Learn to RV: Technically Speaking with Jim Shutt of SA Mobile Repair & Inspections

SPEAKER_00 0:01

You know, every year, right about the same time, there's a truck that shows up in Tampa before we even get into the setup, and it's Jim Shark. Here's the thing about Jim Shark. When I met him years ago, back when RV Recording Solutions was just fairly off the ground, I've actually known him a lot longer than me. But he was the very first technician who said, Yes, I'll work with you guys. But that's not where this story is even going to start today. Because a while back, I found out that Jim had been following us long before that. Back when we were still narrow road schoolers, long before anyone called us the voice of Learn to RV. And he was in our corner before we were RV roading solutions. And before we were learn to RV. He was just already there. He and Tracy are a big part of what we do today on the front side of our life, but he's been in the background for a much longer. So when Frank and I started something brand new in 2020, Jim was one of the first to get a chance on us. It was someone who's already been watching and he already believed in what we were built with. And we so appreciate that. Now we're five years, six years almost into that, and we've done more roofs together than any of us could have ever imagined. But Jim's still one of the sharpest technicians I know personally. I reach out to him all the time for other things other than just requests. But he also still makes that trip to Tampa and a few other rallies if you're lucky enough to get him every single year. This almost this whole episode doesn't really need an introduction because the idea for it actually was Jim's idea. And so he's he's got a lot of those. Um back a few months ago, he said to me, What better way to talk RV like technical stuff? And I said, Well, we could do a tech talk Tuesday, and he said, No, no, no, you need to call it Technically Seeking. So here it is, the first episode of Learn to RV, Technically Seeking. Um, so it's only right that the first person in that chair is the one who thought of it, and honestly, it's the one who's been along for the whole ride, even before I realized it. So welcome to Technically Seeking with Learn to RV with Jim Shock of SAMO Word Bearer and Inspection. So I want to start actually with your story. Um because you've been a full-time RVer in a different way than a lot of people think full-time RVers exist. Um, but you said you spent some time in the Air Force. So let's go back, you know. Um, give me the two-minute landing on how that transitioned into RV technician.

SPEAKER_02 2:36

Well, so back in '91, I went to went in the active duty side of the Air Force as a military cop. And lucky enough, I was able to find my partner in crime, Tracy. We met in tech school and decided what the heck. Two cops can actually have a marriage, which is unheard of. Um, and now this will be 35 years for tolerating me. Um right before 9-11, I had transitioned from active duty into the reserves. So I kept the stress, but I changed roles. I went from being a cop to being uh a the technical term as aeromedical evacuation technician, basically lifelike, large scale. And I did that for about 10 years. And I got let go in June 30th, 2017. We sold our houses in September, and we hit the road October 25th. So it was a fast transition. We purged, purged trash, stored, and packed everything in a very short time period. And we may gave ourselves a time a timeline to get out of that because we knew it was the longer you delay it, the more you sit on it, and we just wanted to be done. So um, so it was very odd, and not having that plan that that structure was strange. So we're traveling to Louisiana, and and like I said, we had packed everything. If it didn't go in the storage or trash or something, it got thrown in the truck or the trailer. And being the average RVR at the time I was, I didn't think about well, I have to readjust my weight distribution. I have to think about weight factor. I if it just went in, it went in the truck or in the trailer. We had a hole, we're gonna plug the hole with something, it's going in. And so we were driving through Louisiana and the roads were a little rough, but we were getting a little extra sway. And I went, no, this is not right. I need to have this thing adjusted. I'm getting too much uh trailer sway. So I pulled into a mom and pop place, asked the guy if I could borrow a couple tools, and the tag came out and said, I'll adjust it for you for 50 bucks. Sounds good to me. I don't have to dig my tools out, they're somewhere in the truck. And uh I happened to be talking to him, and Jen knows me. I talk to everybody. Uh, give me five minutes, that's just who I am. And uh so I asked him, I said, So what do you make doing this job? And he told me, and I about had a heart attack, and I went, There is no way you can make that kind of money and run a business. And uh so I got back in the truck and told Tracy, I said, I was in the wrong job. And I had worked 11 and a half years behind a desk and 50 hours a week, driving two hours round trip, and just wasn't even close. And thought they just kind of put a bug in the back of my mind of is this a possibility? Is this even a viable option?

SPEAKER_00 6:08

I feel like Tracy already knew like it was a viable option for you, and so you ended up going where for school because you did go to school for this.

SPEAKER_02 6:17

I did, I went to the uh NRVTA, which is in uh Athens, Texas, and if anybody's familiar with that schoolhouse, they call it the Big Red Schoolhouse. I was there when the Big Red Schoolhouse was started, so they had not even broken ground on what it is today. I was actually working as a groundskeeper there as part of my training. So I got done with training and just decided to to do labor there just uh to pay for some of the rent. And um spent about six weeks there, and then um that would have been in February of 18. In March of 18, I decided to start my company. And my very first job, unpaid, was right there in the campground because there's a campground associated with the schoolhouse. Right. Um, so I I just kind of walked around and was talking to the campers, you know, just kind of chit-chat, campground talk. And a couple looked at me and goes, What do you not like about your rig? And a guy looked me straight in the face, he goes, I love the rig, but I only have one problem. And I'm like, Okay, tell me, what is it? I'm just curious. Now now you've caught my attention. He goes, Every time we pack up, I have to go buy ice and we have to unload the refrigerator, put it in four coolers, travel to the next destination, start the refrigerator, unpack it all, do the whole process over again. I said, Well, how long have you been doing this? He says, about three years. I says, Don't you have an inverter? He goes, Yeah, but it never works. I says, Do you take it in? He goes, three times. Every time they take it in, it works fine. Okay. I said, you mind if I take a look at it? It won't cost you a dime. And I walked in the door, and there was his inverter on the wall, and I said, Did anybody ever show you how to use this thing? And he goes, Nope. In three years, nobody's told me anything. They just told me I unplugged short power and it works. I says, Not the one that you have. And I went over and pushed the button, go out and unplug it. And he goes, No, it's not gonna indulge me, go unplug. He walked in and I says, Open the refrigerator. And he opened it up. He goes, The lights are on this, yeah, your inverters on. He goes, all I had to do was push the stupid button. For three years I've been dragging ice and nobody told I says, Well, I told you, and I I was determined that education was gonna be a part of who I was. I was gonna help those that had RBs that if you don't know, I'll either teach you or we'll learn together. But we're both gonna come out better on the other end. And uh so that was my very first company job that I had from the get-go, and it slowly has grown from there. I I mean I started with little or no money and kind of worked it up to what we've got today. Um, October that year, I signed on with a uh roofing company to travel.

SPEAKER_00 9:38

I want to dive into the technical side of this because that's why we're here. Um, you didn't just also became an RV inspector. And so, you know, for someone that's never heard of it, what does it mean to be an RV inspector and why is it important to get a rig inside?

SPEAKER_02 9:57

Okay, so so everybody gets a house inspection. That's normal. If you're gonna get a bank loan, you have to get a house inspection. An RV is basically a house on wheels. So if I were to take any house that's in any resident, doesn't matter in the world, put it on wheels, take it around the block for a drive, things are gonna get shook out. That's just normal. But RVs experience a rolling earth at all times, okay? And in the process of building these things, so there are.

SPEAKER_00 10:34

I always tell people it depends on if they were built on a Monday or a Friday and how fast the guys wanted to get out of work.

SPEAKER_02 10:41

So the average in the industry is about six months with any one company. Um there's so many unknown factors, and when you plug in the human factor, no two RVs are the same. You can have the same year, same make, same model. They can be next in line with each other. There is something unique about each one. Every RV has its own personality.

SPEAKER_00 11:07

Well, actually, one of the things that surprised me when I was talking to another somewhere is they said there's no actual schematics for most units. That being said, there's no way to know for sure that even if they were the same one, that it's going to be put together exactly the same way.

SPEAKER_02 11:25

The goal is when you turn on a switch, it works. How they get there doesn't matter as long as it works when they do it.

SPEAKER_00 11:34

Well, that's like last fall. We asked somebody about a four-season camper when we were out of the one of the reps from one of the companies, and they told us there isn't really a four-season camper. And we were like, wait, what? And so, like, you know, they can market it as such because it will withstand X number of temperature degrees, but people don't know what they don't know, right? So if someone's with buying used and could afford only one inspection before they sign, who's actually on the line if they set it? I think people don't know this.

SPEAKER_02 12:07

Well, and it's like so if you buy a car, you take it to a mechanic because you don't want it to fail down the road. You do the same with uh a house inspection or roof inspection. But very few people, and even after nine years of of doing this, there are still people that have never heard of RB inspections today. And that's because when they go to the dealership, the dealership is like, oh, don't worry about it. We'll do we'll do our our uh uh pre-purchase inspection. Well, how long does that take? And what's funny is the pre-purchase inspection is done by the newest guy at the dealership.

SPEAKER_00 12:49

The reality on that is having the dealer inspect a unit they're selling to you, why are they gonna find a problem?

SPEAKER_02 12:57

So, a prime example and a very common one that we see is what's called a hot skin. Okay, and hot skin basically means um when you're talking AC power or shore power. When you plug into it, there's a path. Power goes in and power goes out. That's the way it's supposed to happen. It comes in on one line, goes out, goes into the ground, and goes to the pedestal. You have the same thing with your house. But with RVs, we use the pedestal as a grounding bed. With your house, there's actually a grounding rock because it's turmered. If that ground is missing, you now have a basically a large cage with power running around made out of metal. So you've got yourself an electric chair just that you live in.

SPEAKER_00 13:52

So basically, for those of you that are listening, it would mean that if I were to turn around and touch my RV, I would get shot. And that is what hot skin is.

SPEAKER_02 14:02

The minimum that is allowed, minimum, is five volts AC. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 14:09

Would you feel that? Uh you'll get a tingle.

SPEAKER_00 14:15

How dangerous is it?

SPEAKER_02 14:18

Beyond five volts? So think about your household outlet. That's 15 volts. Uh you got 120 volts. Would you put your keys in an outlet just to see if it's live? It would kill you. Okay. The one that I inspected had 23 volts of AC going around it. Okay. So the ones that the ones that will feel it the most, because most of us wear rubber rubber sole shoes, right? So they're insulating. You don't feel that when you go in and out. But your pets with their paws will pick up on it. Somebody walks in and out on those stairs barefoot will feel it. And when you hit 15 volts AC, that's enough to kill you. That will cause an electrical shock that can cause problems. Well, here's how um crazy things. So there's a specific method of checking for hot skin. And we use a known ground. So, like a pedestal, and you plug in, there's a ground in there. That's supposed to be what they call a known ground. Okay. So we either plug into a known ground or actually use a physical ground. We take a rod and put it into the ground and ground ourselves out. So, like when you walk barefoot, you're grounding yourself because you're touching the grass. And we touch every metal part around that RV, door locks, steps, panels, screws, little things like that to pick up the volts. And this one being 23, I talked to the tech there that was in charge of that rig, and he goes, Your meter's wrong. You're incorrect. It's not possible. So I showed him and he went over and did what he was told by one of the old guys. So he used the RV as an own graph. Well, we're trying to find out we know the RV is electrified. Why would I use something that's electrified to verify if it's electrified? I want to verify something that's not electrified to find out what is electrified. And he looked at me in his red 25. And he goes, Well, your meter's wrong and mine's right. I says, Well, then why is yours higher than mine? Well, they were still gonna sell that rig to that client that had hired me. And I said, No, you're not. I says, because if you do, you're gonna kill this. So I told the sales guy and I told the tech, no, you have to identify this problem. This is dangerous. I knew where the problem was, but inspectors are not allowed to um fix the problem, they just identify, they basically say this works as designed or does not work as designed, but they're they are not required to fix. So there is a distinction. So if you find techs like myself that are technicians and inspectors, they're actually running two different hacks. As an inspector, I will not ever fix anything. I will tell you it's broke, but then you have to find somebody outside to confirm it and fix it. They do that for two reasons. One, um, I'm there to do a job, not to sell my next job. So if I tell you that your water heater doesn't work, but I know who can fix it, does your water heater not work? Or you am I trying to elicit my next job? So it's invalid.

SPEAKER_00 18:17

I don't think I fully understood that until I don't know, probably about a year working with you, that you couldn't do certain things once you were an inspector for it. And so that makes the network of technicians that you do trust super important. I don't think people understand that either. And a lot of the stuff that we find is word of mouth. And you know, we both work obviously as RV routing specialists. I can't tell you the number of inspections that we do that other people tell that same customer. Oh no, it's fine, it just needs a patch. And so, like, you're not out there trying to sell a water heater to a guy that maybe needs a water heater, you're gonna refer him to a technician in his area that Lisa Carlatti had a company called My R V Resource for years and years. So you and I were both part of, it's now known as RV help. And so there's lots of ways to find an RV tech near you, but I tell people the reality is do it like an interview. Ask all the questions before you ever let them on your property. You want to interview the technician that's coming to you because all texts are not created evil, they're not all gonna troubleshoot the same way. Maybe call your inspector that you had the inspection done with and say, Do you know this person? And that word of mouth, the inspector is gonna say, I've heard great things about them, but I've never worked with them personally. It's about making sure that you know you kind of have a network of people. It's it's not easy. Basically, looking for somebody to fix, and you're traveling in most cases, so you don't know the people in your local area. Um what do you think is one thing that like you would say most people overlook on an infashion?

SPEAKER_02 20:05

I don't think they overlook it, they kind of try to make it like all apart. I only want to inspect certain things. Like I I've had them say, Well, I just want to look at the appliances, I don't care about the rest of the ring. Right. Okay, but if your appliances work but you have damage on the roof, it doesn't matter where the appliances work, your house is gonna fall apart. Or um the one I hear all the time is well, my tires are fine because I've got good tread. Okay, but they're 10 years old and they're dry ride, but the tread looks fine.

SPEAKER_00 20:51

Okay, I mean to be fair, my tires were fine yesterday when we went to move, but they weren't fine at all. Um, you know, so our TPMS system was actually um perfectly fine at the time, meaning that that aired up and it was there was no problem. But there was no tire there. All of the metal was exposed on part of the tire. In fact, we left a gator somewhere, probably the last travel day previous, and we were very lucky that that didn't get any worse than it was. See, when we when we talk about inspections, when we talk about RV tech, like there's different aspects to that. But do you think there's a difference in terms of like I'm full-time nomadic in my RV, still to this day? Do you think it's different wearing here on my unit as opposed to someone that maybe stays stationary six months of the year in the north and then six months of the year in the south, like a snowbird, or as opposed to the occasional camper that only takes it out three times a year? So, what would you say are the biggest differences in this?

SPEAKER_02 21:57

Okay, so for the weekend or Normally there is wear and tear, but it's not as significant. For instance, like your front door. If you're living in it full time, that front door opens and closes hundreds of times a day. For the weekender, not so much because they may only use it for two weeks and then it sits in storage. So um, and when you're running down the road, you figure that rolling earthquake occurs more often than somebody who's a snowbird that sits for six months. So if you're willing to take your house down a gravel road and basically take it four-wheeling and expect it to come out in one piece on a weekend, okay, you pick up a few things, you put them back on the wall, you're fine.

SPEAKER_00 22:58

If you're I mean, you can do that just driving down the road from Louisiana to Texas. I'm just saying.

SPEAKER_02 23:03

Oh, the best test ground is right outside of Elcard. You drive out and hit the highway. They they need to test them out there because everything will shake loose. But um, but the full timer that's traveling consistently, those systems take a lot more abuse, so your maintenance is more often. Um, a prime example is your bearings. Um the average is once a year or 12 to 15,000 miles. So if you're only doing six months, you might have them repack once a year. An average weekender may only repack them if they think about it, but they may not, they may only do like 3,000 miles that summer. So they barely put any wear and tear on. Whereas you guys, 12,000 miles is nothing. You may have to repack those two, three times a year just to maintain it. You have to consider the use and abuse you have on it. And there are things that you know, cleaning out your water heater, cleaning your air conditioner. If you never use your air conditioner in a season, okay, clean it once at the end of the season. If you use it and are traveling everywhere in all the seasons, and you get into the pollen and and everything like that, you may be cleaning it every three to four months. Uh, whereas me sitting static, I might clean mine twice a year. Have to consider the environment. How is it being utilized? Um, the frequency of those appliances being used and things. So there is no one size fits all when it comes to maintenance. It depends on the RVR and where that RB is being used. And uh, and but they all have the same meanings, it's just the frequency of the maintenance changes by the amount of usage, and that's something to consider. Um, that's one of the things I like to teach owners how to do some things themselves. Do I want to lose the business? No, I'm in the business to make money, but at the same time, I'm sure as a consumer, they don't want to always call me for every little thing under the sun when they can do it themselves. So sharing that knowledge and saying, hey, this is what I use, this is how I use it, then that puts the control in their hands to say, Yeah, I can do that myself.

SPEAKER_00 25:50

But I think there's an important side to that too, though. They're getting that information from an RV tech. They're not getting that information from YouTube or from an influencer. And none of those influencers are wrong or or that DIY guy is wrong that tells you you can do everything yourself. But you and I, we'd be remiss if we don't talk about roofs because it's what we do, right? And so, you know, give me a number. How often should someone actually be getting their roof checked? And before he answers this question, I need you to know if you're still listening out there, I do not press any guests for this interview. That includes Jim. So whatever he says right now, I will be reacting in real time. And if he says the wrong thing, he might be out of a job. No, I'm just kidding.

SPEAKER_02 26:35

Um yearly, uh basically 12 to 18 months is the average but, and I'm gonna preface this with a but if you're in areas with heavy storms, or you are under trees and winds and stuff like that, or at really high elevation. Anytime something taps that roof, I would be up on it. Yeah, um, I tell the weekenders, this is just me personally, I tell them get on the roof at the beginning of the season, take a picture of everything. And then once they clean it and close it out, take another picture. Because it may be six months before they ever look at that roof again. But how do I know what that roof looked like six months ago? What do I compare it to? Because if I just get up there six months later and go, well, everything looks fine, I think. What am I comparing it to? Right. So I tell them, take a picture of it when you close it out, and then when you come back, take another picture of the same stuff and see what's different. Um the sealants and caulkings that we use are not equal across the board. In the north, in Wisconsin and New York, may last a year. Down here in Florida, not so much.

SPEAKER_00 28:04

It depends very much on your elements, your elevation, how much UV it's exposed to. People don't even realize that if like you're in Colorado, even though the temperature is pretty even in the summertime, you know, because you're so much closer to the sun, that can affect your sealants faster.

SPEAKER_02 28:21

Um, I've seen too many times going, oh, just go down to Walmart and buy the same silicone you can use. Bath and Taco.

SPEAKER_00 28:29

I cannot tell you how many people tell me they found bathroom sealant.

SPEAKER_02 28:33

I have found oh good gosh. The favorite is, you know, that it has its place is the Eternabond tape.

SPEAKER_00 28:46

No, I'll say this. Eternabond is good if you need a fast attach, but you gotta clean it first. And you're trying to mitigate a problem like you just tore it from a tree branch. Take the pictures before you attach it, you're putting it for insurance. That's my disclaimer. But you know, the faster you can get that sealed up so it's potentially not leaking, but it doesn't mean that there's not going to be a leak. You know, you work roofs with RV roofing solutions and through your own inspection business. Do you think seeing it from both sides changes how you speak to owners about it?

SPEAKER_02 29:19

I think having the inspection viewpoint allows me a different insight as an inspector and a roofer.

SPEAKER_01 29:28

Um the inspector is doing a top-down view. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:36

So they're just seeing the outside. The roofing specialists, we know what is under that roof, how they're put together, how they're designed, how they should be put together.

SPEAKER_00 29:51

Because you've taken enough of them apart to know this.

SPEAKER_02 29:53

When you get to peel back the layers, you get to see the either the the um quality or the lack of quality in the building.

SPEAKER_01 30:05

For sure.

SPEAKER_02 30:06

Um and they're not all created equally either. Um the uh one of the craziest ones I've ever seen was probably two years ago, it was a um Columbus, and it was one of the only ones I've ever seen. Either some sort of membrane, TPO, EPDM, PVC fiberglass over 3/8 inch flywood, or an eighth of inch Luan. And if you're not familiar with Luon, if you'd ever gone to your grandparents and they had wood paneling in the basement or in the wall, that's Luan.

SPEAKER_00 30:44

So real thin, real flimsy. You can you can peel it apart if you're one of those kids that likes texture things.

SPEAKER_02 30:52

Right. Well, normally if it's luon, it's over six inches of foam. Or if it's the three-eighths inch plywood, it's over about three to four inches of house insulation. Same stuff they put in the house. This one threw me for a loop because it was eighth-inch luon over three inches of foam over three inches of house insulation. And it's the only one I've ever seen today in nine years that was built this way. And I questioned it, and then I got to looking at why they did it this way. The rig that they had built, the framing was so heavy. In order to pull it, you would have needed at least a 350 or 450 truck to pull it down the road if they had put three eighths in the in truck. So a lot of times they will manufacture these things and trying to keep the weight down, they have it's a balancing act. If I build up the floor, I build up the walls, I build up all this other stuff, I have to keep it under a certain limit. So, where can I cut weight? So they will cut it in the roof. Um, the rig I'm currently in is an ultralight. It's 34 feet, but I've got a Luan roof, so it's non-walkable. My previous one had luon over six inches of foam. I could get up there and walk all day on. They both were ultralights, different manufactured, different designs. So not all RV roofs are created and manufactured the same. It all depends on the manufacturer, and ultralights most times are built lighter weight in those areas to keep them as light as possible. Um, you see them now more being called um half-ton towable, is the new terminology. They cut corners somewhere to make it as light as possible to carry by a 1500 truck. Um, because not everybody wants a dualist.

SPEAKER_00 33:07

We saw one just yesterday pulling and it was, I mean, it was squatting, and and you could tell it we knew it was a light trailer, but it made it less heavy, but it didn't make it as safe. That's something that's really important to say, you know, as a tech when you see all sorts of stuff.

SPEAKER_02 33:24

Pet peeves is, and I don't want to disrespect any dealerships, but a lot of the salesmen have never RV'd themselves. Agreed. They don't own an RV, but they're selling a product because hey, it's where I could get a job. Not every one of those guys who sells a Porsche owns a Porsche.

SPEAKER_00 33:47

Right. I think that goes back to the whole idea of you know, that's why you don't want to get a PDI from the dealership. You don't want to trust the salesman to tell you what to deal with either. And so it's always important not to make that same-day decision to go home, do the research, um, and see what that looks like from the other side and ask the questions. Learn to RV the friendly informative group. 14,000 members strong. We're happy to answer questions there. Um, we also have a group called Thousand Trails Orlando, it's usually for members of Thousand Trails Orlando, but you know, Jim works out of the Claremont area, but it's one of those places that he can give some of his information. And and I think that that's the basic part of it, right? Is that we want that information to come from actual RV techs or RV recording specialists or people that weigh your rig professionally? Call them and ask. I think that's so important to say. Um a question you get all the time, hands down, what do you think it is?

SPEAKER_02 34:46

My favorite one is how much solar do I need to run my air conditioner and can I run everything if I have enough panels?

SPEAKER_00 34:53

Yeah, we're not gonna dig into that because that's a whole other episode.

SPEAKER_02 34:57

That's like uh, how big's your rig, and what do you want to do with it? So it's not a quick and easy answer.

SPEAKER_01 35:06

Right.

SPEAKER_02 35:07

Um or um the other one I've seen is how big of a how big of a truck do I need for this RV? But they haven't picked the RV yet.

SPEAKER_01 35:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:24

I recommend to people pick your RV and then pick your truck. Because if you pick your truck, then you're limited to what your truck can handle. And you don't want to get an RV bigger than your truck can handle.

SPEAKER_00 35:37

Well, and it's not a question of can it haul it? Can it haul it and keep the transmission intact? Can it haul it and can will you not blow a gasket? Can it haul it and stop it? Those are really the first three questions you need to ask.

SPEAKER_02 35:51

The big the biggest one I've seen, I had a gentleman across the street to the gas station, and he had a Dodge Durango, the eight engine in it, and he was pulling a 36-foot bumper pole, a travel trail, and his rear bumper in his hitch was about three inches off the concrete, and his lights were pointing up. But he was told that truck could pull it. And I told him, I don't want to be anywhere near you on the highway. I definitely don't want to be in front of you. And he looked at me funny. I said, One, you have no steering control because your wheels are light, and second of all, um, your trailer outweighs your truck five times. So when you've got 8,000 pounds barreling down the road behind a 3,000 pound vehicle, yeah, that's a lot of weight to stop. You have to be able to stop your truck and the trailer. If your truck's doing all the stopping, the trailer will go through you. And it's unfortunately too many folks are told, oh, you've got a big engine, you're fine. I don't think you go on a fifth wheel and get it to move. I just am not gonna get it to stop.

SPEAKER_00 37:12

Yeah, so when we shopped for our first fifth wheel, we went into this one dealership, and you know, I I didn't own the company back then. I but I knew enough to be dangerous by then. We you know, we've been doing this for five years. Um and so I I said, Is this a four-season camber? How thick is the insulation in the floor? And the kid and I said, he was probably in his mid-20s. He looked at me, stomped on the floor and goes, It's real good. And I said, No, I'm I'm looking for the R factor rating. And he was like, What? And I was like, All right, we're done here. And we ended up walking out because you know, he just showed how little he actually knew, and I wasn't buying from somebody that couldn't give me the answer.

SPEAKER_02 37:59

And that's the thing.

SPEAKER_00 38:00

They don't know what do you think is the strangest thing that someone has ever asked you to fix?

SPEAKER_01 38:07

Or is that take one? Strangest thing.

SPEAKER_02 38:20

Um he wanted me to fix the frame on his trailer just enough so he could sell it. Just enough.

SPEAKER_01 38:33

Right.

SPEAKER_02 38:34

What does that mean? Just enough to make it one time just to make it across the road. Um the the craziest one I had, I actually had one for, and I'm gonna throw this brand out. Not then they're a good brand. Um, I got a call to look at a client's RV and their slide out had a crack in it in the slide out floor for the kitchen underneath the refrigerator, and it was buckled. And I was the fourth tech to look at. Wow, fourth. They had sent four of us out. So I'm the fourth guy that went out there, and they had tried to put rollers under it, keep it from dragging and stuff, and I looked in it and said, No, I'm not fixing it. And the guy that I'm talking to the guys in Alliance, he goes, Why not? I says, It's six months old. It hasn't made it a year, it's six months old.

SPEAKER_01 39:37

He goes, So you can you fix it?

SPEAKER_02 39:42

Yeah, I can, but I'm not going to. And that's the difference there is I at that point in time, granted, I was called by the manufacturer to go look at it, but I became a consumer advocate for the RV or the owner, and said, No, you guys need to fix this problem because if this exists, there are others out there that haven't called you yet, and you need to look at those that are in this group. I said, You either have a materials failure or a manufacturing problem. And the guy's like, Well, what would you do if you had to fix it? I said, Well, I can tell you what I would do if it was over four or five years old, but I'm not gonna do it because it's unfair to your consumer to do this, and not all RV techs are willing to go to battle for the client.

SPEAKER_00 40:49

I would agree with that. Of RV roofing companies, too. Like, I mean, RV techs that just don't specialize in roofs, like a lot of times that's why I tell people that we're a solid choice because we do go to battle for you. And so that's the other side of it is you know, knowing your technician, knowing the integrity behind it. Um what do they stand for?

SPEAKER_02 41:11

But it it it makes a difference because the the the manufacturer was like, Well, how long before that floor falls out? Right. And I'm like, What what do you mean how long? He goes, today, tomorrow, next week. I says it could last another year, but that's not the point. The point is it's broken and it needs to be rectified.

SPEAKER_00 41:31

Well, and in that situation, it would have still been under warranty. Like, you know, we do roofs all the time for customers that get their units off the showroom floor because they just want that peace of mind. But at the same time, if they want to wait two years, we don't force them to not do that because they don't want we don't want them to avoid their warranty either. That's what they don't want to do. Um, what would you say is the biggest myth about RVs?

SPEAKER_02 41:57

That they're built like houses.

SPEAKER_00 41:59

I would agree with that.

SPEAKER_02 42:01

If you if you really want to have it, have the viewers look if they follow behind an RV, and they'll notice if RVs were built like houses, they would destroy themselves going down the road. But your house is built solid. When winds hit it, it doesn't move, it doesn't flex, it stays solid, it's on a concrete foundation, it's not supposed to go anywhere. Well, you're on a metal frame that flexes going down the road, it articulates, it twists, and stuff. So when you pull into a campground and you go to level, you'll find out that sometimes you try to open the front door and you can't get it open or you can't get it close. And that's because the frame is twisted, and then when it runs down the road, it kind of looks like a I guess you could say a circle. If you follow behind it, it'll actually go like this, and it's very obvious when you watch the back of it, the whole body moves. Um, but everybody's under the impression that it's built just like a house, the same materials, same strength. Most of them are made with aluminum studs or made with two by twos, as load-bearing walls. Your roof is two by twos or one by twos, or aluminum, occasionally steel, sometimes aluminum. There's no one way to do it.

SPEAKER_00 43:37

Um people don't even realize that you can easily break a truss by hitting a black hole. There's stuff that happens all the time that wouldn't happen in a house, even if you were hit by heavy winds. I know like the other night we had some pretty gnarly storms come through, and we were deciding, you know, do we, you know, pull our slides in during the storm or do we not? Because we don't want to get flipped either. And so we were having sixty mile an hour winds in in Illinois the other night. And so those feel harsh, but I also know people that travel in those winds. And then they wonder why things fall apart. It's all about what you do to the rig too at that point, what you go through. You know, do you take extra chances that maybe some other people wouldn't take? It's it's definitely gonna have some wear and tear on your unit.

SPEAKER_02 44:25

Think about the tractor trailers, those are 80,000 pounds and they flip over in its. So, you know, if 80,000 pounds flips over on its side and decides to take a nap in the middle of the median, what is your fifth wheel gonna do? Yeah. You're just you're uh basically you're a boat anchor behind your truck and a giant sail, a billboard. So you you consider anything that hits the side is gonna push that 810-foot wall anywhere it wants to go, and you're hooked up to it. Guess where you go? You go with it. Right. So all right.

SPEAKER_00 45:03

So if someone's listening, they want to find you or book an inspection, where do they go? You primarily serve the the Claremont area in Florida. So let's start there. Um, so Jim does have a very unique situation where he is mostly stationary. I'm not saying he doesn't travel for us, but he doesn't usually travel for everything. Um, so he has a pretty strong clientele in the Claremont area of Florida, and he handles a lot of the Tampa show in the fall and the winter. Um, and he's been in our booth there for what, five years now? Been a hot minute. Um, but let's talk about SA Mobile Repair. Where can they find Shed Adventures, your socials, all of it?

SPEAKER_02 45:45

So we are on obviously on Google. You can find us on there. Um, we are every bit mobile, so if you're looking for a shop, you're not gonna find it. The truck is the shop, it's as mobile as you can get. I get that all the time of where do I come and find you? Well, you're not gonna find me, I come find you. Um, we come to you. Wherever your RV sits is where the shop is at that point in time. Um, so we're on Facebook, uh, Instagram, we're on Google, um, word of mouth, RV help has us listed. I'm listed as an inspector there. Um if you're on the thousand trails page, there is a thousand trails RV text listing out there. I'm one of them listed there. Um I actually ended up with a friend of mine who did a video eight years ago, Mike Gondick, with uh Random Bits RV. So I'll throw a plug out for him. Um helped him with his solar install up in El Cart. So Mike's been a client of mine for very long years. But um, Mike did my three commercials, videos that I have. The guy is fantastic and puts the video together. Uh but he has helped us a lot with that. And uh the word of mouth, that's our biggest advertisement, is the clients themselves putting the word out. Um that's means more to me than anything. Is uh you can put a Google review out there, it's different when you actually have actual clients, tangible people that can give you an honest opinion and say, Yeah, this guy's great, or this guy's horrible. Um, I would rather have that honest um tangible word of mouth than anything else because you can't strip it. And I've got some great clients that come back year after year after year. Uh, but then I also had folks call me from out of state that were clients that I've done either inspections for repairs that are no longer in the state of Florida, that'll call me up and say, Hey Jim, I got a problem. Can you walk me through it? And I'll do that. Uh that you know, if it's something and I can help you troubleshoot over the phone or a video call. Um, it's all about keeping RVers on the road. Because if you're not on the road, I'm out of a job. My commodity is those that's those that are living in the RVs, and there's more and more of us out there now than anything because of the economy. The the RVs are exploding out there.

SPEAKER_00 48:47

If you have a question that Jim didn't answer that you would love to hear from a mobile RV tech, please drop it in the comments below. We would love to answer those on the next, technically speaking. And the more we get, the sooner we can get Jim back on. But the real question is, is are there people out there mimicking being R V Tex? I mean, like we see it in the roofing industry where somebody that doesn't really know a lot about RV roofs is out there doing RV roofs, and they're not all like that, but in the in the RV tech space, you don't legally necessarily have to be um go to a school. You can you can work kind of just as a handyman, is that correct?

SPEAKER_02 49:28

Correct. So there are only three trade schools for RV Tech in the U.S. Yeah. RVTI, which is up in Elkhardt, Indiana, which predominantly trains those that build out there in the dealerships. You've got the uh NRVTA, which is a National RV training academy, there in Athens, Texas, and then there's another one here in Clearwater, Florida. Those are the only three. Now, um, I have seen it on Facebook. I don't know how many times people post out and say, well, every third RV has a guy with a screwdriver and calls himself an RV tech. Okay, well, then that means that if I change my oil, that makes me a mechanic. So are you getting somebody who fixed their own rig and did something for themselves but has no knowledge? Or have you gotten somebody who has done some training? And the training doesn't always end at the trade store. So just after I got done, I did training at NRVTA, I also trained through RVTI. But I constantly train with manufacturers on different systems. There never is a time that I'm not learning something new because the RV industry changes so rapidly of what is out today, is six months behind of what they're developing and getting ready to put on tomorrow. So systems change just as fast as your cell phone or your computer, and they're getting more complicated and more technical as you go. So it's not uh, hey, I just push this button and I go to whatever it is. Now it's I I push this button and I go to 14 different connections to get my light to turn on, and knowing what 14 connections they are and how they all work together, um, and how to test them properly can make the difference of am I replacing a light bulb, replacing a switch, or am I replacing an entire system? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:54

When you're working like a job for one of the manufacturers, you're not afraid to call them and ask questions. Where somebody that maybe isn't an actual RV type, it's just more of a handyman, may not have that type of relationship with those those brands. And so it's important to know who's working on your rig.

SPEAKER_02 52:12

You hear about YouTube University, everything's on YouTube, and I would say yes and no, and I caution everybody who says, Oh, it's on YouTube, and I'll put this out there for the test. Anytime I get somebody say, Well, YouTube said it would take five minutes. My question is, how many times and how many outtakes did it take to do that job right the first time to get into that five-minute video? Because it took hours to get it down to five minutes. And if you think I can go in and remove your entire bathroom shower and put it together in five minutes, you're crazy.

SPEAKER_00 52:56

It's not only on the high highlight reel.

SPEAKER_02 53:00

But at the same time, I tell people be cautious because there are people out there that will say they have the working knowledge, but what they don't tell you about is when they turn off the camera, hey, I wired this in my RV, and after I turned off the camera, my RV burned down. They're not going to show you that reel. So I caution people to say, if you're watching it, watch numerous videos, because there are some very good texts out there, um, and see comparatively, are they saying the same things? Because if you look at six videos and one person has got something totally different than everybody else, either they're they're the one that's a hundred percent right and everybody else is wrong, or they're the one you don't want to do follow with that. Um but asking the question, calling the manufacturer, most of the manufacturers are very nice about walking you through things um a lot of times, or sending you information on how to do some self-diagnosis.

SPEAKER_00 54:07

Um, I do or finding a tech that's that's licensed through them. I mean, I think that's another side of it, is because then you'll find out who they use and they can refer those people. I think that's where we make the biggest mistake is we think we can do it all ourselves. And I think that we see that more often than a lot of people do because of the businesses that we're in, um, the mistakes people make, and then how much they have to pay extra for them later down the road. And so that's what we're trying to help you avoid. Um, so this is the first show of technically speaking, but I'm pretty sure it won't be the last. Um, thanks, Jim, for joining us today. Thanks for all the years you've trusted us. Thanks for following us when we were still narrow roads where we're doing topics. Um, but the idea for the show itself, technically speaking, I think it's gonna be a beautiful ad to learn to RV. Tampa 2027, Jim will be back at that A one oh five spot where he always is. Don't forget to like, follow, and subscribe to the show. We love having you here. And uh we'll see you on the next ride. See you soon.