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8 tools most Airstreamers should get now

You’ve got a new (or new to you) Airstream—what tools should be first on your list?

I’m going to assume you already have a sewer hose, a hitch, and other obvious things. Let’s talk about the things that you’ll learn you need through experience—without having the painful experiences.

Before I launch into my choices, a few disclaimers:

  1. This is by no means a comprehensive list. There’s probably a hundred more things that I could add. But these are some of the most useful tools and essential upgrades, in my experience.
  2. Not everything on this list is for everyone. Much depends on individual style: minimalist vs. survivalist, glamper or camper, hard-core DIY’er or “I always go to the dealer”. Think about how you travel, where you travel, and what sort of Airstream you have before you rush out to get new gear.

1. A tire changing kit

Your Airstream trailer did not come with a full set of tools needed to change a tire. (This is baffling to me. You get a spare tire, but no way to put it on.)

If you’re thinking that the tools that came with your truck will help, think again. The lug nut wrench probably won’t fit and the other tools won’t be much help when you need to change a tire on your Airstream. You need a dedicated Airstream tire changing kit.

Everybody should know how to change their own tires and carry the tools, even if you don’t actually plan to do it yourself. You may be physically unable to, but if you have the knowledge and you have the tools with you, then at least somebody else can change the tire.

The alternative is calling for roadside assistance, which might seem to be a great solution, but you’ll be sitting by the side of the road for hours, often in a place you do not want to be. Waiting to have someone come to change a tire for you is like waiting for somebody to come dress you in the morning. If you can do it yourself it is so much faster!

It’s not hard to change a tire. You can see the process in the video below, or read about it my book “The (Nearly) Complete Guide to Airstream Maintenance”—and we also include instructions in the Tire Changing Kit we sell in the Airstream Life Store.

We offer a Tire Changing Kit because it’s convenient to have one kit with all the tools in a single carry bag, but if you want to put together your own kit I’ll be just as happy.

The basics are a torque wrench (essential for correctly tightening the lug nuts when you put the wheel back on); a breaker bar (used for removing the wheel); an extension, and a correctly-sized socket. We also include a safety vest for roadside visibility, a pencil gauge to check the air pressure, and a six page instruction manual that explains exactly how to change a tire.

Tip: If you choose to buy all the parts separately, make sure you don’t skimp on the torque wrench. Cheap torque wrenches are not worth the money.

2. A cordless drill

It’s amazing how often I use my cordless drill for things other than drilling holes. On a trailer without powered stabilizer jacks, you can use a cordless drill with a socket adapter like this one, so you don’t have to kneel on your hands and knees in the mud to put your stabilizers up and down.

If you have a Hensley Arrow hitch, an 18 volt cordless drill makes quick work of tightening the strut jacks, and it’s also essential for the Hensley Hitch Helper (aka BAL Tongue Twister) if you have one of those.

I also find myself using the cordless drill to fix things around the Airstream. For example, on a recent trip the bathroom door’s hinge started to pull out of the door frame. With my cordless drill I was able to quickly drill a hole and install an additional screw to secure the hinge again—problem permanently solved in just a few minutes. Without it our trip would have been marred by a bathroom door that wouldn’t close until we got home.

3. A tool bag, with a few choice tools

I’m a big believer that it always pays to have dedicated tools for the Airstream. Not only does it save time, it ensures you always have the right tools in the Airstream on every trip. Don’t borrow tools from the garage for each trip, because you might forget them.

So start with a little tool box or (my preference) a tool bag. Make sure it will fit easily into the exterior storage compartments. Outfit it with the little tools you need most often during a trip, and the little parts that often need replacing.

Start with a few Philips screwdrivers. You can practically disassemble the complete interior of an Airstream with a single Philips screwdriver. You’ll find yourself tightening screws from time to time—they do occasionally work loose during trips. Some blue Loc-Tite will help keep screws from coming loose again or, to fix holes that have gotten too big to hold a screw you can carry a few match sticks and white glue.

Consider adding some of the following: adjustable wrench, pliers, a small “tackle box” for small parts like screws, spare fuses & fuse puller tool, teflon plumbing tape, silicone spray or Boeshield T-9, a few spare aluminum pop rivets in the correct sizes, a good quality rivet tool, sets of screw bits and drill bits for the cordless drill, utility scissors, a small microfiber towel, and some Parbond. Many of these items are in our Maintenance Essentials Kit.

I also like to have a headlamp so I can fix or examine things at night without having to hold a flashlight. A pair of disposable latex gloves can be nice for dirty jobs.

If you might get into little fixes or modifications to the 12 volt wiring system, then I’d add: electrical tape, butt splices, crimping tool, wire stripping tool, and a voltmeter.

If you have a Hensley hitch, I’d recommend a set of Allen wrenches and a grease gun (but you’ll want to keep that in the bumper compartment because it’s big and greasy).

4. A voltage monitor or (preferably) Electrical Management System

A plug-in voltmeter is really simple, and it will do a couple of very handy things. You just plug it into any outlet in your Airstream when you’re plugged into shore power, and it will tell you the voltage that you’ve got available—which is super important. It also verifies that there’s correct wiring at the campsite. It’s quite possible that the electrical pedestal at your campsite has a wiring problem, and that can actually be hazardous to your health.

There’s a reason we need to worry about the voltage coming into our trailers. We know that it’s supposed to be 120 volts, but rarely is it actually exactly 120 volts. Your appliances are going to be fine plus or minus ten percent, so from 108 to 132 volts. Exceed that, and you’re at risk of destroying certain appliances or even starting a fire.

Low voltage is by far the most common problem. An RV air conditioner typically can accept as little as 105 volts, but when you fire it up the compressor in it draws more power momentarily. So even though your voltage meter might shows 108 or 110 volts, you should keep an eye on it as the air conditioner starts up. If the voltage suddenly drops down below 105 for more than a few seconds, it is likely to burn out the motor in your air conditioner and you’ll be facing a big bill to replace the entire unit.

By the way, this can be a risk even if you’re in a fancy campground with shiny new wiring—especially on hot humid days when everybody’s pushing their AC to the max. Low voltage can still be a problem.

The best solution to this problem is an Electrical Management System (EMS, pictured at right). These devices check and monitor the power like a voltmeter but they also take action when something is wrong. If your EMS detects a problem, it will instantly cut the power to save your Airstream or appliances from damage—and it will automatically re-connect when it’s safe.

5. A rivet tool

A rivet tool is a surprisingly easy thing to learn how to use. Basically you just stick a rivet in the hole, hold it tight against the surface, pop the handle of the tool a few times, and the stem of the rivet breaks off when you’re done. It’s as easy as a screwdriver.

Don’t believe me? Check out this short video where Tothie demonstrates it.

Do you really need to travel with a rivet tool? Yes! Those little rivets on the inside of your Airstream break occasionally, especially after traveling a rough road, and there’s no need to haul your Airstream to a dealership just for that simple little repair. Just break out your handy tool and spare rivets, and you can fix the problem in seconds.

Also, someday you’ll lose a belly pan rivet, which is a more pressing problem. It happens because corrosion occurs where the aluminum belly pan and steel frame meet. The result can be a belly pan dragging on the road. If you have a rivet tool, a cordless drill, and the right sized aluminum pop rivets you can be back on the road in minutes.

It’s a no-brainer. There are 4,000-5,000 rivets in the average Airstream. You should be able to replace one of them.

6. MegaHitch lock

Storage facilities are not safe. I hear reports regularly from people who have lost their Airstreams out of supposedly secure RV storage equipped with video cameras. Once, some Airstream friends of mine found out that someone had broken into their stored trailer and thousands of dollars worth of their tools inside were all gone. Management didn’t even know—and it turned out that the videocameras were fakes.

Cheap hitch locks provide zero security. If you spend less than $100 on a lock I guarantee a thief could break it or bypass it within thirty seconds. Thieves can’t break a MegaHitch Coupler Vault PRO.

It’s not cheap, and it is heavy. But it works. If you’re keeping a $40,000-$150,000 Airstream on a storage lot, $200 is not a lot of extra money. You might also check with your insurance company. If you have proof that your trailer was locked with one of these, they may waive the deductible if it does get stolen.

7. Tire pressure monitor

A flat tire can do lot more damage to your trailer than you might think. It doesn’t just go flub-flub-flub as you come to a stop. Often you’ll have no idea that you’ve had a flat because it’s way back there on the trailer as it starts to shred. It rips up your Airstream, destroys the wheel, creates a hazard on the road, and it leaves you with a thousand dollars of damage that could’ve been prevented.

The TST tire pressure monitoring system is also not cheap, but it’s the best. I use it on every tow and it has saved my Airstream more than once.

8. A good water hose

Ultimate water hose from Airstream Life StoreYou can get drinking water hoses everywhere, and they’re usually pretty cheap—about $30. But the ones the RV industry pushes are really pretty bad. They kink, they have thin fittings that bend and leak after a year or so, and they fail regularly. Don’t even think of letting it freeze or get run over by a truck while it’s pressurized; the hose will burst. For these reasons, many people end up buying a new hose every year or so, which is not a good deal in the long run.

I could go on all day about how lame the typical “white hose” is, but instead I’ll just say this: get an Ultimate Water Hose. After years of replacing cheesy Wal-Mart and Camping World hoses, I finally decided to develop a far better one. We guarantee it for 5 years against any type of failure no matter what you do to it (other than cutting it with a knife).

Yes, it costs double what a cheap hose costs. But you won’t need to replace it for a very long time. Mine has been in heavy use since 2017 and I expect to keep using it for many years. If you want to read more about why you should ditch the ordinary water hose, read this blog entry.

What’s boondocking and what do I need to do it?

Every modern Airstream is pretty well set up for living off the grid, for a day or two. But if you want to get away from crowded campgrounds and park somewhere without hookups for more than a weekend—in other words, boondocking—you’ll want to start upgrading your Airstream and your camping practices a bit.

There are three major limitations to your boondocking experience: water, power and propane. (Other considerations are things like food and sewer capacity, but you’ll probably run out of water or power first.)

The best and least-expensive way to extend your boondocking time is to learn how to conserve.  Learn the “navy shower” technique, do less dishwashing or learn to wash very efficiently or use paper plates, replace all lights with LEDs (if they aren’t already), set the furnace temperature lower and sleep with an extra blanket or dog, etc. Conservation takes a little effort and a little practice, but it pays off immediately.

When using the 12 volt batteries you won’t be able to run the air conditioner or microwave, so the remaining big energy consumers are the furnace, water pump, and laptops. Airstream batteries are typically sized with just enough capacity for an overnight or a weekend (if you aren’t running the furnace a lot) because most people don’t use the trailer away from shore power for longer than a night or two.

Once the batteries run out of juice, everything in the trailer goes off: refrigerator (even when running on propane), heat, light, water pressure … even the hitch jack won’t go up or down anymore. So power conservation is important.

To reduce the drain caused by laptops, try using a tablet or your phone instead. An iPad requires about 10-20% of the power of a laptop and can charge quickly from a cigarette lighter plug, instead of requiring an inefficient inverter.  (You can pick up USB cigarette lighter adapters easily if you have an older trailer without USB outlets.) Shorter showers and limited dish washing will also cut power consumption by the water pump.

Carrying a portable solar panel can be very helpful if you like to camp where trees shade the Airstream.  With a solar panel kit and an extension cable you can put the panels in a spot where the sun hits them. Solar isn’t a perfect solution, but it’s silent, free to operate, eco-friendly, and you don’t have to carry gas. With summertime sun, a pair of solar panels can extend your boondocking time by days.

If you find the two batteries supplied with the Airstream aren’t enough, consider going to larger batteries. This will require some custom work, but you’ll get a lot of value out of it.

 

In hot weather, try to spend the day out of the Airstream.  This cuts down the length of time you’ll need the vent fans.  Each vent fan consumes about 2 DC amps, which means three of them running for six hours = 36 amp-hours.  That’s a lot of juice, which is put to better use after sunset when the temperatures start to drop.

In the winter, furnace use is the problem. The furnace eats a lot of power (7-10 amps when running) and it’s fairly wasteful of propane too. A catalytic heater is helpful, since it doesn’t use electricity at all, and is much more efficient at turning propane into heat.

Propane isn’t much of a limitation in the summertime, since a pair of 30-lb. tanks will run the refrigerator and water heater for weeks. But in late fall and winter you’ll want to travel with both propane cylinders as full as possible. You can easily find yourself spending an unexpected night along the road with only your propane supply to keep you warm. With freezing nights a tank of propane can be used up in just a few days.

If you are going to be off grid for a while, get a portable tank to carry fresh water. Serious boondockers will find a place in town or nearby to refill their jerry can or water bottles, and bring a little fresh water back to camp after every excursion. Mark the tank “FRESH WATER ONLY”.

After a few days of boondocking it’s nice to hit a full hookup campground for a night just to get everything back in ship-shape.  The Airstream will inevitably be full of dirt and gravel tracked in from the campsite, and you might be a bit less fresh than you’d like to be (due to careful conservation of water). Plus there may be various electronic devices that you postponed charging, or the laundry basket might be full, and it will probably be time to get some groceries and dump the tanks if there wasn’t a place to do it before.

We find that having a “recovery” day in a full hookup campground is something we enjoy, with long showers and a chance to get everything ship-shape before heading out for more adventure (or home).

Tips on full-time use in the winter

Since it’s winter, it seems like a good time to answer questions about storage.  A reader recently asked about keeping his Airstream hooked up all the time, since he uses it all winter in the Pacific Northwest. He commented:

I built an RV pad on my property with 50amp, water and sewer hookups. I use a thermostatically controlled water hose to avoid that freezing. Trailer is always plugged in with full time heat and dehumidifier running. I do not disconnect the battery, and I use the trailer daily, like a full-timer.

“I do not winterize, but I do not store water in the tanks with the exception of the black which includes a 12v heater i keep on sub freezing days.

“Question is, am I doing this wrong? Are my water lines OK being that the trailer is always heated and on city water hook ups with the heated hose? Should I disconnect my battery via the storage kill switch when hooked up all winter?”

No worries, you’re doing everything right—and you’re lucky to be able to keep your Airstream stored at home with hookups!  Since you live in a mild climate and keep the trailer warm, there’s really no risk of the plumbing freezing and there’s no need to winterize.  The heated water hose you are using will prevent that from freezing up, too.

You definitely should not disconnect the battery if you are using the trailer. The battery provides a valuable function in the 12 volt system and the converter/charger is designed to be connected to a battery when the trailer is plugged in, even if you aren’t actually relying on the battery for power.

Turning on the “kill switch” (battery disconnect) won’t help preserve the battery—quite the opposite, actually. Disconnecting the battery means it won’t get any power from the converter and will slowly self-discharge. The disconnect switch is intended for storage situations when shore power isn’t available to keep the battery charged.

Sometimes people are concerned about the electrolyte (acid) in the battery “boiling off” as a result of a single-stage battery charger being plugged in constantly. The simple fix for this concern is to check the level of electrolyte in the battery every month or two and top it up with distilled water as needed. Take care when doing it, as you don’t want to splash acid on anything, including your skin, and always have some baking soda/water mixture on hand to neutralize a spill.

One thing to be cautious about on a freezing day: don’t try to operate the dump valves if they might be frozen.  You can tear the rubber seals, which will cause the valves to leak forever after.  (In this case, you’d need to replace the valves—a slightly unpleasant task.) It’s best to just wait for warmer temperatures before operating the dump valves.  In a pinch, you could use a hair dryer to warm them up.

You’re smart to run a dehumidifier.  In humid climates like the Pacific NW and the Gulf States it’s important to let the humidity out by opening the windows or running a dehumidifier. Long-term, excessive humidity will damage lots of things in the Airstream and leave unsightly stains on the curtains and walls.

Even in the drier northern states humidity can be a problem in the winter because people tend to keep the windows tightly shut to retain the heat.  Unfortunately humidity from people, animals, cooking, and washing builds up, so if you don’t have a dehumidifier it’s a good practice to keep a window and a roof vent cracked slightly.

How to replace your water heater’s drain plug—and why

One of the most overlooked maintenance items on an RV is the drain plug on the water heater. They don’t last forever, and if you ignore it, the result can be super-annoying later.

Typically the plug gets removed once a year, during winterizing, to drain the water heater. It’s made of nylon, because plastic won’t react with the metal in the tank (a metal plug, even a brass one, can result in corrosion).

Because the nylon is soft and easily damaged, it should be replaced with a fresh one every time it is removed. But sometimes people (even technicians who should know better) will re-use the plug. This is a false economy.

First of all, these plugs are cheap. They tend to be overly expensive when sold as “RV water heater plugs”.  Try a local hardware store instead, and ask for a 1/2″ NPT plastic drain plug with 15/16″ head.  You’ll probably find them at about a buck apiece, versus $3-4 each online or at RV shops. Get a few spares while you’re at it.

Second, when the plastic gets old or worn, the plug will be prone to leaking or—far worse—it can get fragile. Then the head of the plug is likely to break off when you eventually try to remove it. If that happens, you’ll have to find a way to extract the remains of the plug without damaging the aluminum threads of the drain hole, and that’s a real hassle.  (Ask me how I know …)

(By the way, this is why we include a spare drain plug in our “Little Things Kit of Essentials“. It’s one of those little things that most of us never remember to have on hand.)

I think people don’t like to deal with the drain plug because it seems hard to get to.  Certainly it’s not conveniently located on RV water heaters, but it’s actually simple to remove and replace when you know how.  So I’ll tell you.

The main thing is not to try to get at the plug with an adjustable wrench. That’s what everyone tries to do because that’s the tool everyone owns.  But an adjustable wrench won’t reach the plug very well, and you’ll probably end up scraping up your hands on the sharp edges of the vent above.

(See picture at left for an example of how not to do it.)

Instead, three simple tools will make this job so easy you’ll want to do it yourself instead of paying a technician $100/hour to do it for you:

  1. a 15/16″ socket
  2. a ratchet wrench with a drive size that fits the 15/16″ socket (usually 1/2″ drive)
  3. an extension of 5-10″ length in the same drive size

If you have the Airstream Life Tire Changing Kit, you already have the extension and a “breaker bar” that will substitute for the ratchet wrench in a pinch. All you need in that case is a 15/16″ socket (1/2″ drive), which you can get at a hardware store.

Assemble the three tools and use those to easily remove a water heater drain plug in seconds. (Remember, righty-tighty, lefty-loosey.)  Be ready for a gush of water as the plug comes out. A bucket on the ground below the water heater is helpful.  Throw away the old plug so you’re not tempted to reuse it someday.

Installing the new replacement plug is just as easy, with one extra step.  Have some plumber’s tape (aka Teflon tape) on hand to wrap tightly around the threads of the new plug before you begin to thread it in.

Put on three or four full turns of tape, and stretch it tight as you do.  This will make your new plug leak-proof.  You can skip this step but there’s a good chance the plug will ooze or drip water when the heater is on and the tank is pressurized, so I always use the tape.

Start threading the plug by hand, to make sure it’s not cross-threaded.  You should be able to give it a turn or two with your fingers.  Once you’re sure it is going in straight you can switch to the tools to finish tightening it.

Be sure to fill the water heater (run the water in the kitchen on full hot until no more air comes out) before lighting it. Check that the plug is not leaking before you light the heater.  If all seems good, let the heater come to full temperature and double-check that the plug is not leaking.

If it leaks, you may have to remove it entirely and use more plumber’s tape on the threads. Don’t over-tighten the plug, because the plastic threads are soft and it could break.

WARNING: Don’t tighten or remove the plug while the water is hot! There is a possibility you could over-tighten it and cause it to break, which would result in you getting scalded by hot water!

Instead, let the water heater cool first.  The fastest way to cool it is to turn off the heater and run the hot water inside until there’s no hot water left.

If you read online RV forums about water heater problems or winterizing you’ll come across plenty of reports from people who struggle and skin their knuckles trying to replace this little plastic plug. Don’t be one of those people.

With a very modest investment in tools and parts this plug can be removed in literally seconds, and replaced just as quickly.  It should be done at least once a year, even if you don’t winterize, to ensure the plug doesn’t age out, and also to drain sediment that may have accumulated in the water tank.

Do you need a water pressure regulator?

No.

Was that too succinct?

OK, let me expand on that.  If you have an Airstream made in the past four decades, and nobody has removed the built-in water pressure regulator, you don’t need one to protect the plumbing.  That protection is already built in.

Honestly, I’m not sure why other manufacturers don’t build in pressure regulators. They’re not that expensive.  I would never buy a new RV from a company that is too cheap to install a simple water pressure regulator.  But apparently many do, because if you Google “RV water pressure regulator” you’ll find endless discussions about why you need one for Brand X, and all the awful things that could happen if you don’t get one.

Sometimes people suggest using a water pressure regulator to protect the typical vinyl “white water” hose, because it’s still potentially exposed to high water pressure at a campground spigot.  I don’t see the logic in spending anywhere from $9 to $30 to protect a $30 hose. Especially since that hose won’t last more than a couple of years in average use anyway!

Instead, I bought a better hose that won’t ever be damaged by high pressure and will last for many years.  In the long run it makes a lot more sense.

Things can be different for a vintage Airstream in which the plumbing has been replaced (as nearly all have). In this case it’s quite possible that the handyman who did the plumbing neglected to install a decent pressure regulator.  Under really rare circumstances, you could have a plumbing problem as the result of excessively high water pressure.

I say “rare” because the common problem in campgrounds is low water pressure. When we find a campground with high pressure I’m always kind of happy about it, because it means great showers.

Really, a leak in the plumbing is far more likely to be the result of improper installation or winterizing than anything else.  Just a little bit of water left in the wrong spot can result in a leak by springtime. (By the way, PEX is pretty good at resisting damage from freezing, which is one of the reasons the RV industry has gone over to it.)

Still, if you find your Airstream has been “done over” by someone, check to see that a pressure regulator was installed.  It should be very close to the city water fill (on the inside of the trailer), or more likely it’s integrated into the city water fill.

If it looks like the one at left (a Shurflo) then it has pressure regulation built-in, and you’re all set.

Bottom line: you probably don’t need another water pressure regulator.