The lucky ones are packing up and stretching their wings for the annual flight south.  The rest of us are faced with many months of snow, below zero weather, and seeing our RV sitting alone, waiting for the first spring birds to return.

I live in northern Minnesota, and the occasional frost has already arrived.  Within the next few weeks temperatures will be dropping well below freezing every night.  Now is the time to prepare your RV for those cold winter months.  If you wait much longer you’ll have a pretty stiff repair bill next year, as the water system in every RV must be protected from freezing.

Leaking wastewater valves can be just about the nastiest issue you might be faced with as an RV owner. 

The first sign there is a problem will be when you remove the black cap in preparation to drain your waste tanks.  If you're greeted with about a half gallon of waste water as soon as you loosen the sewer cap, then one of your dump valves has lost its ability to contain the water in the tank.

The next step is to determine which of the dump valves is leaking.

Wouldn’t it be nice if all manufactured products never wore out, or failed? 

Unfortunately, in the RV world -- due to weight or cost restrictions, and of course exposure to the elements -- some RV components have a higher failure rate than what you find in the average house.

Many of the following RV repairs can be avoided altogether with proper RV maintenance and storage procedures.