Let’s discuss how we level out our trailer. When we go camping, leveling out our trailer is a super simple process. It takes us only a couple of minutes to get it level and it’s not stressful at all. There are a couple of tools that we use to make this process super simple. First we use a LevelMatePRO and second we use Andersen Levelers. Here is how we use those items to level out our rig.
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LevelMatePRO
First, when you get to your campsite, turn on the LevelMatePRO. It’s best not to keep this on all the time or it will kill the battery. We have ours installed in the pass-through. So we get out, open up the pass-through and turn on the LevelMatePRO.
The LevelMatePRO is used through an app on your smartphone. It uses Bluetooth to show you what needs to be done to level your trailer. The first time you use this, you do have to install it and have your trailer leveled out and tell the app that yes, this is level. But once you do it the first time, the information is in there. Even if you change out the batteries, it’s still in the app. It knows what you need to do to adjust your trailer to level it out.
So when you look at the app, you first see if the passenger side or the driver’s side needs to go up. So you determine which side you need to level out first.
Andersen Levelers
Next, you’ll want to use your Anderson Levelers. So you’ll take the leveler to whichever side is lower, whichever side you need to raise up. Now you have a couple of different options for levelers. There’s the standard Andersen levelers that provide about a four inch lift. So you can level out your trailer a maximum of about four inches. And then there’s also the Andersen Rapid Jack, which has about a six inch lift.
There were a couple times when the standard levelers were close calls. We either didn’t have enough space on it to get the rig up as high as we needed to on that side, or it was just really close. So we went ahead and we bought a Rapid Jack so we have a couple more inches that we could use to level out the rig if we need to.
These days, we almost always just grab the Rapid Jack. We don’t normally need to have six inches. That’s pretty unusual. But it’s just easier to just grab the one that we know we have a little bit more wiggle room on. The only downside to the larger leveler is the incline is sharper. So in the tow vehicle you have less reaction time to stop when the app shows level.
We also use a rubber mat under the leveler. The Rapid Jack came with a rubber mat that you could put underneath it. And this really helps the plastic levelers not wiggle around, especially if you’re parking on sand or loose gravel.
Easy Way to Level the Trailer
Let’s recap now that we have talked about the different types of levelers that you could use. So we’re at our campsite, we turned the LevelMatePRO on and we saw that the driver’s side needs to come up three inches. So you grab your Andersen Leveler, either the standard or the Rapid Jack, and you grab your rubber mat.
Now once you have the trailer pretty much in the place where you want to park it, you can put your Andersen leveler in to level it out. You could put the leveler either in front of the tire or behind the tire. You can either reverse onto it or drive forward onto it. Either way will work. We normally decide based on the spot and what makes the most sense right then.
Now the best way to level out the trailer with the LevelMatePRO and the Andersen Levelers is once you have the leveler in place, have the driver have the app on their phone. That way they can drive and see on the app on their phone when they need to stop.
As soon as the trailer’s level, the app will indicate that and then the driver knows to stop. If you have somebody else helping, there is going to be a longer delay and it doesn’t make sense. For us, the LevelMatePRO is in the pass through and that’s close enough to the driver’s seat that the app (the Bluetooth connection) can still work right there. So I would recommend installing it somewhere that’s going to allow the driver to use the app so it’s easier to identify when to stop.
And that way if need be, it doesn’t take a second person to level out the rig. It can be done just by one person.
Wheel Chocks
Now, as soon as the app shows that it’s level on left to right, you want to put in your wheel chocks. So the Andersen levelers have a little plastic chock that comes with the leveler and that will either go in the front or in the back. It just depends on how far up you went on the leveler. So you want to put it wherever there’s the largest gap. Sometimes that’s going to be in the back and sometimes that will be in the front.
There are also times that instead of using the plastic wheel chock that came with the Andersen levelers, we’ll just use a rubber chock. If there’s enough space to fit a rubber chock, we find that those tend to work better when we’re unhitching. There’s less wiggling of the trailer. So if we can fit a rubber chock, we’ll use that instead. If the plastic chock is all that’s going to fit, then we’ll use that.
And no matter what we’re doing to chock up the side that we’re leveling up, we’ll go to the other tire on the other side of the trailer and we’ll add rubber chocks to that tire too.
Unhitch
Once the wheels are chocked, it’s time to unhitch the trailer. And I’m not going to dig into how to unhitch. That’s really a topic for another post. In this post, we’re really focusing on how to level it out.
Level the Tongue
So once it’s unhitched, now you can level out the tongue. You already got it level side to side, but now you can get it level front to back. And to do this, you just look at the app and raise or lower the tongue until it says that it’s all level.
On our trailer, we have a power tongue jack, so it’s literally as easy as sitting there and holding a button until we see that the app shows that it’s green and good to go.
Now, we have found that sometimes when we’re leveling out the front and back, when we’re raising the tongue jack up, we found that sometimes it affects the left and right leveling. What before showed perfectly level now sometimes shows that it’s off by a quarter of an inch or half of an inch. This is just something that happens and it hasn’t been a big deal.
We have found that if the rig is off level in any direction by about a half an inch, it’s not going to cause any issues. So when we see that happening, we just don’t worry about it. And we do also have the two-way propane and electric fridge which require the rig to be level to work, but us being off level by about a half inch in any direction hasn’t caused any issues with the fridge or anything else.
Stabilizers
So once everything is level in your rig, now you can pull down the stabilizers. Each of the four corners has a stabilizer and you want to pull those down after it’s leveled out. You don’t want to use those to help level out the rig.
Also, the stabilizers will work best if you don’t overextend them. So we normally throw in a few blocks underneath the stabilizers just depending on how far they need to go down, just so that they don’t have to be overextended.
And then the last thing is you’ll want to pull down your stairs. Your stairs are another thing that you do not want to have out while you’re leveling your rig. It can damage your stairs. But once everything’s level, you definitely want to pull your stairs down because you’ll need to to get inside. But also they’ll help to stabilize your trailer.
Conclusion
And when you’re done, remember to go and turn off that LevelMatePRO because we don’t want those batteries to die any sooner than they have to.
So that’s it. That’s our process to level out the rig. We really like it. It’s super fast. It can be done by one person, no problem.
Here is all of the gear we used:
Just to recap, it’s as simple as turning on the LevelMatePRO. Grabbing an Andersen leveler and putting it either in front or behind the tire on the side that is too low. Then either drive onto it or back onto it until the app says that that side is now level. Then unhitch and move the tongue up or down until the front and back are leveled out. And throw out your stabilizers, throw out your steps, and you’re good to go.
