slide out stabilizers
Does anyone use a stabilzer under the slide out when extended? Just wondering if this is something else I should buy. My slide is large and has the table and sofa so there is weight on it when in use....
Forum Discussion
jaycocreek wrote:
Lucky-No... The slide cannot and I repeat, "cannot" move if the trailer frame is supported.Period.com.. It is virtually impossible for that to happen with four quality jacks not these electric stabilizers!
I have one response to this - consider if your trailer is parked on pavement / asphalt and the slideout extends over soil (as in off the edge of the pavement). In a case like that your slideout support posts would be on the soil. Then there is a good rainfall where the soil sinks at a different rate than the pavement. The effectiveness of the supports would then be rendered less effective (ineffective) since the axial force in the strut would have dropped.
The point being made is that with the current designs of slideouts AND the recommendations of several RV manufacturers, these post-type supports are not to be used under slideouts. That is not nonsense. Moreover, some users of these supports (maybe not you) could see the need to cinch up the supports under the slideouts so that an upward force is applied to the slideout - maybe to offset any tendency to sink as in the situation I mentioned in my first paragraph.
The slideout manufacturers have to consider warranty claims made by users who might be using equipment not as they were intended or designed, and without proof of the abuse. When they deny the warranty claims these users then complain on the Internet and that is not good for business, so they prohibit things like slideout supports etc. in an effort to minimize spurious claims. There may well be some tolerance in the design (which you might be within) but nothing is guaranteed for ALL users. The thing is, none of us knows where this tolerance ends, so we have to go by what the manufacturer states just in case.
That is all.
BTW - have no clue what you are talking about with electric stabilizers. These are under the trailer frame not under the slideouts.
UPDATE - I think I know what you meant by bringing the electric RV frame stabilizers into the discussion, i.e they could flex causing relative displacement on the trailer downwards while the post-supported slideout does not move thereby placing a vertical upward strain on the slideout. Again, another reason not to use a post under the stabilizer. But lets say screw type stabilizers are used under the frame and the RV does not move, the point I made in the first couple of paragraphs still stands.
