When the RV Slideouts Won’t Open

Bob finished upgrading our RV’s power, and we left our rig for three weeks to go on our annual bomber tour with the Commemorative Air Force, hopeful that the efforts we had made to rewire our fifth wheel were successful. It never dawned on us that we might not be able to open our RV slideouts upon our return.

Stuck Closed

The weather warmed in Michigan, where we left Gulliver and Tagalong at my brother’s, but we had left the air conditioning off to save on unnecessary power consumption. It didn’t make a lot of sense to cool the trailer with nobody spending any time in it. We did keep it plugged into shore power to run our refrigerator, and that was about it. 

We took comfort in knowing that Bob could monitor our RV’s power remotely while we were away. 

About one week into our three-week excursion, Bob noticed a low level on our trailer power. “What could be wrong?” we wondered. A check of the weather confirmed my brother’s farm had been subjected to thunderstorms. That could have caused a neighborhood power outage. 

My brother verified a temporary power outage had been restored. So he went to investigate the electrical connections for our rig and quickly discovered the problem: It appeared an animal of some sort had stepped on the cord and managed to disconnect it in the process.

Steve reconnected the power cords and fixed the issue — or so we thought. Wanting validation that our refrigerator was indeed running, we asked him to open our dining room slideout so that he could get into the kitchen. 

After holding down the slideout rocker switch for a full minute, nothing happened. The slideout wouldn’t budge. Since we’d had difficulty with that particular extension opening in the past, we suggested Steve expand the bedroom one. That didn’t move either.

Troubleshooting

Steve confirmed that shore power was on to the trailer and that the batteries were charged. He asked if there was a breaker box he could check. Unfortunately, the breaker box also required opening that one slideout to get to it. He plugged his electrical tester into an outlet he could access and found that the trailer did indeed have AC power inside. The lights turned on inside the rig, proving that it also had DC power.

Bob guided Steve through trying to open the slideout using the onboard digital control panel, which we’ve found success with in the past. It still wouldn’t budge.

Completely stumped, and unable to do anything about the situation, we asked Steve to see if he could hear the refrigerator running from outside the rig. He could, and he verified that our propane was still working. We had left the fridge on the electric/propane setting so that it would run off electricity if available and switch to propane if not. 

We rested easier knowing the refrigerator was working properly and went on with our bomber tour, pushing thoughts about not being able to open our slideouts to the backs of our minds. 

Finding a Solution

At the end of our tour, we returned to Steve’s house, opened the door to our RV and, sure enough, the slideouts wouldn’t expand. Bob tried using an app on his phone to no avail. 

Unsure what to do, he tried one more option: He turned the battery disconnect off and then back on. After that, we were able to open the slideouts as usual.

It seems either the animal issue with the power cords or the outage caused a problem with the slideout controller. As with a computer (Bob was an IT guy most of his career), when something goes wrong, restarting it should be one of the first troubleshooting steps.

Thankfully, the power upgrade turned out to be a success. We have no power issues whatsoever and are able to operate both air conditioners, the refrigerator, and the microwave all at the same time — even when not plugged into 50 amps.

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