How to Clean and Care for Your Popup Camper’s Exterior
Cleaning and caring for your popup camper’s exterior components are not as bad as you think. Regularly maintaining important key items like the canvas, vinyl, or hard sides will ensure your popup camper will last longer. There are many components involved with the popup camper’s exterior and maintaining a regular schedule is vital.
Products
Products are key elements to providing efficient and effective cleaning and care. Harsh chemicals could damage your exterior elements and weaken already fragile materials. Whether you are gung-ho for eco-friendly products or rough and tough products that need to be used in the open, you can always find a product that would suit your needs. My suggestion would be to start with a minimal abrasive product and if that doesn’t work, move up. Sometimes dawn, vinegar, and baking soda work wonders and are less expensive and work wonders on dirty areas.
Canvas
Canvas being a natural product, needs less love from harsh chemicals when cleaning the dirt, mold, and mildew. Light elbow grease and rinsing off the non-abrasive product chemicals thoroughly will improve the look of your canvas and be essential to a longer life span. Over time, the threads in canvas can become brittle and start to tear and cause fraying in well-used areas. Cautiously, look out for areas that look weak or damaged and repair them. Sealing your canvas with a waterproof spray will extend the life of your canvas. With UV rays and environmental concerns damaging your canvas materials, color, protection, and stainability on every use.
Vinyl
Vinyl can dry up and start to crack. Window areas see the most damage with marks, cuts, and scratches persisting over time. Gentle cleaning care of the vinyl is key to maintaining these areas. Just simple Dawn and warm water will work to clean them up, on harder areas, I would suggest a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser but wash off the window thoroughly.
Window screens
Screens are one of the most annoying parts of the camper. They can easily rip or tear and fixing them can be a hassle. What bugs me the most is its capabilities to stretch and not to return to its original state, leaving sagging and droopy windows. Patching them up looks awful and you can see every repair. Prudently, take care of your windows screens and avoid sharp objects, pets, and children from playing around them especially when traveling.
Hard sides
Depending on the type of exterior product your camper is made of, you can use an all-purpose cleaner to remove dirt and grim. If you have previously painted or added decals to your hard sides, be aware of some discolorations, or removal of paint or stickiness of decals. Those who have manufactured decals and harsher chemicals are used be aware of decal chipping. My suggestion is if you use a semi- abrasive product and thoroughly wash the product off the camper. For the top of the roof, I suggest checking for cracking and seal up and immediate areas of concern. Look around the AC unit and roof vent for areas that need sealing up. I suggest you add another coat of sealant every other year.
Trailer, hitch, and wiring
Rust in the trailer and the hitch can be damaging and unsafe. Washing your metalwork and using a wire brush to remove the rust and repainting with rust prove paint will not only look better but stop the rust from eating more into your trailer.
Maintaining the wiring on the outside of your trailer and preventing it from touching the ground and other elements that could fray or break the circuit line. Tighten up your wiring to your trailer’s hitch by using zip ties.
Mechanicals
Your battery, propane tank, and mechanical components are just as important, and taking care of the exterior vents, lids, brackets, and parts are crucial to maintaining the performance and longevity of each piece. Clearing away any dirt, dust, and debris from on and around the objects is easy and takes little time. I personally use an air compressor and carefully go around each object. I also use rags to carefully wipe away excess grease or grim.