The day we bought the RV we bought a cover for it - my
idea. The cover cost around $500. A good investment to keep the RV clean and
well protected when it wasn’t being used; well worth it to extend the life of
our new second home. It was a
no-brainer. In spite of that, for the
better part of a year I found reasons not to put the cover on. “We’ll be coming back in a month. No sense
putting it on if we’re just going to take it off so soon.” “It’s springtime. There won’t be any leaves
falling on it.” A couple of weeks ago I
ran out of excuses. It’s fall. The
leaves are falling. And we won’t be
going back to the RV until March - time to suck it up.
Putting the cover on wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be
– it was much worse. This is not a
little tarp. It has to cover a pretty
big vehicle. I did a quick calculation
and the cover measures around 1400 square feet!
Just laying it out on the ground was a pain in the butt. It didn’t help that the instructions were
pretty useless. There were straps and
rings and strings all over the place with hardly an explanation as to what
connects to what. The instructions did go into great detail about getting a line under the rig from one side to the
other. Check this out…
“Tie an end of the supplied rope onto one of the D-rings along the bottom hem. Put a small rock into the provided toss bag, close the top and tie the free end of the rope to the bag D-ring. Now toss the bag and rope under your 5th wheel to the D-ring on the opposite side. Take the rope off the bag and, allowing enough to make a knot, cut it off and tie it to the D-ring. Repeat with the other D-rings. To keep the rope ends from fraying you can carefully melt the ends with a match or lighter.”
“Tie an end of the supplied rope onto one of the D-rings along the bottom hem. Put a small rock into the provided toss bag, close the top and tie the free end of the rope to the bag D-ring. Now toss the bag and rope under your 5th wheel to the D-ring on the opposite side. Take the rope off the bag and, allowing enough to make a knot, cut it off and tie it to the D-ring. Repeat with the other D-rings. To keep the rope ends from fraying you can carefully melt the ends with a match or lighter.”
Compare that with the instruction on how to get the cover to
fit properly around the nose of the rig.
“Locate the hook and loop straps on the upper parts of the flaps that
fold in under the nose of your 5th wheel. Adjust them to fit your cover to the exact
length of the nose of your 5th wheel.” How do I locate the right parts? Like I said, there were straps and rings and
strings all over the place – especially on the nose. And adjust them how? How about a couple of pictures?
After a couple of hours I got the cover on. I doubt seriously if it’s on right. But the rig is covered. Hopefully the cover will stay on until
March. Then I’ll have the unenviable task
of taking it off and folding it up - should be fun.
-Bill
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