These days, countless RV parks are focusing on the RV travelers wanting to set up permanent community and residence in their park. You can find it’s a common trend for active fishing lakes or villages used for short-term winter retirement.
Making this sort of move means you’ll need to get certain things right as you set out on your endeavor. This is particularly true if parking your travel trailer at an RV park for extended periods such as all the summer or even for longer.
Leveling a travel trailer is the critical aspect of sitting your trailer in a permanent parking spot. If there is any tilt at all, it can affect your water flow, toilet flushing, sink draining, your refrigerator not working, or even your ability to sleep.
If you are about to make this jump, you may wonder about the best method for leveling a travel trailer. Luckily, leveling a travel trailer on a permanent site isn’t as hard as you may have originally thought. Or at least to level a trailer isn’t too challenging, so long as you follow certain steps.
In our guide, you can find out all you need about the various methods for correctly leveling a travel trailer. By the end, you’ll know how to carry out travel trailer leveling in the roughest of areas or the steepest slope. Uneven ground will no longer be an area to avoid when you stick to using the best tips. (Find the Best Anti Rattle Hitch Device)
Where Do You Put the Level on a Travel Trailer?
One of the easiest ways you can start leveling a travel trailer first time without help or too many tools, you can use purpose-built bubble levels.
All you need to do is install one level on the centerline of the coupler at the front or the back of your RV. This will make your latitudinal or side-to-side readings easy to follow.
For longitudinal leveling or tilt from front to back), install your level over the axle on a single axle trailer, or if you have twin axles, place the level between them.
Once you find your RV parking spot, check the bubble levels and adjust if required. It is handy to carry a carpenter’s level for further ways to measure the level between the front and rear readings when leveling travel trailer is needed.
How Do You Level and Stabilize a Travel Trailer?
Pick & Prepare Your Site
Make sure you find the most level site. Clear it of obstacles that could affect the leveling process.
Check Travel Trailer with a Level
Few travel trailer levels are ideal on their own. Understanding your trailer characteristics helps to decide whether to park nose-in or nose out.
Position Leveling Blocks Near Travel Trailer Tires
Leveling blocks can be found in many hardware stores or camping stores. When assembled, they form a small ramp for each of your trailer’s tires. Place these on the side of the trailer in front of the front tires that require adjustment.
If parking your travel trailer camper over the summer, you can improvise with pressure-treated lumber.
However, if over three months, and in wetter conditions, and the parking space isn’t concrete, you need proper leveling blocks. (Find the Best Portable Air Conditioners For RV)
Position Travel Trailer Onto Leveling Blocks
Do this, and you could need some help. Ensure any person guiding knows how to use hand signals and how to do so when using mirrors. Tires need to be dead center on the leveling blocks, so it’s best to take the time and do it properly, or you could damage your tire over the coming months, where it is better to rest on the frame and leave your tires free from surface contact.
Place Wheel Chocks Around the Tires
You can purchase an excellent quality pair of wheel chocks from hardware or camping stores. Use these when parking up on-site for the summer.
It is possible to use wood blocks, yet these aren’t shaped to fit under your tires. If parking for long periods and you may not always be in your travel trailer, you can get locking chocks that can’t be removed. Be sure to chock the front and back of your tire.
Lower the Tongue Jack
Make sure you lay a piece of pressure-treated lumber or strong paving stone before you lower the tongue. You will have a solid footing and stop the jack from sinking into softer soil from the weight it carries.
You can place a level toward the center of your travel trailer. As you lower the tongue, you can see the bubble move until it is level. It does only do forward and back tilt rather than side to side.
Install Stabilizing Jacks
Many campers or RVers who park a travel trailer permanently or seasonally rely on stabilizing jacks on each of the four corners of the camper trailer. You may find some travel trailers come with them, while others offer them as extras. You can find stabilizing jacks in automotive centers. Place wood under the feet if you are not on concrete.
How Do You Level a Travel Trailer On a Slope?
When you have a steep slope, you need to start with leveling from side to side. Chock the wheels where you can then level from the front to back.
Check your camper is level when situated on your leveling blocks. If your camper isn’t level back off the blocks and add or remove a block, make sure the level is right on your camper. Once leveled, add your wheel chocks on both sides, not one side of the camper.
Wedge chocks in place as your camper trailer can move when you walk around in it.
Another great way is to use such things as Andersen Levelers. Such Levelers take any guesswork from leveling a travel trailer. In use, they stop you driving on and off blocks to find you are still not level.
The levelers use a wedge system where you can pull forward until your camper is level. At this point, you chock the wheels in position.
To level your travel trailer from front to back. Set the jack in a wheel dock or use strong wood beneath your tongue jack which sits in the front part of your travel trailer. Once you have a solid spot for your jack, raise it to unhitch from your vehicle. (Find the Best Deep Cycle Battery Charger)
Place plastic or wood leveling blocks beneath each of the camper’s stabilizing jacks on the corners of your camper. Note, stabilizing jacks aren’t for leveling and only prevent your camper from rocking when you are in it.
If you have uneven ground, it is better to find another area, although the alternative is to use a small shovel and dig away at the uneven ground until it is level.
It is the safest way to keep your travel trailer level rather than packing stones under your jacks and wooden boards. Once you have a solid base, you can ramp up your travel trailer to higher levels on steep slopes than you are able to get with just your tongue jack.
Can You Put an RV on a Permanent Foundation?
To legally turn a trailer into a permanent residence, you need a foundation wall that comes with footers and support piers beneath to stop settling.
Besides this, you can find running gear, axles, and hitch, which should be removed, and the trailer needs to rest on the foundation before you are granted access to position your trailer on that surface lot.
Local zoning offices need checking to the extent you need to verify your piece of land is zoned so trailer homes can park there. Some municipalities won’t allow trailers at all. So, you’d need to look elsewhere to turn a trailer into a permanent residence. (Read RV Refrigerator Not Cooling But Freezer Is)
Just putting a block wall beneath your trailer perimeter isn’t sufficient.
To turn a trailer into a permanent residence, you can find the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) publishes guides on how to fix a mobile home permanently. Once the foundation walls and support piers are in place, the mobile home can be set on top.
