to level or not to level

[Mike Leary]

Originally Posted by purman

I pack my builders level and tri pod, this takes a little longer and requires two people. ( one to look through the level and one to hold the measurement stick.). But when I'm done I'm within a 1/32 of being totally level

Jeez, someone even more anal than me! My two foot mason's level works just fine ( though I have to admit I'd thought of bringing my builder's level along, but we just don't have the room.)

[NevadaGeo]

Originally Posted by Michigander

This sounds like a nice way to do it, except that our freezer is usually so packed when we go out that it wouldn't be practical to remove enough frozen food to get to the bottom to place the plate.


We use a 10" level side to side and fore 'n aft at the doorway. This seems to correlate well for our unit.
I have noticed on some previous trips, that the fridge didn't cool as well as other times. After reading this thread I wonder if it was because we weren't level enough.
On the other hand, when at a campground we always power the fridge with electric, so does being level count as much when you're on AC vs propane?

Sometime when the freezer isn't full, find the plate and reference it to some other surface nearby, like a counter top. There's threads on these forums describing how that plate is the manufacturer's reference to the level needed for optimum operation of their appliance. Others say hooey. It's your food temperature. Put a temperature probe in there and record your own data.

[Jammer]

We have two levels permanently installed on the tongue, one a large side-to-side level visible from the driver's seat of the tow vehicle, the other a bullseye level next to the jack. The side-to-side level has markings that more or less indicate how many lynx leveling blocks we need under the tires to even things out.

We find that the trailer is uncomfortable if it is much more than 1" out of level side to side, or the equivalent amount angle wise front to back.

Front to back level is ordinarily easier to achieve than side to side, since we can just adjust the tongue jack and (if we stay hitched) WD bars, unless the site is really bad.

The trailer has a newer fridge and we've never noticed a problem with it failing to cool because of slope.

The Cayo has a 1971 fridge and we do find that it is extremely sensitive to slope and won't cool properly if we're off by 1". Since it is a truck camper we have placed some bubble levels in the cab of the truck to help choose ideal placement on crooked sites.

[Bill M.]

I know we hit a campsite at Peaks of Otter that I could not get the trailer level enough for the fridge to work on gas. I think we were still 6-9 inches off with the jack all the way down. I turned the fridge off and we used a cooler for 3 days. Took a while traveling to thet the fridge to work again. A friend told me that the fridge is more sensitive to fore and aft leveling than side to side.