RV Central Vacuum Hose Receptacle

Last updated on June 16th, 2016 at 12:47 pm

February 7, 2013 by Marlan at Rv52 Leave a Comment

RV Central Vacuum Hose Receptacle

The RV Central Vacuum system could be one of the sillier ideas in an RV. Its also very easy to implement in an RV – comparatively easier than in a full size sticks and bricks home.

I would only expect such a feature in larger fifth wheels and motorhomes. Also, I would not let this be a factor in your RV buying decision at all.

In the RV basement area, there is usually located a central vacuum unit. Then that vacuum unit is attached to a PVC pipe which then is routed in the sub-flooring to a receptacle like the one shown here. There are also a couple of wires that go with the PVC pipe so that when you plug in the vacuum hose the vacuum unit is turn on.

On one hand, the RV central vac eliminates having to have a vacuum cleaner, which should save space. But you trade out the vacuum cleaner for a very large bunch of hose instead. My guess is that the space savings is a bit of a wash.

One very large advantage to the RV central vac is that when vacuuming, the vacuum unit is OUTSIDE the living space of the RV. I believe, but cannot prove, that it should help in reducing allergens in the RV living space. This is simply not true with a regular vacuum.

You introduce a few additional problems as well such as:

Cleaning the filter requires getting into the RV basement which is an inconvenient thing to do.
Cleaning the filter requires filters – which is a pain. You can get filters on Amazon though (disclosure).

If you are interested in an RV central vacuum system or replacement parts, I listed a few Amazon listings here:

Amazon listings related to rv central vacuum related items:

CLICK HERE IF YOU DO NOT SEE A NICE SET OF AMAZON SEARCH TERMS RELATED TO rv central vacuum BELOW

RV Air Conditioner and Return Vent

Last updated on July 28th, 2018 at 11:28 am

January 31, 2013 by Marlan at Rv52 Leave a Comment

RV Air Conditioner and Return Vent

In another set of articles,

Here is an article about the rv air conditioner and how you could locate it on the external part of the RV
You can see a picture of the roof with the air conditioner clearly showing.
I created a page which is a how to information guide for everything RV air conditioning.
This article shows the air conditioner return vent removed while we were replacing the air conditioner.
Here an air conditioner was acting poorly when the lights turned on.

In this article, you can see a picture from the INSIDE of the RV, looking up at the ceiling, where the rv air conditioner is located along with its return vent.

On almost every RV with an air conditioner, you’ll see a very large rectangular GRID on the ceiling of your RV. Each one of grids is the air conditioner return vent.

Why?

For one reason, it is the direct input to the air conditioner and the return vents are located so that the conditioners can get air. You can’t very well get outside air since the air conditioner has to suck in and cool the air and the outside air would be too hot.

The BIG idea is that you cool air that is already cooler so your air conditioner doesn’t have to work so hard.

Another reason, one of simple physics, is since the air conditioner blows OUT air, it stands to reason that it has to SUCK IN air from somewhere so that it has air to cool and blow out. So that is why you need a air return vent.

Some RV air conditioners will also just blow their chilled or cooled air out from a vent right next to the air return vent.

Ductwork versus Non-Ducted AC units

The advantage to this non-ducted air conditioner configuration is that is is cheap and simple – the RV manufacturer doesn’t have to put in an ductwork. Another advantage is that the air conditioner has to work less since it doesn’t have to push air into ductwork. A disadvantage is that the cool air is located mostly in one spot. Many an afternoon I have spent directly under the vent in our first RV – Puma.

Our second RV, the Open Range 399BHS had ductwork. I would recommend against an RV with ductwork and encourage you to get one that has a straight dump out. In our Open Range, the ducts are very small. These small ducts seem to make it very difficult to route the air efficiently.

With two $20 fans from Walmart you could just as effectively get the cool air where you want it – with the added advantage that air would always be moving on those warm days. Even with our ducted RV, we ended up buying fans anyway.

I thought I would list just a small handful of RV air conditioners from Amazon (disclosure) for your convenience.

More Amazon listings for RV Air Conditioner:

CLICK HERE IF YOU DO NOT SEE A NICE SET OF AMAZON SEARCH TERMS RELATED TO rv air conditioner return vent BELOW

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RV Kitchen Sink and Faucet

Last updated on October 5th, 2014 at 10:36 am

January 28, 2013 by Marlan at Rv52 Leave a Comment

RV Kitchen Sink and Faucet

Most RV’s, even the small camping trailers and truck campers, have a kitchen sink with a small faucet. In fact, the small campers will have a small sink OVER a bathroom if faced with having to make the choice.

These sinks are generally VERY small and designed from a lightweight plastic rather than a heavier material like would be in a sticks and frame house.

The faucets themselves are lightweight BUT they follow standard sizes so you can find replacements at your local Lowes or Home Depot. I know, I’ve replaced a bathroom faucet and the kitchen faucet both.

The hot water comes from the RV’s hot water heater. The input to the hot water heater and the cold water for the kitchen faucet both come from EITHER the fresh water tank or the shore water connection. Most of the time, unless boondocking, your RV will be connected to shore facilities.

The drain for your kitchen faucet then goes to a collection tank which is called the “gray tank”. Its gray because it isn’t clean water and it isn’t from the toilet, called black water. You can’t just dump gray water on the ground for many reasons so you’ll send it to a legal place just like the black water.

I thought I would add a couple of Amazon listings (disclosure) for your convenience here.

[amasearch search=”rv sink”]

RV Home Theater System

Last updated on May 7th, 2019 at 09:09 pm

January 21, 2013 by Marlan at Rv52 8 Comments

RV Home Theater Entertainment System

In our Open Range, we have a RV Home Theater System. This system is kind of neat in that it can drive several speakers in a surround sound system, the speakers that are located outside in the RV basement, and manage a TV input.

In case you missed the key phrase above “surround sound”, the BIG DIFFERENCE between a standard stereo audio system and a home theater system is the surround sound rear left and right speakers.

This system has a CD/DVD player, FM stereo, and has both audio and video controls to be a complete system. In other words, it was made to handle the TV, not just the audio.

Handling video, not just audio, is only for the higher end RV’s. Most RVs, even lower end, in my opinion, have a fairly nice RV Audio System. Also since TVs can handle all the video switching, all you REALLY need to do is to send the TV audio to a good audio system.

…So TIP #1 – I would not worry about handling video.

Usually handling video means switching video between two or more TV inputs. Why? Because TVs have enough of this capability anyway and a home theater system with video is overkill. Additionally, you won’t find very good replacements that manage the video. So repeating TIP #1 – don’t worry about the video portion. Just look for audio systems only.

A fairly nice RV system would be defined by being able to control many speakers (see list below), handle multiple inputs, and be able to be controlled remotely.

For some specialty totally RV focused systems, the RV manufacturers seem to get these specialty systems that are hard to find for the common person for their units. If the system in our Open Range breaks, it would be hard to replace.

However, on a practical note, you can get a good automotive system that might be able to do all that you need.

Jayco travel trailer home theater capabilites

In some ways, a home theater system is too much system for many of us. I’ve put in a much nicer system which handles video better and has bunches of advantages. I’ve also modified my drawing to help people with Sonos speakers.

However, my system doesn’t need a tuner for radio or TV, a DVD, or CD player because I have all that in my system already. All I would need is a surround sound amplifier only. I’ve looked all over but haven’t found one yet.

When you are looking at these systems, your expectations about what to expect should be:

(editor’s note: I changed this list in 2017 to account for things like the “death of the CD”)

Ability to drive primary speakers in living area
Ability to play FM radio stations
Remote control
- Even though an RV is small, you might want to try to find a remote control that does not rely on “line of sight”. Most remote controls DO relay on line of sight using an invisible light technology called “infrared”.
- One example of a remote that does not use infrared is the Kindle Fire TV remote control. I highly recommend this type of control if you can find it.
- What I’m recommending here is a bit of an opposite – who even needs a remote control for their car’s audio system – you are “right there”. RV52 will report more as it finds more.
Bluetooth for music
Ability to play audio via auxiliary stereo input
BONUS for AUDIO
- Ability to play MP3 and other Audio files via USB or CD/DVD player slot
- Ability to accept iPod’s via iPod connector
- Ability to drive outdoor speakers
- Capture weather and NOAA signals
- Capture the time signal from Colorado
- Extra speaker connections for surround sound REAR left and right speakers.
- Extra speaker connection for some form of bass speaker
- Ability to receive Apple Airplay or similar services
Not NEEDED: VIDEO handling
- Ability route HDMI
  - not needed – your TV can do this
  - The only thing your home theater system needs to do is audio (rx and tx)
- Ability to handle over the air and cable inputs (not needed – your TV can do this)
Nice, but this is at odds with minimalist living (See Spartan RV for reducing CD clutter)
- Ability to play a CD (Nice, but honestly, the CD is dead!)
- DVD player (better to get audio from TV outputs tho, so this isn’t that important)
- Blu-Ray (better to get audio from TV outputs tho, so this isn’t that important)
- WiFi control. I’m a big believer in WiFi (See this article)

Typical Audio Connections For Good Stereo Sound

The best input from a TV would be optical if you had enough speakers for a surround sound
Surround sound configuration:
- Front: Left and Right
- Bass speaker: Usually hidden and gives “oompf” to your system.
- Rear: Left and Right
If you have those rear and bass speakers, then pre-wired connections for them would be nice.
The most common audio INPUTS to the stereo will be the RCA plugs with simple left and right.
The most common outputs are terminals that connect directly to speaker wires.

Typical Speaker Types used in an RV

Floor standing: NO! What you WON’T find should be a floor standing speaker. Too much space!

Learn more about RV Speakers on this RV speaker information page.

Flush mount: These are speakers that nearly blend into the wall or ceiling with very little protruding. They are “flush” with the surface. With an RV and its very thin walls you would have to allocate space during manufacturing to really do a great job with flush mounts. After market installation is possible, but much harder as routing wires will be hard. But maybe even more difficult is getting space in the wall for the flush mount.

Surface mount: These are speakers that mount on the surface, rather than inside the wall. These do not have to take much room, so I would think they are the EASIEST after market installation. One more nice thing about surface mount is that you can point them in a direction. Why is direction important? Because by doing this you can optimize the audio experience for a special location in the RV.

Hidden speaker: You will find these more and more as the left and right speakers get smaller and smaller. Really “fills out” the sound. Our Open Range 399BHS had one of these.

Some typical frequently asked questions (FAQ) and answers about RV audio

RV52 will update this occasionally as more things get asked.

I have lots of music on an iPod/iPhone or Android phone. How do I play it on my rv audio system?

There are several techniques.

Technique #1: Use an auxiliary cable plugged into the phone and routed to the auxiliary input on the audio system. This is the single most common input under the sun and the most obvious way to connect. The downsides are that you handle charging separately, lots of wires, and volume control on a per song basis is sometimes odd. The upside is that it is very easy and prevalent.

Technique #2: Some systems have connections to accept iPhone connections. Very hit and miss.

Technique #3: Send it using Airplay or a DLNA technique. Tricky. You gotta be technical. And it will be very Apple or Android centric. Beyond this article to explain.

Technique #4: Get it on a flash drive or SD Card – see next question.

Technique #5: See the question on MP3.

I have one or two funny slots on my RV audio stereo. What the heck are they?

These are usually one of two things:

A USB slot and/or an SD Card slot.

But just knowing that isn’t really the interesting part. If USB, you can simply assume that it is created to put a flash stick into the slot. If SD Card, it is even MORE obvious that the goal is to use the SD Card slot solely for storage.

What would you put on the USB Flash stick or SD Card?

In general the answer would be audio files in UNprotected AAC or MP3 format. You can do some cool things once you go digital: How to create your own custom radio station just for your RV

Great. How do I get audio files in UNprotected AAC or MP3 format?

There are many answers…

Assuming iTunes has no DRM (see DRM in this page) you can highlight songs or a playlist of songs and drag and drop to your USB Flash Stick or SD Card.

For iTunes, if you have CDs, you can “rip” them and you will get all your music on a very convenient iTunes format rather than the space-hogging CDs and worse, their jewel cases.

I’m not a Windows/Android guy so I can’t comment on how to do this on non Apple systems (leave comment below if you are).

Some of my audio files from my iTunes won’t play. Why?

Because you bought them from Apple off of iTunes/iPhone/iPod and didn’t pay the extra $0.30 to get them unprotected.

These files are wrapped in a mathematical/encryption shell called Digital Rights Management (DRM) or Fairplay and cannot be played unless your playback device has the rights to unwrap and remove the shell.

What is the biggest difference between an RV Home Theater or just an entertainment system and a HOME (non-RV) system?

In my humble (no, really, I can be humble) there are three big differences:
Difference 1 : Your home is powered by 120 VAC and your RV is powered by 12 VDC. There are nuances, but really you will want your entertainment system to be powered be DC. The TV – maybe not – but the audio system… why not.

Difference 2: Space. Your RV system needs to be able to be installed in a compact area… like a space in the end of a cabinet. Your home system can be YUGE if you want.

There are other potential differences, but these are the biggest that come to mind.

RV Home Theater System Main Units:

Check out the RV52 RV Parts database!

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