2020 marked another year of happy camping for Pete’s RV Center, whose Vermont dealership won seven #1 Dealer Awards from Statistical Surveys.
Despite being closed from mid-March until May 18th 2020 due to the Coronavirus Pandemic, Pete’s ended the year stronger than ever. The Vermont sales team collected seven #1 Dealer awards, including #1 Dealer of All Recreational Vehicles for the State of Vermont. The other #1 Dealer in Vermont awards Pete’s RV received were for motorhomes, travel trailers, fifth wheels, Class ‘A’, Class ‘C’, and towables.
Pete’s RV Center purchased a fifth dealership in Mountville, Pennsylvania just one week before the pandemic hit, and all five locations thrived alongside the original Vermont dealership upon their post-lockdown re-opening.
Throughout the United States, the RV sales flourished in 2020 as other industries withered, with many manufacturers reporting record sales in multiple months.
Pete’s RV Center’s Airstream of Vermont, the exclusive Airstream dealer in Vermont, benefitted enormously from this success, as Airstream reported a 36% increase in net sales in 2020 over 2019, setting a record for the infamous 90 year old company.
Some of the most popular units at Pete’s RV Center in Vermont continued to be Jayco RVs, which the dealership also carries exclusively in Connecticut and Pennsylvania, and alongside other brands in Indiana and Massachusetts.
The high quality customer experience at Pete’s RV Center sets the dealership apart in Vermont. With over 60 five star reviews on Google, customers praise the exception service and sales quality at Pete’s RV.
Located in South Burlington at 4016 Williston Road, Pete’s RV has your back for all your RV sales and service needs. With locations in Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Indiana, we have a RV for every type of camping fan.
How to Properly Use The Air Conditioner in Your Camper
Wednesday, July 3oth 2014 20:03:48
Learn All About Using Your Campers Air Conditioning on the Pete’s RV YouTube channel.
Randy gives a quick important lesson teaching us that air conditioners work by removing warm air and moisture from around the room, which then gets sucked outside leaving the room cooler.
In order to make sure your AC is running properly, Randy shows us how to remove and check the air filter to make sure there isn’t a buildup of dirt and dust hindering performance. Making sure the fan is on will increase efficiently with the AC system, as well as making sure that all doors, windows, and shades are closed to prevent heat from working its way back inside the camper.
Randy advises turning on the AC when temperatures are cooler (typically early morning) for optimal air flow and a cooler camper throughout the day. By using the quick cool option to restrict airflow from the ducts, the AC can effectively cool the room faster and when it reaches a temperature to your liking, airflow can be redirected back through the vents for everyone to enjoy.
To learn more from Randy and stay up to date on all things Pete’s RV be sure to visit and subscribe to our YouTube channel.
Video Transcript | How to Properly Use The Air Conditioner in Your Camper
Randy: Hey guys, Randy with Pete’s RV TV today, another quick-tip segment for you. Today I’m going to talk about air conditioners and the proper way to use them. I’ve been taking a lot of calls around the country and we’re in the middle of our warm season in Vermont, the little warm season that we get up here in the northeast. But people are having trouble with their air conditioners freezing up. People are saying they’re not cooling properly for them. And sometimes that’s the case, but usually it’s operator error about 99 percent of the time.
When I went to RVIA school back a million years ago when I first started in the industry and got certified to do this kind of stuff, one of the first things they taught me about air conditioners is they don’t make cool. They remove heat and they remove moisture, as well. cool just happens to be a byproduct.
So, when we allow our coach to heat up inside, we go to the pool all day, we’re out shopping or doing, visiting the sights around the area and we’ve got the air conditioner off, we go back to our camper at 5 o’clock at night. It’s 100 degrees inside the camper. We turn that air conditioner on. That air conditioner actually has to pull the heat out of the carpet, out of the bedding, out of the couches, out of everything inside before we start to feel cool.
So what I want you to do is I want you to do is turn that air conditioner on in the morning. it’s a little bit cooler at night, so when it’s a little bit cooler at night, of course, the coach stays a little bit cooler. So when you get up in the morning set that thermostat at about 65 degrees, 67 degrees. Let’s maintain that cool from the night before. Now, if we never let our coach heat up, the air conditioner is going to have to work a lot less hard to maintain that cool and we’re actually saving energy.
The other thing that we want to do with our air conditioner, too, is while we maintain it while we’re using it is we want to make sure that the filters are clean. So we can remove that very easily on this guy here and we just want to take this guy out and make sure it’s vacuumed. If it starts to turn brown that usually means there’s a lot of dust.
Another thing that makes an air conditioner work very effectively for us, or makes them work better, is more air flow. So with a clean filter we can get more air through this air conditioner, especially on those [00:02:00] hot, humid days.
the other thing we’ll, we’ll want to do is we want to set our fan on high. I usually use the auto setting on mine, if you let the air conditioner run all day. Again, the more air that we’re moving, the more heat we can take out of the coach and expend outside and put the cold air back inside the coach. So fan definitely on high.
We also want to make sure our doors and windows and vents are closed. I went to a camper on a campground the other day. A lady says, “My air conditioner is not cooling very well. Can you take a look at it?” I went inside. I put my hand up to the air conditioner, it was cooling just fine. What she had was both of her doors were open. She had some vents open, a couple windows open. So what that air conditioner was doing was pulling the heat from the outside and just getting rid of that and returning it so it could never bring the temperature of the coach down because it was just kind of maintaining.
What these guys will do is they’ll actually do about a 20-degree air differential, air temperature differential. So, it sucks in here, blows out here or out through our vents, and it’s going to be about a 20-degree differential. Now, if it’s just pulling air from a door, it’s never going to really bring the temperature of the coach down, so make sure all windows and doors and vents are closed. and again, that high air flow moving through the air conditioner is going to get that heat escape faster and help us with freeze up a little bit, too. The moisture will actually pass over the evaporator coil a lot quicker and not have a tendency to grab on there.
Another thing, we just got to our campgrounds, its 5 o’clock at night, we’ve been traveling all day, inside the camper it’s very hot because it’s a hot day out, so you got to turn your air conditioner on to cool this guy down. Instead of forcing it through the vents, if you’ve got a ducted air conditioner, open up the quick-cool option. This way we’re going to get a lot of airflow and we’re going to cool the coach down a little bit quicker.
Once we bring the temperature down, we can go ahead and close this and we can go through the ducts. The ducts are going to restrict the airflow a little bit, but once we bring the coach down the air conditioner is running efficiently, then we can go ahead and put it through the vents in the ceiling.
So if you try out my quick tips here, run it on high, set it in the morning, let it run all day to keep that cool inside so we don’t have to remove all that heat from building up in the sun all day. Also, if you can close your shades and things [00:04:00] like that, keep the UVs down, that’s going to help out a lot as well.
But all these should help you make your air conditioner work a lot more effectively for you. Save a phone call to me and just have a better camping experience, keep you guys cool. Now, out there having fun, you get hot, you want to come into a cool area, at least I do, and it makes it a lot more fun when you’re drinking a soda or whatever while you’re watching TV, as well.
So thanks again for watching Pete’s RV with Randy today. keep an eye out for our quick tips. Join us on our Facebook page. Sign up [ 00:04:26] on Youtube and happy camping (laughs). Have a great one.
Pete’s RV Business Manager Wins Ninth Straight EasyCare Award Monday June 25th, 2012 19:01:28
Pete’s RV Center Business Manager, Kyle Williams (pictured at left with Pete’s RV EasyCare Representative and General Manager Chad Shepard) was recently presented with his ninth consecutive Circle of Honor Award for excellence in providing clients with extended vehicle warranties.
As Kyle explains, “Winning this award year after year never gets old. Not only is it an honor, but also an incredibly good indicator that I’m doing my job educating our clients on the benefits of carrying extended coverage on their new or used RVs.”
For nearly a decade, Kyle has ranked in the nation’s top fifty administrators of EasyCare’s Vehicle Extended Service Contracts–fourteenth overall in 2011 and number one for RV warranties six out of the last nine years.
EasyCare is administered by Automobile Protection Corporation (APCO). They are members of the Recreation Vehicle Industry Association (RVIA) and the National RV Dealers Association (RVDA). EasyCare’s RV Extended Service Contracts provide comprehensive coverage on new and used fifth wheels, travel trailers, pop-up campers and motorhomes.
Pete’s RV Center is an exceptional dealership group serving the United States and Canada since 1952. With multiple locations, Pete’s RV provides sales, service, parts, accessories, and education to our community of RVers all across North America.
Pete’s RV Center Acquires Indiana Dealership Rollin-On RV Thursday, May 5th, 2011 23:56:52
On May 2nd, Vermont-based Pete’s RV Centerofficially assumed ownership of Rollin-On RV in Schererville, IN.
Located just 34 miles from Chicago, Rollin-On served thousands of customers in Southern Illinois, Indiana and surrounding states since opening its doors in 1977.
Pete’s RV co-owner and treasurer Dave McGinnis explained the acquisition was an amicable one, “We’ve had a great, longstanding relationship with Rollin-On RV over the years. There’re lots of similarities in how we run our dealerships including being family operated. With owner Paul Craven looking to step out of the business after nearly 35 successful years, it definitely piqued our interest when the opportunity arose to buy Rollin-On.”
Like Pete’s RV, Rollin-On RV was also a Keystone RV Company dealer, so Cougar, Montana, Passport, Sprinter and other popular brands of fifth wheels and travel trailers are now more widely available in the United States and Canada from Pete’s RV. McGinnis further explained, “With our Indiana location, Pete’s RV can expand and grow our customer base, providing the same excellent sales and service our Vermont, Northeast U.S, and Canadian customers have enjoyed for almost 60 years.”
Pete’s RV is retaining the services of the employees at Rollin-On RV. Kris Craven was named the general manager of the Indiana dealership and is excited about the dealership’s growth opportunities under Pete’s RV. “Knowing Pete’s RV as long as we have, the Indiana team and I are very much looking forward to combining our experience, plus the omnipresence of two dealerships, to reach a much larger community of RVers.”
Pete’s RV Center is an exceptional dealership group serving the United States and Canada since 1952. With multiple locations, Pete’s RV provides sales, service, parts, accessories, and education to our community of RVers all across North America.
For nearly a decade, Kyle has ranked in the nation’s top fifty administrators of EasyCare’s Vehicle Extended Service Contracts–fourteenth overall in 2011 and number one for RV warranties six out of the last nine years.