From RV Fire to Fix: Matthew Putman of Strain Guard on Preventing RV Power Cord Meltdowns | Community Spotlight

SPEAKER_00 0:04

So full-time RVing, sometimes you have to be a little different. And so this week we have a community spotlight with Matthew Putnam. He's done a lot of things on the road, but let's start with his RV journey because that's why we all started this lifestyle, right? Is there's a journey somewhere in this equation. So welcome Matthew to the show. Thank you. I'd love to dive into like when did you go on the road? Are you full-time, part-time? Sometimes do you go back to a sticks and bricks? How does that work for you guys?

SPEAKER_02 0:30

In 2013, I got injured and it's about two years laid up. I was permanently disabled at that point. So starting in 2015, we did seasonal camping for about four years. Then we started travel camping and really love doing it. We still go home quite a bit. Last year we had tamper issues, so we didn't get much camping in. And this year, I'm we won't be able to start till after towards the end of July because I have prior commitments because I'm trying to get the strain guard business going. So that's taking some time until the end of summer.

SPEAKER_00 0:59

Well, I feel like they don't tell you what a business does to your travel schedule, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:04

Between that and had some lousy RV repair work done, I had to fight to get it fixed and done right. We got it. We're moving forward, so that's the good thing. So, what kind of RV do you travel in? We currently use, we own two, but the one that we travel in is a 2022 Puma Unleashed Fifth Wheel Toy Hauler. She's 40 foot long, one slide out, and the three of us, myself, my wife Valerie, and our dog Bella, go in it. Last year we got some down around in Indiana and Kentucky, Ohio border. And then we went to a Navy warfare center, spent a week with some friends on base. We like it. It's a nice, comfortable, it's homey, it's not pretentious.

SPEAKER_00 1:43

Yeah, actually, today I'm recording in a spot I don't usually record from. I'm actually in my living room. My husband's away on a business trip. And so normally I'm stuck in the bedroom with a sheet behind me, where actually today I have a pillow behind me. And so people don't know. If you're not watching, you don't know that my location in the RV changes when I record. I have been known to record outside, but we are currently in Texas, and it is hotter than a wet noodle out there. Literally, you turn into one. It's brutal here right now. I am recording inside in the air conditioning that is maybe not even quite keeping up.

SPEAKER_02 2:14

I'll be down there the 17th of July.

SPEAKER_00 2:17

Oh, wow. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 2:18

I'm going to Texas INM for eight days.

SPEAKER_00 2:21

Nice. Well, we we have a full rally schedule, you know, for RV roofing solutions. And so that means that we're on the road more than half the year just for the business. That doesn't mean that it's fun. And so when we first started in 2013, we hit the road full time with six out of seven of our kids, and it was kind of crazy. My husband retired from the Marine Corps, and we thought, this is the best it's going to be, right? We bought and created businesses in the industry, and that that's kind of what you're doing too. But I don't think you realize how busy that's going to get you.

SPEAKER_02 2:48

It wasn't so much that we wanted a business, it was we found a very big hole in RV means. We were camping and our camper suffered of an electrical failure. And my father was a master RV technician. So my RV goes all the way back to when I was a child. And then when he became a master RV technician, he'd go, Oh, my knees are bad, oh my eyes are bad. And you'd I became my knees and eyes. So I learned a lot from him. But so we had this power failure and I was troubleshooting. I had the power box out of the wall, and I was looking inside the wall, and I could see the power inlet connector, and it was on fire. I jumped up, yelled at my wife, said, We're on fire. I ran out the door and got the fire out. And we found out that the heavy cable straining at the connection where the inlet comes in on the detachable cables, there's nothing there to support that connector. So all that strain wears down that connection and that generates heat. Heat leads to the meltdowns, electrical shorts, and fires. And we spent two years looking for a solution to prevent it. And there wasn't any. So my wife finally looked at me. She says, Go out to your shop and build something. Very first thing I came in with, she says, Oh heck no, that's not going on my camper, redo it, and gave me specs. So now we have this is a pre-production model of the strain guard device. This is for a 50 amp tapered cable connector. And all it does is it comes up under the cable, lifts up a little bit, the way to push it down and hold it right into place against the side of the camper. We put Velcro on it, but you really don't need it. On our website at StrainGuard.com, you can see a picture of it being held in place just by the cable weight.

SPEAKER_00 4:20

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_02 4:21

That's showing that it's eliminating the strain on that connection. Just as we really got traction, we finally discovered one product out there that's doing it. They have a fabulous product. I'm not gonna knock them. They are. They have a great product. It's called Smart Plug, but it's $700. Their cable, a 50-amp cable, is $500. I'm not, I don't know about a lot of people. That's just not me.

SPEAKER_00 4:41

Well, I mean, I think that I think that this community as a whole needs, you know, both a high-end solution and a budget-friendly solution because everybody needs to be safe. Like ultimately, at the end of the day, if you can't afford this five to seven hundred dollar piece of equipment, as long as they're not doing a disservice with another product, and yours is a quality product, and you've put a lot of time, effort, and thought into it, and I'm sure tons of testing, you know, the reality is aftermarket products are often just as good. I own a nationwide aftermarket roofing company, and everybody says, well, it's not the same as a membrane. You're right, it's not. It's in a lot of cases better. And my option, while it's still expensive in the grand scheme of things, it is more affordable than an $18,000 roof. Like that's kind of how I'm looking at this in terms of comparison for you, is you know, your product is a product that pretty much anybody could afford to buy and put on their camper to protect themselves from that issue. As you are holding it up, and our our audience is just listening to the podcast, you know, the YouTube audience can see you holding it up. The way that works in my head, and I'm just, you know, I don't have mine yet. You know, I've got one ordered from you. When you when it comes up into that, it just holds that edge so that it's not bending too far. Because electric currents, like my husband always says, my husband's got an electric electronics background, so he rolls up all his cords, you know. We don't we don't tie them in knots, we don't let them cover cover. So, I mean, like, let's talk about the importance of electricity and how that works. Because I mean, obviously, you've had to have learned a ton about why it's doing what it's doing when you don't have that on.

SPEAKER_02 6:13

Well, my background, when I was in the Navy, I was a fire control, computer electronics, and electrical technician. So when I grew up doing it, and then after I've gotten out of the Navy, I proceeded to keep doing these things. So when I looked at the parts and the burned components that you'll see on our website, those are the components from my camper that it it didn't occur in the Puma, it occurred on my 2017 Jacob. But those are the components in the power cord of how bad it melted down. We saved the camper and all that. But I was able to understand that, and I've always known that when you pull out a connector connection, you make it weaken. And once you weaken an electrical connection, it generates that heat. And it's a continuous evolution. The more heat it builds, the worse the connection gets, so it builds more. So you have to do something to support that cable to maintain that connectivity so that it doesn't get pulled and dragged on. And you eliminate that straight. And all we're doing is cradling it, holding it perpendicular so that there's no stress on the connection. You'll still have to keep an eye on your contacts, and we're we can't cover what happens at the pet, you know, at the campsite power, because there's no way we can come up with something because there's no regulation on how high, how, but it's too hard.

SPEAKER_00 7:21

Well, I mean, the reality is is they should be using something like a watchdog at the pedestal, anyways, just to make sure that your power is being filtered, especially because campgrounds, I think a lot of people don't even realize not all campgrounds are new, and certainly not all power is new. And so a lot of times the power that's coming out of there is 30 years old and it hasn't been upgraded. When campers first got on the scene, we weren't all 50 amp campers with two a or three air conditioners. I had an issue last night and everything went haywire. My lights went a little wonky last night, and my my watchdog shut everything down, and I knew it was gonna happen because it flickered, and you know, there's some kind of telltale signs. Usually my water heater goes off first when that happens, when I know it's going down. And so it beeped, and I was like, but we're in Texas, and it's a million degrees of humidity here right now, and everybody's power pedesters are probably hot. Everything shut down. I gave it a couple minutes. Our watchdog's gonna like cycle that and it's gonna do all the checks before it turns back on. I think there's some things we have to do just as RVers to make ourselves smarter and better equipped, you know. And your product does that to a certain degree because you're being proactive about that maintenance side of things. Also, not using an old power cord. I'm guessing there's some value in that. And again, power cords are expensive. Do you know how often we should be changing out those power cords?

SPEAKER_02 8:37

I actually read that they suggested every two to five years, depending on usage. One of the things we learned in doing our discovery and talking to customers, is another failure point on power cables, is where the molded connector meets the cable. Right at that scene, the constant bow, it bends out and breaks apart, and people are having to replace their cables because of that. And we found out by sending a strain guard to a customer that this last half of this, where it goes past the connection point and supports the cable itself, we're extending the life of the cable by doing that. So we we were really pleased to see that happen. And that was a very inadvertent, something we didn't design into it initially, but we we realized that that's another benefit that we can offer.

SPEAKER_01 9:21

Yeah, happy accidents are always good.

SPEAKER_02 9:23

Good accidents, yes. The other thing we did is we went to uh soft start systems to try to reduce some of the ampereids. Let's be honest, there's gonna be more and more power needed to RVs in the future because there's more and more demands. I mean, they're getting I I'm seeing not 47, 48 feet long. You could buy at Camping World or someplace. And I'm like, I don't even know they got the campgrounds to support that yet.

SPEAKER_00 9:45

I think a lot of people don't even think that through in terms of like if you're going to Maine in the summertime, I have a 42-foot camper. We don't fit everywhere. And so you have to be very intentional about where you're staying and how you're booking those reservations. And a lot of people, I actually have work camped a couple times. We work camped in West Yellowstone one summer in 2022. I can't tell you how many people lie about the length of their rig. And then they get there and they're like, oh, well, you have to fit me because I paid my deposit. Actually, campgrounds don't have to let you in if you're lying and you're saying you're 36 feet and they're giving you a 37-foot site or a 38-foot site and you're 42 feet long and now you're hanging in their road. They can actually turn you away. Power pedestals are no different. You know, a lot of people will book, you know, a 30 amp site with a 50 amp unit say and then get there and say, Well, you know, I told you I was 50 amp. Most reservation systems now are actually making you take that information. That's not necessarily true either. So let's talk about step-down units. You know, when I get to a site that is only 30 amp and I use that, I call it a step-down, I don't know what it's actually called. My husband handles most of the electricity in the household. That little dongle that goes from 50 to 30 amp, that puts extra pressure on the system. So I'm sure that having the strain guard there helps that too, because you know, you you're not taking and twisting. Basically, does the power that's coming out of there, does it get pinched in some way?

SPEAKER_02 11:02

A 50 amp connection is two 30 amp legs, basically. Two hot wires, same amperage, 25, but they can go through a 30 amp breaker, so it can go up to 30, believe it or not. And when you do the step down, all you're doing is you're stopping one leg from coming through. So you're now running with only one leg instead of two. The problem that can stem from that is if you have a high current pull, like if you're running your microwave, your coffee maker, and your AC compressor kicks in, that's a hard draw. Those are the draws that generate a lot of heat. The more current also generates heat. You don't want to exceed it. For us, what we do to reduce that is we went with soft starts to a device called ActiveSmart and it plugs in, it replaces the hues. It does the same thing as the Hughes former, except it provides soft starts. It has reduced my current needs into my camper drastically. I don't have the flicker when the compressor, when the ACs kick, I don't have any of that. That is gonna help reduce heat through your connections because you're not drawing as heavy a current. The larger the current is going to generate more heat. So if you reduce the current, you're gonna reduce heat. And by maintaining having strain guard maintain the electrical connection of the connector on the inlet connection on the side of the camper, and maintaining a good connection there, now you've eliminated the heat there in two ways. Because you've reduced the current with that one device, and then you secure the connector and you eliminate the strain that creates poor connections on there. Because I know for us, the biggest thing was is after we got the fire out and I knew, you know, the sick camper was safe, my dog and my wife were safe. Sorry, I said it in that order, but my wife will laugh. But no, once I knew everyone was safe, I looked at my wife and go, what would have happened if we'd have been out? And Bella would have been home alone. What if it had been happened when we're in the middle of the night? Let's be honest. How many power boxes sit almost directly across from a door? If you have an electrical fire there, are you gonna be able to make it out the door?

SPEAKER_00 12:52

We were actually in a campground several years ago where uh someone's camper caught on fire. It was the AC unit, and it was like we heard a big boom. We thought it was actually like the transformer, but none of our power went out. My kids were up watching a movie. It was like one o'clock in the morning, they were just finishing it up. They looked out their window and they were like, Mom, that camper's on fire. And so my husband Frank raced out the door. Like, I woke him up, said fire. He I I didn't said fire. He had he had thrown flip-flops on, put his shirt on, and was out the door in that amount of time. Just because, you know, I think the Marine Corps, the adrenaline, all the things that you guys are trained to do in the military just kind of kicks in in that situation. He was over there. I called 911. He was disconnecting propane tanks. That was his first thought was disconnect the propane tanks. The roof's on fire. It's getting worse, it's not getting better. We know that if we can get the propane tanks off it, we were in a campground. So they were, they were, we were right, like we were one row over from them, but there were campers on each side of this unit. That type of thing, middle of summer. It was also in Texas. So summertime heat was a very real thing. And I one of the things I try to do is I try to run my washing machine at nighttime, not because I love how it shakes the house at night, but because I know that it's better, it's better at nighttime because the house is cooler. The AC is not kicking on as frequently in the summertime, that sort of thing. In the winter, a lot of times I'll run it during the day just because the sun is out and I know that I don't have to heat the house. You have to be mindful of all that power draw. This isn't a standard house. You're gonna pop breakers and your GFCI can pop the whole world off half the world off. Your computer system can get shut down because of a power draw. It's not good for your electronics overall. We're full time. I have some amenities that maybe other people that are traveling in a camper don't have. I have a washer and dryer combo on board. I have a dishwasher, I have a regular fridge, and we put a house fridge in our camper. All of those things are definite draws on top of my AC. That means that I have to be super mindful of that. So that's where I see, you know, your product being so different, is it's not gonna stop the power, but it's definitely gonna support it. Fire is scary. Things can happen in the blink of an eye. You're very fortunate that you got out of it, but at the same time, that you had the wherewithal to create something out of that experience. Because a lot of people wouldn't.

SPEAKER_02 15:00

I grew up in a service family. My father, like I told you, he was he worked at Kellogg's as a powerhouse engineer. Plus, we grew up running a heating and cooling business. So from 10 on, I was doing no heats in the middle of winter. So we did service and we helped people. When this happened to us, and then we found there was no solution and we created Strain Guard. We could have very easily just made it for our camper and walked away, called it good. But I love camping. I love RVN. I want to see more people get into the lifestyle. I think it's one of the best lifestyles there is. The last thing I'd ever want is someone to have what happened to me, but only worse. My wife and I, we talked about it and we said, well, we were retired, but we decided to do this, and we're gonna do it. We know we have a plan, but we think it's worth it because personally I'm upset with the RV industry. One in four electrical failures in an RV come from a power cord meltdown, whether at the power pad in the campground end or at the connection point on the campus. One in four. Why has the RV industry, now, like I said, I can't take away any of the issues that may happen at the power pad end. Campground? I can only address where the connector meets on the campus. And that was very upsetting for me because the RV industry should address it. I know I'm not the first person it's happened to because I've talked to them. I had one tell me, they go, well, well, we we put our plug into the wrong amperage. We put it into 50 instead of 30. And then swore that's why everything melted down when I informed them that that was impossible to do because of the way the plugs are made. And then the realization hit them that what I had been talking about, because they're friends and family kind of thing, I explained it to them and I showed them, and they're like, the realization hit them that no, this happened to them. The cost was excessive and they did all the repairs themselves, but it cost them, I think, around $300, $400. So they're like, if we pay under $100 for something, we're ahead of the game no matter what.

SPEAKER_00 16:53

I feel like that about a lot of aftermarket things in the industry, though. I think there's a lot of great inventions out there that are definitely aftermarket that improve the quality of what you're doing. My friend Daryl has the Waco AC silencer. So the first year, my husband would take phone calls in our bedroom and he would shut the AC off because it was so loud because he couldn't hear. And so I bought one. Fortunately, with your product, you'd only have to buy one. But Daryl said to me, Oh, you'll be back tomorrow. And I was like, I will not be back tomorrow. And he's like, No, no, you'll be back tomorrow. But it pushed everything through the ducting the way it was always supposed to go through the ducting. It did so much more than just keep your AC quieter. I think there's so many aftermarket upgrades, and I'm gonna call them upgrades, that come with a situation like that. You can actually benefit your RV with those upgrades. It's not like you're it's not like it's you know just throwing money away. I'm sure there's some that are. Most of the vendors that I know put a lot of thought and heart into the products they're building for this industry. I think that's why we keep showing up because again, you just said it, you're retired. I mean, unless you needed something to do, you know, starting a business in the RV industry is not for the faint of heart.

SPEAKER_02 17:57

We came up with it and filed our patent, and I have spent all of last year and so far all of this year, mainly in school, learning to operate a business successfully and getting to know people to help us grow the business to get the product out there. We're now just waiting to hear from we want a grant and we're waiting on the contract, and then that'll put us into production with production units. So we're really excited about that, and we're also getting ready to have a 30 amp model come out so that it'll support the tapered 30 amp. What we're doing to get started is we're choosing the connectors that are the most prevalent. Those are the ones we're putting product out for first because molds for injection molding is very expensive. So we're we're trying to get that so we can get it out there, educate the consumers, let people know about it, because honestly, I never thought about it until we had the fire. But once I had the fire and I sat and I started looking at it, and you go, when you put the cable on and you see that drop a little bit, that's the weight. That's that's the strain on that connection.

SPEAKER_00 18:57

And those cables are heavy. Like if you've never gone and picked up your electric cable, I would tell you to go pick up your electric cable to your rig because you need to know how heavy that cable is.

SPEAKER_02 19:06

I will say this, and I want to be honest, I'm I'm not out to make money off a snake one. Our product is currently with Western Michigan University with their engineering seniors. We are a senior project forum, and they're doing testing from load bearing, how much it's taking and absorbing, how much support it's given to the connection, things like that. And they're gonna go through and they're gonna do material recommendations, all sorts of, you know, whatever we can get from engineers. We're trying to make sure that we get a quality product. That's one of the reasons we've been slow getting to production, is we wanted some of that feedback.

SPEAKER_00 19:42

Well, you know, I don't want to rip the product. The race was slow and steady. Well, if you go back to the rabbit and the hare, the turtle did just fine with a slow and steady race. They they made it through to the end. Learn to RV's been around since 2016, so 10 years this year. A lot of people didn't know we were here. We started a podcast a year ago. We've definitely grown and it's been slow and steady. I wouldn't say we're growing by exponential leaps and bounds, but we're growing every single week. And I think that that's what you have to look at with any type of product in this industry is can you maintain the time test essentially, what that looks like for the product and for you guys? You don't want to put something through production faster than you should be either, because then there's going to be errors and you want to be on the front side of that. You know, so let's talk about quality builds because obviously you're doing that. You've got engineers on board, you're getting backing to go into production. What does that look like for you? If you were had a like an ideal client right now, what is your dream? Is your dream to be like a vendor at Hershey or Tampa? Or are you more like want to get this in in every, you know, camper's in and camping world?

SPEAKER_02 20:42

Because the R Ver in me wants to go to all the RV shows because I can work, but I can go play and look. And I love looking at motor coaches. That's that's my that's my dream to purchase as a motor coach, diesel pusher, because that's what my dad had. No, we want to go to we want to do RV shows because that's where we can talk to the consumers, the RVer. And we can talk to people like you who can get the word out and again help educate. Like I said, I I'm kind of disappointed. The RV industry hasn't made this more well known, and they haven't done anything yet to try to protect RVers. And I don't know why. I don't want to sound cynical. I'll let everybody draw their own conclusions. I mean, $200 an hour in a dealership or an RV service guy plus all the parts, it adds up fast. And if you get an electrical short that goes inside and does damage to interior components, that's even more hours troubleshooting and more repair costs. We want the education, and that's how we're starting out slowly. We're actually, once we get this production run started, we're gonna start going to campgrounds in the area and getting some orders through that way to start educating and then showing the dealerships, yes, this is what we need to do, and this needs to be in your I I call it the package of everything you gotta buy now that you bought a camper, all the things you didn't know you needed, the slinky slanky, the tire chocks, all those things. Put it in something like that to help protect them right from day one. Let's educate the community so they understand.

SPEAKER_00 22:06

Well, and that's the heart behind Learn to RV is you know, I tell people all the time, Learn to RV is about way much, way more than just one person or just me. We bring on writers, we bring on, we're not paying anybody yet. Like at some point, we hope to be a media mogul that will be able to bring all that on. But at this time, it's I'm just one person. My co-host Tasha is just one person. And so she and I produce like the podcast and we have a marketing team behind the scenes. But other than that, it's just us doing our thing. I need more than that. So we have people that come on and they write articles for us or they produce videos for us. I think that there isn't one entity that isn't like this is mine. I don't think learn to RV, yes, I want it to be mine to a degree, but I want it to be yours too. And and I don't know how to explain that to you, other than to say, I don't want it to be a situation where there's gatekeeping. I want it to be a situation where when there's something new, you guys want to come to learn to RV and say, hey, I've got this new idea. Somebody said to me at a show a couple of years ago, I don't need learn to RV, I already do it. But you don't know everything that is there out there. So I think that there's something for everybody in Learn to RV. It doesn't mean that you're brand new at this. It doesn't mean that you haven't been doing it for 20 years. You could still find this amazing innovative product like StrainGuard and say, hey, I want to share this. And so that's kind of the heart behind it. We're glad to have you for sure.

SPEAKER_02 23:18

Well, we're glad to have you because people like you are so important to the industry, and you brought up something I I completely agree with you on. We need people that are educating RVers, whether brand new to it or been doing it their whole life. The first thing you got to accept is you don't know what you don't know. A lot of people don't like that phrase, but it's the truth. And I mean I've spent all this time doing schooling and classes for business, and I'm doing another one starting next week through the almost the end of July. Why? Because I don't know what I don't know, and I'm gonna learn. But by learning, then I can maybe help somebody so we can talk to you and then you put the word out, like you're allowing us to do with Strangard, and we're grateful because, like I've said, the power needs on these campers has drawn and grown so much exponentially since probably 2000. You know, I remember my dad having a 36-foot motorhome diesel pusher was 30 amp in the 90s.

SPEAKER_00 24:08

People don't realize that those only had one AC on them, though. We do roofs from 1990s still. So I mean they're still great units, especially those diesel pushers. But people don't realize that there aren't two ACs on a lot of them.

SPEAKER_02 24:18

And it's the more the power and all that, and the heavier these cables are gonna get, and the more problems are gonna happen. And like I said, the statistic of one in four electrical failures is from a cable meltdown, whether it'd be at the outer pad or at the camper connection. It's scary that there's been no addressing it. Now we've got ourselves where our product is patent pending, and we've created it so that we can license the intellectual property so that hopefully we can get the Camco or one of the big major cable makers to license our patent, integrate it right into the cable connector. So now the consumer, the camper, only has one product. You don't have to sit and screw your thing on, then put our product in. You have one, and that's where we're hoping to go with this is we want to integrate it into the cables so that when you buy your cables, it's already there. And jump street. That's that's where we're working to get to. We got a long way to go to get there. But I think we're gaining a lot of traction this year. We've gotten a lot of uh positive feedback. The students at Western Michigan have been saying, yes, we see exactly the engineering of it, which really made me feel good that I did that and they're I'm getting college approval, so to speak. I mean, I never went to college, but I probably have if you added everything up, a master's degree with all the schooling I've done, just never paddied it up because it all came in different phases. We want to protect campers, we want them to have fun. I mean, one of my favorite things is I'll see a young family out on their first, second camping trip. I'll make muffins in the morning, take it over for the kids. Here you go, have a good day, enjoy it, become a part of our community, and all we can do is work together, help people learn from each other. So, where where are we gonna see you this year then? I'm debating right now. There's this nice little hidey hole up in Michigan called Hidden Hills. It's a tiny little mom and pop campground, maybe 45 sites. The owner is such a sweet man and his sister, a sweetheart lady. They run it as a family. It's up near uh Harrison, Michigan. And it's it's one of the nicest places. And I've told my wife we're going there for seven days because I need to go somewhere where I can, what I call it is burn trees, listen to music, and relax. Because I'll take up firewood and I'll read a book. Other than that, I'm I'm hoping to get down to Tampa sometime this fall or in the or for the I believe there's a winter RV, big RV show in Tampa. Yeah, we'll be there.

SPEAKER_00 26:34

We're hoping there for well, we had two booths last year for RV Roofing Solutions, but um Learn to RV was up in the front building with it. We put a banner up and then people came by and put stickers on it. Brands or companies or uh influencers will come by and put stickers on it, and we carry that to all our shows now. And then we'll be in the end of the summer. We come up for the grand design rally. Oh, really? What do you say in Goshen? Oh, it is? Yep. Well, let me know.

SPEAKER_02 26:57

I'm only an hour, I'm an hour, hour, 20 minutes from Goshen.

SPEAKER_00 27:01

Yeah, you should look into the Goshen Fairgrounds. The brand rallies that happen out there on a regular basis all summer long are a great way to get started for you.

SPEAKER_02 27:10

Fantastic. Thank you. I will definitely do that. We're working so hard and we've taken time. We actually we we we're working to create a universal prop is our end goal. That's a lot of where the Western Michigan is working. Because to create one for every kind of connector, I don't see it as being cost effective. But if we can make a universal that'll do it, and then that's good for the consumer because you buy one product, you switch cable because you don't have to switch product. And that's a goal of ours. We ran into some issues and we're working on it, so that's why we started the way we have.

SPEAKER_00 27:41

Again, I love that you're testing it every time. That's something that a lot of companies they'd say, no, I want the money now, and they just put it out. I appreciate that you're taking the extra time to do that.

SPEAKER_02 27:50

We didn't do this for money, is the funny thing. I mean, I have a good retirement. Honestly, you know, starting the business costs more than it's making by a long shot. But it's because we believe so much in it. And we were in Iowa at a warrior rising function, because we do a lot of veteran functions and veteran support or veteran entrepreneur groups. We were at one and I was talking to a gentleman about Strain Garden. He says, Are you making one for marine craft? I said, We're gonna get there. And he says, Good. He goes, because I walk down the marina all summer long watching boats catch on fire from that. Exact same problem. And it's in the marine creational marine industry. We're seeing it in EVs. We've had electricians contact us and say, can we get something for the EVs? And that's definitely gonna be more of into the charging connector molded right into that through an IP. But I watched them put it into a Ford and watch the whole thing drop, quarter inch, half inch from the weight. That's not good on an electrical connection. Right. And when you're drawing the current, it was easy taught to me. Current is heat. The more you draw, the height. If there's anything that causes uh resistance, that's heat. Poor connection, that's resistance, that's heat. Then you got more current, more heat, connection deteriorates. Like I said, it becomes it spirals out of control. Some people will never see this. I had been camping my whole life, and when it happened to us in 2019, that was a learning education. But I think with more and more power being drawn, we're gonna see more and more of it. We do know that fire costs RV industry $45 million a year, 115 people on average injured, 125 people injured, and 15 people fatalities.

SPEAKER_01 29:22

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 29:23

I can't say I'm not gonna say that from electrical fires. I'm saying that's just fires in general. Well, right. But let's try to eliminate one aspect that could lead to it. One leg of the equation there. If it, you know, if it saves one person or saves one camper or one pot, I'm happy. All my work's paid for because of that. That's all I care about. I don't ever want a camper to go out and go, well, when's my cable gonna melt down and cause a fire? Yeah because how do you relax and enjoy it? And the whole point of camping is come on, we go out there to relax. I would say let my hair down, but there's not much there. And go and relax and enjoy. That's why I do it. Go sightsee.

SPEAKER_00 29:58

Well, and that's why most people do it, you know, is just to enjoy life traveling and exploring, you know, and most people wait till they're retired. We're some of the weirdos. Freak retired at 38 from the Marine Corps, and so we hit the road with six out of seven of our kids. And so we did it long before it was socially accessible for us to be retired. I remember walking through the campgrounds that first couple of years to pick up my daughter who was over at a friend's camper playing. This older gentleman stopped my friend and I, and it was a dad, and he's like, You're too young to be retired. And we're like, actually, my husband retired. He's like, Oh, well, he looks too young to retire I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa. That's not my husband. My husband's back at the camper with the other kids. I'm going to pick up my daughter with my friend. You've made a lot of assumptions here. I understand that. But at the same time, we decided to do it young because my dad died really young. My dad died when he was 61 years old. He never got to retire. And so we hit the road deciding that we wanted to do this with our family. This is our house. I've seen far too many people, like with our family. There's five of us in the camper right now. So any given night, we're charging two or three iPads, a bunch of phones. Even that power draw, we don't think about that consumption because it's just what we do, right? But you know, my plug bar that's sitting over behind me has one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. If you count the little, you know, ones from my phone on it. A camper's not really built for all of that. So you can't have too many of those in your rig. The string guard eliminates the pressure off the line, but it doesn't mean you don't have to be responsible with your power.

SPEAKER_02 31:20

No, you have to be aware. We're not eliminating anything on power usage. And like I I will say, like I told you, the smart plug product, it's a great product. I'm not gonna knock it. Please don't think that. They made a wonderful video explaining struts, it's up on YouTube. But we have to monitor our power that we're drawing and do things to reduce it. And I I firmly, like you were saying, after aftermarket products. Uh, we all like the Hughes formers for production. Active start makes uh something similar to the Hughes former, but it also does does what's called soft start, so that when the big compressors in that big, it's drawn out of a capacitor bank versus being pulled off the line. And honestly, I'd have it. I've had it for two years. And one, I will say they're a great brand. They you call them up, you got a warranty issue, they have it back to you within three days. They're phenomenal on that point. But two, I have watched my lines and I have never seen a LED get above 20 inches with everything running, including the electric fireplace. Responsible on both ends, responsible on how we use the power that we draw in and preventative. Chuck your cables if you're seeing burn marks, if you're seeing corrosion, get a small wire brush or something and or a small file and clean it up because that corrosion creates a poor connection back to the heat cycle and that just deteriorates. So keeping an eye on things like that will over time will save you a lot of money.

SPEAKER_00 32:45

That's awesome. Well, Matthew, thank you so much for coming on the show this week. If somebody needed to get a hold of you to learn more about your product, can you drop some information for them?

SPEAKER_02 32:53

Our website is www.strainguard.com. You can email me at Matthew.putman at StrameGuard.com, or you can call us at 269-205-3261.

SPEAKER_00 33:07

Yeah, and keep an eye out. We'll have a blog post coming soon on StrainGuard once I have mine in my hands and we actually can hook it up. We'll we'll definitely have some real pictures in real time and kind of have a way to review what that looks like for us. As full-time RVers, I think it's gonna be something that's gonna benefit us for sure.

SPEAKER_02 33:24

And Jennifer, I honestly appreciate that you said you'd give us an honest review because RVers need to be pointed towards good products, away from the bad, and things that people can see that are gonna help. It's a big investment. Our tagline is we're protecting your family and your investment. The investment's kind of an afterthought, but your family isn't. But Iron investments in these are so much, and I don't want when we weren't looking, one of the funniest, this is obviously that story. It was on one of the manufacturers' blogs or posts, and I was looking how to do it, and somebody had posted drill a hole, put a screw in it, wrap a string around the screw, and then wrap it down around the cable. I'm like, I paid how much for my camper? I'm not doing that. It's very important that we have people that do non-biased evaluation and reporting of things, and I greatly appreciate you doing that. It's great for the community.

SPEAKER_00 34:11

Of course. Yeah, and you know it's funny, you say non-biased, but so we were up in Goshen a couple years back. It was our first year up there, and we've done a couple factory tours over the years. Each year we kind of pick a new brand to go check their factory tour. But our first year there, we went through one brand. They were very proud of the fact they put a roof on in 22 minutes. I own a nationwide RV roofing company, it's an aftermarket company. We get a lot of flack about, you know, what it is and how it's different. It takes my guys three days to do one install, not 22 minutes. My husband looked at me and said, Don't. And being a girl in the industry owning a business like that, it's not an easy place to be. You know, I know a lot about roofs. I don't know a lot a lot about electrical. And so, you know, we all have our strong suits. So I go to guys like you for information like that.

SPEAKER_02 34:53

And we try to help others. Some of the industry things are I I was actually at a dealership last summer. We had a we did a trip to Nashville. So we took time and went over to one of the big dealerships for coaches. And I said, I gotta see inside a Tiffin.

SPEAKER_00 35:06

Go, why? No, they're shower. They're shower, it's the best in the industry. And their roof. The roof is slightly thicker.

SPEAKER_02 35:12

I was actually going to see the cabinet door signed by Bob Tiffin. That's what I want to the the the took the door off and swapped it before they traded it in. They kept the door that Bob Tiffin signed.

SPEAKER_00 35:22

If you've never met Bob Tiffin, you know how special he is. He is that family owned and operated guy, and that is genuinely who he is. He's just he's just fantastic.

SPEAKER_02 35:32

I've heard he's a very good individual. I've never met him.

SPEAKER_00 35:36

Well, and his wife Judy is so sweet. She does crafting classes at Tiffin rallies. Uh, you know, it's it's they're so down to earth. They're just so awesome.

SPEAKER_02 35:43

And you know, that's what I I love people that they do this for for the joy of the of RV, not for status, not for anything, but just for the joy of it. You know, I told my wife when we grow up, hopefully I will have a motor coach as our next purchase. And I want to spend more time on the road. I I want to get out. And there's we have quite a few trips we want to do. I I want to get her out to the northeast and then off to Estes Park. She's never been to either place.

SPEAKER_00 36:08

Oh, those are both beautiful.

SPEAKER_02 36:09

Well, Estee's Park, first time I went there, took my breath away as I crested a hill when you come back down, coming in from Boulder. It was just absolutely mind-blowing. It's beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 36:19

Well, thanks again, Matthew, for coming on this show. Um, I so appreciate you being here and just sharing your passion, your heart, and your product with the Learn to RV community. So if you're looking for something to protect your rig, Matthew's got the tools. He's just wait till it's fully in production, but keep an eye on him. It's a product that is going to be a game changer for a lot of us as RVers. And you don't have to be full time for this one. It'll make your rig last longer. It'll protect your rig. All those things are just piece of mine items. And so it's worth doing.

SPEAKER_02 36:46

Thank you so much for that. I greatly appreciate it. And I look forward to your review.

SPEAKER_00 36:51

Thanks, Matthew.