Pickup from Sumas 101

[kavm]

We are picking up our Escape 5.0 in Sumas, WA on the Memorial Day. I have a range of questions on which I could use your advice.

• Any checks we should attempt and questions we should ask when we take delivery.
• What should the trailer brake controller sensitivity be set at? We are towing our Escape 5.0 with a 2021 F150.
• Our campground #1 (2 nights) is with hookups; campgrounds #2 and #3 (each 2 nights) have no hookups. Our plan at the campground #1 as we start our Escape experience is as follows:
  • Stage 1: Hook up the camper to water and electric to charge up the battery and fill the water tank to begin with. Not clear roughly how long it should take.
  • Stage 2: Disconnect the hookups to simulate a boondocking scenario.
  • Stage 3: Restore the hookups the evening before departure to charge and fill everything up.
  Any advice on or enhancements to this plan are highly welcome.
• What systems should we be trying to test / learn in campground #1? Our list so far is as follows:
  • Water reaches the kitchen and bath
  • Power to the refrigerator and lights
  • The AC outlets are functional (inverter)
  • The water heater heater
  • Propane reaches the cooktop
  • Solar (not sure how it should be checked, given that we will be on the shore power to begin with. May be in Stage 2
  • Use of the generator to charge the batteries
  • Turn the furnace on - unless it is boiling hot
  Any advice on the above list or the list items would be highly appreciated.
• When do we add the holding tank odor treatment? Right after we get to the campground on Day 1? Something else?
• What is the right way to utilize the sewer hookup when it is available? Should one hook up to it right away and stay hooked up throughout the stay? Hook up after tank is somewhat full and/or morning of the departure from the campground?
• Campground #2 is 175 miles away but has no hookups. Should we leave campground #1 with full water tank? Something else?
• I have the notes about adding chlorine to the water tank. Is that something we do on day 1? In the morning before we depart campground #1. At the end of our trip when we park the camper in storage?
• Can we leave the brake adjustment until the end of our trip - about 1750 miles?
• In time, we will create a checklist. Are there any checklists (arrival tasks, pre-departure tasks, etc.) that we can get a starting point? If so, I'd love to receive a copy.

This is what I could think of. I might add to this as we come closer. If there are omissions here, I would appreciate a pointer.

PS: As per the earlier thread - we expect to be well equipped minus the experience. And, we will do the basics like tightening the lug nuts, etc.

[RangerMan]

I received a laminated copy of a departure list of things to check with my unit. I still use it after almost two years. Very useful.

[kavm]

Originally Posted by RangerMan

I received a laminated copy of a departure list of things to check with my unit. I still use it after almost two years. Very useful.

Thank you! That would be great. I hope Escape still provides it.

[rubicon327]

Originally Posted by kavm

• What should the trailer brake controller sensitivity be set at? We are towing our Escape 5.0 with a 2021 F150.

Someone here may be able to give some general guidance but every rig is going to be slightly different based on condition of the brakes, etc. In general you want it set so that the trailer brakes first and helps to pull the tow vehicle to a stop but not so aggressive that the tires lock up.

Originally Posted by kavm

• When do we add the holding tank odor treatment? Right after we get to the campground on Day 1? Something else?

I would add it at your earliest convenience with a little bit of water in both black and gray tanks. Can't hurt.

Originally Posted by kavm

• What is the right way to utilize the sewer hookup when it is available? Should one hook up to it right away and stay hooked up throughout the stay? Hook up after tank is somewhat full and/or morning of the departure from the campground?

You can hook up right away if you like but DON'T leave your dump valves open. Common rookie mistake. Wait until your tanks have some volume then dump black and follow with your gray to help clear the line.

Originally Posted by kavm

• I have the notes about adding chlorine to the water tank. Is that something we do on day 1? In the morning before we depart campground #1. At the end of our trip when we park the camper in storage?

Many campers don't drink their tank water. I've seen discussions about this but personally I wouldn't add any chlorine to water I was going to use and especially not while camping. If the water source is suspect than don't put it in your tank to begin with. When putting the camper in storage for any length of time ideally you would drain the water system.

[kavm]

Thank you so so much! This is very helpful. Much obliged!

[C&G in FL]

If you haven’t determined what the correct brake setting is, I would start at 6. Others may disagree.

And if you fill your water tank at the first campground, it will be full when it starts gushing out at the fill point. I would first fill it and then drain it onto the ground. No worries about sanitizing it if it is new. And, because the campground is a “public supply water system,” there will be chlorine in the water just like at home, unless your home is on a private well. The amount of chlorine will render the water safe to drink, but the fresh water tank should be sanitized a couple of times each camping season using bleach.

[Bobbie54]

Originally Posted by C&G in FL

If you haven’t determined what the correct brake setting is, I would start at 6. Others may disagree.

And if you fill your water tank at the first campground, it will be full when it starts gushing out at the fill point. I would first fill it and then drain it onto the ground. No worries about sanitizing it if it is new. And, because the campground is a “public supply water system,” there will be chlorine in the water just like at home, unless your home is on a private well. The amount of chlorine will render the water safe to drink, but the fresh water tank should be sanitized a couple of times each camping season using bleach.

But... your water tank does not fill when you hook up to city water. The hot water tank will fill. The cold water tank will not. So you need to fill through the fill inlet and not the one that you can screw a hose to.

I would not hook up the sewer until you are ready to dump- it is just one more thing to have to take down if you end up moving before you dump. (For whatever reason- tanks hardly full, emergency departure, whatever.)

Drinking from fresh water tank- I don't have a problem with that provided I know I've sanitized it, but to get good-tasting water both the hose and the tank have to "cure" a bit and get that plasticky taste gone. After I filled and emptied the tank a few times and ran the hose until it tasted good out of the hose, I filled with a filter on the hose. Water tastes fine now. YMMV as it depends on the filling water, too! (I used mine from home.) Some people prefer to carry drinking water.

[kavm]

Originally Posted by C&G in FL

If you haven’t determined what the correct brake setting is, I would start at 6. Others may disagree.

And if you fill your water tank at the first campground, it will be full when it starts gushing out at the fill point. I would first fill it and then drain it onto the ground. No worries about sanitizing it if it is new. And, because the campground is a “public supply water system,” there will be chlorine in the water just like at home, unless your home is on a private well. The amount of chlorine will render the water safe to drink, but the fresh water tank should be sanitized a couple of times each camping season using bleach.

Thank you very much, Carl!

Thank you very much for suggesting a brake controller setting. When we start from Sumas, WA - we will be focused on just towing safely. So, it would be good to start with a sensible setting - and go from there.

Your discussion of water treatment also helps a lot. We get city water home and have never dealt with well water...

[davidmurphy02]

Fill your fresh water tank, and then hook up to city water. Turn on a hot water tap to see if the water heater tank is full -when water comes out instead of air, you are good to go. Then you can turn on the electric switch outside in the water heater compartment and it will operate on AC whenever you are plugged into shore power. Check after 15 minutes to see if you have hot water so you can confirm it's working. In the 5.0 you will get hot water faster at the bathroom tap than at the kitchen tap, it is closer to the water heater. Also turn on the water heater switch inside to confirm that the propane function is working - you will be able to hear the burner running if you listen outside. When the water heater is on, from time to time as it reaches max temperature it will weep/drip just a bit from the pressure relief valve, that's normal and nothing to worry about.

Turn off the city water and turn on your pump, you should hear the pump run and faucets will work. After confirming that you can turn the pump off and use the city water hookup in your first campground. We always travel with our fresh water tank full - especially when heading to someplace with no hookups.

If your whole trip will be a week, you really won't need to dump the black tank until the end. It's better to let the black tank fill up, at least halfway or so, before dumping it so that there is a lot of water to rush out and wash all the solids out. You always want to have water in your gray tank when you dump black so that it will somewhat rinse out your sewer hose. We generally try to empty the gray tank whenever we can - that fills up much faster than the black tank, especially taking daily showers, so when you leave your first campground it would be a good idea to dump the gray tank. Does the no hookup campground where you will spend your last night at have a dump station so you can empty your tanks before heading home?

Become familiar with the display and controls on your GoPower solar controller. The display will cycle between three readings - your battery voltage, battery percentage of full charge, and the number of amps going into them from your solar panels. To turn on your inverter hold and press the lower left "AC" button on the control panel for 3 seconds. A little "AC" icon will appear in the upper right corner of the display indicating that the inverter is on. It takes a minute or so after the inverter is turned on for it to fully power up and provide power to your outlets and microwave.

For the trip home it doesn't sound like you will need your generator unless you encounter hot weather and need the air conditioner while dry camping. Your solar panel will probably keep the batteries at a full charge or close to it, they will charge while you are driving also.

ETI will provide you with a big envelope full of all the manuals for the various components and appliances - lots of good info in there. The checklist of items to check before travel that they provide you is a good resource - over time you will develop your own or modify theirs to suit your specific needs, but definitely use theirs at first. One item we added to ours is to wrap a dish towel around the glass tray in the microwave for travel - anything glass needs to be cushioned from the inevitable bumps and bounces.

[kavm]

Originally Posted by Bobbie54

But... your water tank does not fill when you hook up to city water. The hot water tank will fill. The cold water tank will not. So you need to fill through the fill inlet and not the one that you can screw a hose to.

I would not hook up the sewer until you are ready to dump- it is just one more thing to have to take down if you end up moving before you dump. (For whatever reason- tanks hardly full, emergency departure, whatever.)

Drinking from fresh water tank- I don't have a problem with that provided I know I've sanitized it, but to get good-tasting water both the hose and the tank have to "cure" a bit and get that plasticky taste gone. After I filled and emptied the tank a few times and ran the hose until it tasted good out of the hose, I filled with a filter on the hose. Water tastes fine now. YMMV as it depends on the filling water, too! (I used mine from home.) Some people prefer to carry drinking water.

Thank you very much, Bobbie! Not having had a camper before, we are fairly clueless. So, a lot of things that are obvious are are quite obscure to us. We have downloaded the videos and seen a few. The problem is that I have forgotten the ones I watched a couple of months back. So, we now plan to watch them when we travel to Sumas - and again when are at the campsite.

If I understand correctly - to fill the water tank, we need to to put water in the fill inlet to fill the cold water tank - and the (cold water tank) fill inlet is not something we can screw the the pipe to. We did get a funnel - so we ought to be able to fill it.

We did buy a rv water filter that connects to the pipe. We were planning to drink the water - filtered second time with Britta.

[kavm]

Originally Posted by davidmurphy02

Fill your fresh water tank, and then hook up to city water. Turn on a hot water tap to see if the water heater tank is full -when water comes out instead of air, you are good to go. Then you can turn on the electric switch outside in the water heater compartment and it will operate on AC whenever you are plugged into shore power. Check after 15 minutes to see if you have hot water so you can confirm it's working. In the 5.0 you will get hot water faster at the bathroom tap than at the kitchen tap, it is closer to the water heater. Also turn on the water heater switch inside to confirm that the propane function is working - you will be able to hear the burner running if you listen outside. When the water heater is on, from time to time as it reaches max temperature it will weep/drip just a bit from the pressure relief valve, that's normal and nothing to worry about.

Turn off the city water and turn on your pump, you should hear the pump run and faucets will work. After confirming that you can turn the pump off and use the city water hookup in your first campground. We always travel with our fresh water tank full - especially when heading to someplace with no hookups.

If your whole trip will be a week, you really won't need to dump the black tank until the end. It's better to let the black tank fill up, at least halfway or so, before dumping it so that there is a lot of water to rush out and wash all the solids out. You always want to have water in your gray tank when you dump black so that it will somewhat rinse out your sewer hose. We generally try to empty the gray tank whenever we can - that fills up much faster than the black tank, especially taking daily showers, so when you leave your first campground it would be a good idea to dump the gray tank. Does the no hookup campground where you will spend your last night at have a dump station so you can empty your tanks before heading home?

Become familiar with the display and controls on your GoPower solar controller. The display will cycle between three readings - your battery voltage, battery percentage of full charge, and the number of amps going into them from your solar panels. To turn on your inverter hold and press the lower left "AC" button on the control panel for 3 seconds. A little "AC" icon will appear in the upper right corner of the display indicating that the inverter is on. It takes a minute or so after the inverter is turned on for it to fully power up and provide power to your outlets and microwave.

For the trip home it doesn't sound like you will need your generator unless you encounter hot weather and need the air conditioner while dry camping. Your solar panel will probably keep the batteries at a full charge or close to it, they will charge while you are driving also.

ETI will provide you with a big envelope full of all the manuals for the various components and appliances - lots of good info in there. The checklist of items to check before travel that they provide you is a good resource - over time you will develop your own or modify theirs to suit your specific needs, but definitely use theirs at first. One item we added to ours is to wrap a dish towel around the glass tray in the microwave for travel - anything glass needs to be cushioned from the inevitable bumps and bounces.

David,

Thank you very very much! Incredibly helpful. I am going to read it together with my wife to digest everything. Our return trip is 2 week long.

Many thanks!

[Mark&Elaine]

All great advice above! You probably already know this but another important thing is to make sure your trailer is securely chocked while hitching and especially unhitching from your tow vehicle! Advice I didn’t get before my first trip! No damage was done but my heart rate about doubled!!

[Lawrence A]

Originally Posted by kavm

Thank you very much, Carl!

Thank you very much for suggesting a brake controller setting. When we start from Sumas, WA - we will be focused on just towing safely. So, it would be good to start with a sensible setting - and go from there.

Your discussion of water treatment also helps a lot. We get city water home and have never dealt with well water...

Assuming your truck has a factory-installed brake controller, there should be some instructions in the truck manual as to how to set it. Worth having a look.

My other advice is to just relax a bit. Three years ago I was in exactly the same boat as you. Brand new trailer; never towed anything in my life before. Scary as hell just driving out of the Escape factory lot. Didn't help I took a wrong turn, had no idea if I'd set the brake controller correctly, and my new truck gave me an engine warning message just as I turned onto the freeway on-ramp. But, a couple of days later, not a pro, but also felt so much more at ease. Just be careful, take things slow and easy, make your own checklists (or add to Escape's if they give you one) and you'll be OK.

[rubicon327]

Originally Posted by davidmurphy02

Fill your fresh water tank, and then hook up to city water. Turn on a hot water tap to see if the water heater tank is full -when water comes out instead of air, you are good to go.

Be careful. It would be worth a check of the position of the hot water heater bypass valves. If they happen to be left in the bypass position you will get water out of the hot tap but the tank will be empty. You are much better off lifting the tab on the pressure relief valve outside in the hot water heater compartment. If water comes out you are 100% assured it is filled. If you flip on the electric heating element without water in the tank it will be destroyed immediately.

[kavm]

Originally Posted by Mark&Elaine

All great advice above! You probably already know this but another important thing is to make sure your trailer is securely chocked while hitching and especially unhitching from your tow vehicle! Advice I didn’t get before my first trip! No damage was done but my heart rate about doubled!!

Thank you for reminding us! My wife and I have been watching the chocking and leveling videos I will state my understanding of the unhitching and hitching process and itemized list of steps (for Andersen Ultimate fifth wheel hitch) I have compiled non-Escape videos, in case I misunderstood something...

Unhitching on arrival at a campsite:

• Use the leveling blocks on one side to level from side to side - assuming the site is not level
• Use the chocks on the opposite side
• Unplug the 7-pin connector
• The video I watched has a breakaway lanyard which needed to be unconnected. I do not know if we have one of those on Escape
• Undo the chains
• Put blocks under the landing gear and lower the landing gear
• Put the truck in neutral, in case the Andersen ball is too tight
• Unlock the the Andersen cable pin (anti-clockwise) and pull the pin handle out to remove the pin from the coupler socket
• Raise the front jack to move the coupler higher. This will unhitch the coupler
• Move the truck forward - possibly needing to lower the tailgate
• Use the front (and rear?) jacks to level front-to-back

Hitching on departure:

• Open tailgate and make sure that the Andersen cable handle is pulled out
• Reverse the truck (possibly needing raise the tailgate) to position the pin underneath the coupler socket
• Lower the front jack on the trailer to lower the coupler socket into the ball
• Push pin in and turn clockwise
• Attach chains
• Attach the 7-pin connector
• Attach the breakaway lanyard not sure if this a part of the Escape setup..
• Raise the front jacks up completely. Not sure if Escape has rear jacks. If so, raise and stow them as well.
• Remove chocks

I would highly appreciate any feedback on this.

[kavm]

Originally Posted by Lawrence A

Assuming your truck has a factory-installed brake controller, there should be some instructions in the truck manual as to how to set it. Worth having a look.

My other advice is to just relax a bit. Three years ago I was in exactly the same boat as you. Brand new trailer; never towed anything in my life before. Scary as hell just driving out of the Escape factory lot. Didn't help I took a wrong turn, had no idea if I'd set the brake controller correctly, and my new truck gave me an engine warning message just as I turned onto the freeway on-ramp. But, a couple of days later, not a pro, but also felt so much more at ease. Just be careful, take things slow and easy, make your own checklists (or add to Escape's if they give you one) and you'll be OK.

Thank you very much! I will look again - but it seems to ask for detecting when the trailer wheels lock up. Not sure when I will get to that level of competence...

I totally get your point about relaxing, but it is hard to do. My guess is that once we have the camper and have successfully driven it to the first campground, that's when one will start to relax a bit...

[rubicon327]

Originally Posted by kavm

In time, we will create a checklist. Are there any checklists (arrival tasks, pre-departure tasks, etc.) that we can get a starting point? If so, I'd love to receive a copy.

Something like this might help as a staring point for your own list:https://www.escapeforum.org/forums/f...tml#post176058

[kavm]

Originally Posted by rubicon327

Be careful. It would be worth a check of the position of the hot water heater bypass valves. If they happen to be left in the bypass position you will get water out of the hot tap but the tank will be empty. You are much better off lifting the tab on the pressure relief valve outside in the hot water heater compartment. If water comes out you are 100% assured it is filled. If you flip on the electric heating element without water in the tank it will be destroyed immediately.

Thank you!

I will try to look for the hot water heater bypass valve... But assuming that might initially be hard to find, I will make sure that the water comes out of the pressure relief value outside the hot water heater before turning the water heater on....

This is going straight into my check list...

[camp4528]

Breakaway: All trailers with brakes should have a breakaway cable and certainly the Escape does. This engages the trailer brakes if the trailer becomes separated from the tow vehicle. It is also why every trailer with brakes needs a battery to power the brakes under this condition.

Leveling front-to-back. The front landing gear are used to level the trailer front-to-back. Behind the wheels on each side is a stabilizing jack that you screw down after you've disconnected the TV and levelled the trailer. These are designed not to assist with leveling but to help prevent the trailer from rocking as you move around inside. You deploy and raise these using the supplied crank or power drill with the appropriate socket.

Some of your questions are covered in the users manual which I'm sure you've downloaded. Might be worth a refresher read before you start your holiday on Thursday. I know you will be very nervous, but like exams in school you will have done a lot of studying before, but you should relax and enjoy other activities after you leave until Monday (easy for me to say. :-))

Here's the manual
https://escapetrailer.com/wp-content...al-5.25.20.pdf

Good luck!! I am sure you will be fine, and as nervous as I will be when my turn comes.

[1200bruce]

https://youtu.be/Lhkslyc6clw