How to Inspect your RV Slide Room with These RV Tips

The slide room in your RV should be inspected once a year not only for proper operation, but for you seals and for the rollers and mechanism as well. There are several different types of slides. This one we have here happens to be a cable slide. Some of your smaller ones that don't have quite as much weight will have just these two cables on each side that are gonna pull the slide room out or back, back in and run on these rollers. We have a gear system on the unit that's back over here but let's look at this one first.

What I would look at, take a look at the seals first of all. Make sure this seal that runs the entire length of the perimeter of the slide room is intact. That every part of this is connected to the body of the RV. If you have any gaps in here, we're gonna start to see moisture penetration coming inside. And if I get moisture inside the slide room, I'm gonna have a wet floor and I'm, and I'm gonna have a lot of problems.

So I look at this all the way around and make sure that it's good and tight. That there's no cracks. This is a bulb type seal. You see that it's gonna be pinched when it comes in. There's also a seal up underneath here.

I wanna make sure I look in there and look all across this seal just to make sure that it's, it's also connecting. And I've got a flap seal on this side here that is gonna come in and out with the unit. It's not only gonna help clean the sidewall off when it, when it comes in and out, but it also will help seal this as you notice right here when the, when the unit's completely out, or if I can only bring it halfway out, then I still have a seal in there rather than a gap depending on just the sides. I wanna make sure I look at the flange here as well. There's nothing protruding out.

There's no bent areas in it so that I would have a, something that's not gonna seal flush into it. Something else that I think is really important with slide rooms is make sure that you've got a good solid foundation that your unit is level. You see most companies that provide a slide room put leveling jacks on. If yours doesn't have leveling jacks, it's probably a good idea to put them on. What happens is if you go into a campground and you have uneven spot, your chassis is gonna twist whether it's a travel trailer or fifth wheel or motorized, you're gonna get some unlevel, uneven base in that.

So your chassis twists a little bit. That means your sidewall is gonna twist a little bit. And that means you've got a room that really isn't gonna fit flush. So getting it good and level to start with is very important to make sure this room fits flush up against here. In this system here, we've got a series of rollers.

Now, some of them will have just a pad that the room slides on. That one again, has the gear system, but I wanna come in here once a year and just hit that roller. And I'm gonna do that on all four of these as I come down. I also wanna watch when the room goes in and out. I wanna make sure that that roller doesn't any flat spots or it isn't cracked or broken anywhere.

So it's a nice, smooth rollers as it comes in and out. This slide room happens to be a gear-driven underneath. But the first thing we look at is a seal off the side here. Now, if you have your slide room out at extended length of time, this is gonna start to dry up. Same way with this, the bottom seal, the seal we saw on the before here because it's gonna be exposed to the sun.

They do make a slide room lubricant, which is protector. Makes one that you would wanna periodically spray on this. Then if you, are leaving it out like that and I'd say once a year it's a good idea just to do that. So it doesn't stick to it. It keeps just nice and pliable.

So then underneath here, we're gonna look at these teeth and make sure that there aren't any gaps, nothing's been broken off in here. So as this comes in with the gear system coming inside and outside we're not gonna catch, and have a problem with it. Then again, just visually inspect. Make sure everything is nice and tight snug. The springs on here it's got a more sealant on the bottom side of it and that nothing on the bottom of this is, is ripped out and it's gonna catch as it slides in.

So the next thing we're gonna look at is the roof. We wanna see what shape, the rubber membrane on the top is. Some of them use fiberglass. Some of them have an awning up there. So let's go up on roof.

So up on the top of the roof of our slide room, the couple of things we're gonna look at, first of all is this tacky tape along the seam here. This is put in to cover all the fasteners. You see them every once in a while. We wanna make sure that none of these has started poking out. Probably need to put a little bit of silicon in it if they are.

This one's fairly new but it's in really good shape. This also is the flap up in the top here. We wanna make sure that's, again, all secured, all the way across and we have no tears or anything in it. Something else you wanna consider when you have a slide room like this, some manufacturers are putting an awning on the slide room. So it'll come out with that.

They're doing that because they don't want any debris. They don't want sticks and acorns, leaves that type of stuff falling on top of the slide room. We see here we do have a leaf and a little bit of stuff on here, not too bad but if you don't have a slide room on, when you break camp it's a good idea to get up here and just look at the top of the slide room. Make sure you don't have anything sitting on there that when you pull this back in, it's gonna just tear the seal up here, and then you you won't be able to keep it sealed. The other thing is the, the roof material.

This happens to be a rubber TPO roof. Just make sure there's no tears in it, areas that will leak. I would also while I'm up here clean this rain gutter. Now there's two of them on here. This top one up here designed for water coming down the side of the roof to, to channel and go out.

And you'll see the two little spigots at the end. This one's designed to keep it off, the slide room. So if I get a bunch of dirt debris stuff in here, plug in this up, it's not gonna channel out to the outsides. It's gonna go on top of my room. So just, just make sure this is nice and clean.

And then this one looks pretty good. Same thing back here in this room, look at the, top material. Make sure the rain gutters open, all the seals all the way around. At any of these top seals here too, we wanna make sure everything is nice and snug, the boxes and start to move or wobble and then when we bring it in, it's not gonna seal. So a little bit of care and maintenance.

These slide rooms are gonna double the size almost inside your RV, but they'll last forever if you take care of them.