for example you battery is dead
Work with the slide out seals to get a better seal against the weather
Learn about slide outs in general
Learn about awnings over slideouts
You probably will learn basic slide out stuff like
- When retracting, make sure nothing is inside that is in the way of the slideout ( Sheri and I completely broke a cabinet door off of our RV – twice )
- When extending, make sure someone is outside watching so you don’t ram the slide out into something.

Types of slideouts

There seems to be two major types of slideouts.

Type 1 – Rail Type

Type 1 is the slide out that is mounted on rails or some form of frame which is extended. This is very very similar to how the drawers in your kitchen might work. The drawers have long frames which slide together with ball bearings to make the drawer extension open and close easily. This seems to be the more common mechanism for RV slides.

Type 2 – Cable Type

Type 2 is a very clever type of mechanism where the slide a box that sits on some simple rollers but is kept level and moved in and out by a set of pulleys and cables which keep the slide level as well. It has the virtue of being very compact and very lightweight. Sheri and I had this type in the Open Range and it seemed to work well for us.

The Type 2 is also very easy to operate if something is wrong as the slide motors are usually accessible from the interior of the RV.

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