Ever worry about hanging limbs?

[Jimbee]

Hey All,

Are any of you ever concerned about damaging Ac or other roof components when driving through heavily wooded campgrounds? Made some NYS park reservations for this summer at 2 different campgrounds in the Catskills and then the terrifying thought hit me. What If my 5th wheel is too tall and low hanging branches rip off some roof equipment? Some of these parks are tight and backing out usually isn't an option!

Yikes!

[Veebyes]

All of us with tall vehicles & do extensive travelling are going to experience battle damage at some point or another. Backing into a site the frequency of damage happening is greatly reduced by having the DW get out, communications in hand, & do the spotting for you.

Bullheaded "I can do it myself" will cost you. A CG is not a warehouse yard for semis where there are no height issues & the distance between parked trailers is known. Semi trailers are built to take bumps into loading docks. Most RV trailers are nothing but flimsy plastic. The trees will win everytime.

[colliehauler]

Put me down for minor roof damage from a low hanging branch as well. Now I'm very parnoid about having enough clerance of low branches.

[FLY_4_FUN]

I do carry small pruners and rarely need them. While I do expect campgrounds to keep up with overhanging branches etc....Its fully my responsibility not to go down roads where damage might occur as I'm stuck with the bill. A buddy backed into a site last year and a low broken 6" branch did over $10k damage in a few seconds! Aside from the "newness" of pulling/backing a 5er my one great challenge is being aware of my height in unfamiliar settings.

Daryll

[Veebyes]

laknox wrote:

Veebyes wrote:
Had a serious issue at a SP one time. No way for getting into the site. No problem. CG people passed me a lopping saw. Up on the roof I went & did some serious pruning. They were very happy. Picked up branches as I cut them. No problems for getting a very tall trailer into that site for quite some years to come.

I'll bet they were happy. Got a sucker to do =their= job for them. :W

Lyle

Maybe so. I don't care much. Goes with the territory of not making reservations & using CGs never been to before & not likely to be passing that way again. This was a case of an almost full CG, no reservations & no alternate close by. When you are a pretty big 5er you need to be adaptable.

[RAS43]

Yes, I am concerned all the time since having roof damage done by a tree branch that was pulling loose from a tree. This was on a county road on the way to the storage lot. That limb got a number of us. My damage included the sat. dish, a/c and 1 vent covers, 1 roof panel and the rubber membrane. I let my insurance fight it out with the owner of the property and the county. I found a different lot later that was on a treeless street.

[SailingOn]

Most Friday mornings we bicycle with a group through the Texas Hill Country, picking rural roads to avoid traffic. Not so long ago I noticed an odd shaped piece of plastic at the side of the road.
Sure enough, the rest of an air conditioner cover was a few feet further along the road, and the AC itself showed up after a while.
Thinking back, there had been a nice (if you're on a bicycle) stretch of overhanging trees and shade not far back.
Campgrounds are more civilized than some of our roads.

[DutchmenSport]

Never worried about it until last October when we purchased the new 5er at 13 feet 4 inches tall. Before that, had travel trailers around 11 feet tall.

The day we brought the new 5er home I parked in the same spot where the last TT sat. After I got in, unhitched, and set up, the neighbor came over and said he saw me back in and said he was going to yell at me because that 'thing' on the roof of new 5er was hitting "low hanging" tree limbs. He didn't yell because he was too far away, and the sound of my diesel would have drowned out his yells anyway.

Well, I looked up and sure enough, that small television antenna was in the small twig type branches hanging down. I had them trimmed up OK for the 11 foot tall travel trailer, but the extra 2 feet on the new one put the air conditioner and the television antenna right in them. Fortunate, they were jsut the small twigs with lots of leaves.

So, I got the tree saw out and climbed on the roof of the 5er and trimmed up ... again ... as high as I could reach. I had to re-hitch the trailer so I could move it so I could get the rest of the tree, just to make sure everything was trimmed up REALLY good.

First time I pulled the camper out from under that tree, the tree sure looks funny now! It's trimmed up so high it crazy. But, I look at it every day now and have focused in my head how high of a clearance I really need for the camper. When traveling now, I'm very, very much aware of the height, where, when I had the travel traielrs, I never though out it.

Yea! It's a life adjustment in your driving skills ... for sure!

[richclover]

It’s a constant threat. When boondocking in the National Forest we always carry the chain saw and long pruning shears. There are commercial camp grounds in the national forest south of town that we can’t get into for overgrown trees.

[Range_Maggot_Bo]

I don't worry too much cause I am watching and have already determined whether I can get by the branches or not. On the other hand, my wife is constantly ragging about branches being in the way. And always telling me how close it was to almost hitting it. I can't get her to grasp the concept that "close" is not the same as hitting something. It's always going to be close. So no, I don't worry, and yes, my wife worries constantly.

[Halmfamily]

Watch for low slung phone and cable lines. I took one down not too far from our house when my A/C caught it.

[cpu266]

Regarding low limbs at ny state parks and DEC campgrounds. Many people call them "state parks" but some are managed by the Department of Enviromental Conservation (DEC) and others by the NYS parks department. This makes a big difference on how the parks are run and managed. Watchout! Most NY run parks in the catskills and adarondacks are run by the DEC. They do not believe in trimming trees in parks or along the access roads. I booked at a park in the Catskills a few years back and have camped in the adarondacks. My trailer is 32' pulled by a Ram 3500. The site was big enough but getting in was a night mare. The road in the park was about 9' wide with trees and bushes along both sides and the road was one way only. The only way i got trailer in was to pull into an empty adjancent site then back in.

Most of the time we camp in the Adirondacks but will be staying away from most parks there as the DEC does not like to maintain clearance and when they design a site just leave the stump in the middle of the entrance to site. Many of the DEC campgrounds were designed and built back in the 50's and 60's and never upgraded.

Those parks that are run by the NYS park service are much better all around. DEC believes in very rustic. The park people on site agree with ones concerns about trimming, etc. but their hands are tied. A NYS arborist has to come inspect any tree before a branch is trimmed.

The sites one selects is big enough for your rig but getting into it can be a major PITA.

Happy Camping

[Johno02]

Yes, it is a subject which should be of major concern to anyone driving or towing an RV of any type.. However, there are too many out there that have never given any thought to anything except what they want to do, and that there might be something in their way never occurs to them. I have seen a lot of them sitting with major damage to the rig. Then there are a lot that just don't understand or know the height of their rig. So better be sure than sorry! If you don't know, go out and measure it. My height is posted on a tag on the dashboard. and it is right, but I always add at least 6" to what it says. If my CB antenna doesn't clear, that's it. when approaching something, I slowly test with the antenna first. But even that is not all the way across the top.

[handsome51]

laknox wrote:

Jimbee wrote:
Hey All,

Are any of you ever concerned about damaging Ac or other roof components when driving through heavily wooded campgrounds? Made some NYS park reservations for this summer at 2 different campgrounds in the Catskills and then the terrifying thought hit me. What If my 5th wheel is too tall and low hanging branches rip off some roof equipment? Some of these parks are tight and backing out usually isn't an option!

Yikes!

I'm 18" taller than my old FW, so I'm a bit paranoid about it and learning what my limits are. I did manage to drag a branch across my roof at my dad's house when I =thought= I had clearance. Managed to scrape off an attic vent and dent the forward vent hatch. Couple small scrapes on the roof that I taped over. At our annual boondocker, I changed spots due to overhanging branches that I didn't want to deal with (along with the steepness of the spot), and I'm glad I did.

There were 2 people around the corner from my house that had branches hanging over the street, well below the city code of 13'6", and literally met in the middle of the street. I wouldn't even take my old 11' Komfort that route. When I got my new KZ, at ~12'6", I called the city to have them check; =I'd= measured about 11'6", myself. It only took 4 months, and about 4 calls, to Code Enforcement, before they got it taken care of...mostly. Still a couple "streamer" branches hanging down, but not enough to worry about.


I keep the tree limbs on my street trimmed myself with a battery chain saw trimmer. I keep a old style tree trimmer in my storage compartment of the RV for the few times a tree limb is hanging to low at my campsite. It is a lot faster to to this then as you found out getting the city to get it done. And sometimes if it is a lot of limbs at the RV site I will get the campground to cut them . But if it is just one , it is quicker for me to do it and then get set up and take it easy.
Lyle

[2oldman]

MFL wrote:
.. the low canopy in the parks. They normally just agree, say it keeps things more natural,

Common excuse. I guess that paved road is 'natural' too.

[MFL]

2oldman wrote:


Letting trees grow over the roadway at less than 15' height is about money, inattention and laziness. But hey, if most Rvers don't pay attention and are willing to drive through trees, why bother?

I agree, and in my area SPs are the worst. It seems the more popular sites are the worst, for hanging limbs. If many are willing to drag limbs over their roof, to get to these preferred sites, the supposed to be workers let these folks trim for them, using their vents, antennas, and AC covers.

I quit mentioning to park managers, about the low canopy in the parks. They normally just agree, say it keeps things more natural, or we'll have that taken care of later in the season when things slow down.

I usually camp parks I am familiar with, and just choose a site that I know I'll fit.

Jerry