RVs come in all shapes and sizes. And most don’t include exactly what each owner wants or needs, leading to modifications for personal taste. Our fifth wheel is no exception. We’ve made a number of changes to it in the seven years we’ve owned it. Some are better than others. Here are our six favorite Jayco Pinnacle RV mods.
Bedside tables
When we purchased our rig, we knew we wanted a queen bed rather than a king to allow room for us to walk around it and easily make the bed. Plus, that’s what we were used to.
We had the RV dealer remove the king mattress and cut down the plywood base to the width of a queen. Then we moved in our own mattress (not as complicated as it sounds, as it arrived rolled up inside a tall, square box).
The smaller bed footprint freed narrow space on either side of the mattress near the head. We wanted tables or shelves for those spaces to hold our glasses, phones, and watches at night. The unusual size available led to some research before Bob found the perfect solution.
We bought two three-tiered, slim rolling carts (paid link), put them together (minus the casters), and attached them to the walls next to our bed with Command Strips. Each shelf has about a 2-inch lip around it that allows us to store items safely for travel too.
Aftermarket tank sensors
The sensors that come with an RV from the factory, especially for the black tank, are only reliable in the very beginning. After that, gunk on the inside of a tank can provide a faulty reading of full or nearly full capacity even right after emptying it.
Wanting a more accurate measurement of our black and gray wastewater tanks, we purchased some aftermarket sensors and a Tech-Edge iSeries tank monitor kit (paid link). Bob installed a sensor on the black tank at the beginning of our RV life. A few years later, he also installed them on the kitchen gray tank and the bathroom gray tank, a task he found easier after we pulled off the RV underbelly.
After connecting the sensors to the monitor, which is positioned inside our basement compartment on a wall, we now get an accurate read on the capacity in each of our three tanks at the push of a button.
Medicine cabinet magnet
Having a medicine cabinet in an RV bathroom is a nice feature. We took ours up a level by adding a wooden-looking magnetic strip (paid link) inside to hold tweezers, nail clippers, and other metal items. These types of magnets are commonly used to store knives in kitchen settings.
The strip holds our small metal items in place during travel and makes them easy to locate without having to dig through things to find them.
Propane heater connector
The furnaces that most RVs come equipped with do a good job of heating the coach. Many even heat the underbelly to prevent pipes and hoses from freezing. But there are a few problems with these onboard heaters: They draw a lot of battery power (not good for boondocking), make a lot of noise, and dry out the air inside the rig.
We opted for an alternative and bought a Mr. Heater vent-free propane heater (paid link). It does a much better job of heating the rig quickly, and it’s much more efficient than the onboard unit. Because the Mr. Heater uses propane, we wanted an easy way to connect it to our 30-pound bottle without having to feed a gas hose through a slideout.
Bob drilled a hole in the floor near a wall and set up a hose bib there that’s accessible from an outside compartment door. He connected that to our propane bottle through a hose under the trailer. When we get the heater out for the winter, we quickly and easily attach the hose from the heater onto the floor connector and get cozy.
Command Strips for gadgets
Although, or perhaps because, space is limited in an RV, we like to keep it neat and orderly. Strategically installed Command strips help us meet that goal. We have one that holds a squeegee in the shower (paid link), another couple that make a towel rack (paid link) in the shower, a cuplike one to hold our TV remotes, and a couple that are hooks to hold extra hats in our coat closet. We have others throughout the rig as well.
Grocery bag holder
After six years of full-time RVing, I got tired of digging through a bag of plastic grocery bags under the kitchen sink anytime I needed one to hold something. They were also inaccessible during travel because the closed kitchen slideout prevented us from getting to them. If we wanted any bags for travel days, we had to remember to get them out ahead of time and stash them in our coat closet.
We finally bought a designated grocery bag holder (paid link) and stuck it to the inside of the coat closet door. Now we keep all grocery bags there and have easy access to them anytime. Plus, we gained space under the kitchen sink for stowing other items.
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