About Chock & Level

A working notebook for travel trailer and RV systems, written by Kyle Tice, kept in the order a technician would actually check things.

Who writes this

I'm Kyle Tice. I own a travel trailer that gets worked on in the driveway, and I'd rather spend an hour with a multimeter than a weekend waiting on a mobile tech for a sail switch. Over time the notes from those repairs turned into the guides on this site. Chocking the wheels and leveling the rig is the first thing you do at every site, and it's the right frame for troubleshooting too: get the basics right before you touch anything expensive.

I am not a certified RV technician and this site does not pretend otherwise. What it offers is the manufacturer's own diagnostic sequence, written plainly, with the voltages and part numbers filled in, and a clear line where a job stops being a driveway job.

How a guide gets made

1. Start from the service manual. Suburban, Dometic, Atwood, Thetford, Shurflo, WFCO, Progressive Dynamics, Lippert, and Dicor all publish service literature. Each guide lists which documents it was checked against.
2. Order by probability and cost. Low voltage before a bad board. A dirty electrode before a gas valve. The sequence is the product; the reader should be able to stop at step three because step three found it.
3. Put numbers on it. Expected readings, gaps, pressures, BTU ratings, and cylinder capacities come from spec sheets. Where a figure is a typical range rather than a spec, the guide says so.
4. Say when to stop. Propane, 120-volt wiring, and anything under a trailer on jacks get a plain stop box, not a paragraph of hedging.
5. Keep it current. Every guide shows the date it was last revised. When a reader sends a correction that checks out against the manual, the guide changes and the date moves.

Photos and video

The photos on this site are taken during actual repairs on real rigs. Guides go up with diagrams first and gain photos as the matching repair gets done and documented. No stock photos, no generated images.

Use of software

Spell-check, the calculators, and the site itself are software. Drafting assistance is used the way a word processor is used; every procedure, number, and part reference is checked by a person against the manufacturer document before it is published, and the person whose name is on the byline is responsible for it. The editorial policy has the detail.

Corrections

If a guide has a wrong reading, a part number that doesn't match your unit, or a step that the manual for your model year contradicts, send it. Corrections that hold up get made and credited if you want the credit.

Money

The site is supported by display advertising. There are no affiliate links at the time of writing, no sponsored guides, and no manufacturer has paid for a mention. If that changes it will be disclosed at the top of the page where it applies. See the editorial and monetization policy.