Leveling with bottle jacks

[Jmptravelrn]

Has anyone tried to level. With like 6 boltte jacks. Placed on the frame supporting g in the middle also. What are the drawbacks. ... 34' excella. Seems might be a better way to level and stop swaying. I park for 3 to 6 months at a time. Im a travel nurse.. thanks in advance.

[TheGreatleys]

Jacks are for stability, not leveling. Airstream frames are very flexible and you could do some damage by trying to level with bottle jacks.

Use stacking or curved levels under the wheels to level side to side, then adjust the tongue jack to level front to back. Then deploy the stabilizer jacks to prevent bouncing.

As a bonus, use x-chocks or a similar style chock for tandem axle trailers to help prevent bouncing. Just one x-chock helps a lot.

[tjdonahoe]

Originally Posted by Jmptravelrn

Has anyone tried to level. With like 6 boltte jacks. Placed on the frame supporting g in the middle also. What are the drawbacks. ... 34' excella. Seems might be a better way to level and stop swaying. I park for 3 to 6 months at a time. Im a travel nurse.. thanks in advance.

No....level with the tires and hitch jack...use stabilizers...as stabilizers only

[GMFL]

Do not use bottle jacks you will bend the frame. Use tires to level and x chocks and stabilizers to prevent swaying

[Jmptravelrn]

Yes i have all those. Wedges. Blocks. And 4 of the xlocks between tires. Plus i have 4 x crank down stabilizers. I was just thinking if i used bottle jacks all the way around i would remove the weight off the tires and suspension and would be easier to level for the duration if the stay. I like to pull forward and back ever few weeks to avoid flat spots on tires. And its just such a pain to re level each time. I was thi ki g of using a 4 x4 along the frame rail on both sides to lift it equally.

[barts]

You can level your Airstream a few inches with bottle jacks, but ONLY if they're placed so as to support the axle plate; the rest of the frame is not designed for concentrated loads such as those from leveling jacks (as opposed to stabilizers). This is how one replaces axles, brakes or changes tires; it's safe.



Note of course, that these must be screw jacks; hydraulic ones will slowly (or not so slowly) leak down.



Bottle jacks have somewhat narrow bases, so rough or irregular surfaces can be problematic, and lifting more than 3 inches is likely a bad idea.



Remember to remove them before driving away!


- Bart

[kscherzi]

I imagine most every RV owners park their RV for months, probably over winter, at some point for many months at a time. While not ideal we all mostly seem to survive.

Pretty sure my airstream manual says not to try leveling the trailer with the stabilizer jack's, so as others have noted, for the same reason not to use bottle jack's at those locations either.

What you could do is inflate all trailer tires to their maximum pressure to minimize sidewall flex while parked (remembering to lower pressure back prior to departure), and use jacks at the designated jack points to lift the trailer slightly to remove some, but not all, the load off the tires. That's probably more than good enough.

[drbrick]

X chocks and AS stabilizers to stabilze your AS once level. I would not use bottle jacks.

[ROBERT CROSS]

Originally Posted by kscherzi

I imagine most every RV owners park their RV for months, probably over winter, at some point for many months at a time. While not ideal we all mostly seem to survive.

I do exactly that.👍

Bob
🇺🇸

[tjdonahoe]

Originally Posted by ROBERT CROSS

I do exactly that.👍

Bob
🇺🇸

......Why...?

[overlander63]

Originally Posted by tjdonahoe

......Why...?

Do you know where he lives?

[aaurbane]

Someone partially described what has worked so far for me when docked for some time and I'll add some detail and rationale. I don't think jacking the frame is a good idea. I find the LevelMate Pro very useful for the whole process. I first level side to side using the curved leveler blocks and the corresponding chock on BOTH sides of the trailer (levels the trailer, gets all 4 tires off the ground to reduce the risk of rotting the tires and provides a curved surface to the tires to increase the tire contact areas and hopefully reduces the risk of flat spots). I use the tongue jack to level fore and aft and place tire covers over the tires to reduce rot from the sun. I lower the 4 scissor jacks gingerly to stabilize the trailer and add 2 X-jacks between the tires on each side to add stabilization. I also learned to go back after a day or so to ratchet down the 4 scissor jacks SLIGHTLY and tighten the 2 X-chocks between the tires to compensate for any settling and make the trailer less wobbly.