RV Slideout Sweep - keep your slide roof clean
The RV Slideout Sweeper is one of those products for RVs that you knew you needed and wished someone would invent. Fortunately, someone did, and you can tell this was invented by an RVer.
The RV Slideout Sweeper is a handle attachment that you put between a broom handle and a broom head (for use with those broom handles and heads you find in hardware stores that are threaded to be twisted together). Effectively this is a big plastic “U” that goes between them so that, when you’re standing on the ground, the broom head is parallel to the ground.
One of the things I always used to try to remind people of is that whatever is outside when your slide room is open, is going to be inside when it’s closed. I’ve seen a lot of slide seal repairs just because folks closed the slide rooms with branches and twigs on the roof of the slide room, which then damaged the seals and turned into nasty leaks.
The solution has been to get a ladder or get up on the roof of the RV and sweep the top of the slide room off before you bring it in. That means you’re either carrying a spare ladder or are going up on the roof of the RV. For people who are averse to ladders, such as yours truly, this is one of the big reasons I wouldn’t buy an RV with a slide room. Period.
This simple u-shaped plastic handle attachment solves that problem. The company reached out to us and sent me one of these things to try out and the first impression is that it is very well made. There was nothing flimsy or cheap about it.
I went out to the garage and got a push broom and put this device between the broom handle and the broom head and it made it possible to reach up to the roof of my travel trailer and sweep it off.
The size of this can reasonably fit into an exterior baggage compartment and I think you’d be fine with a simple broom head and handle that you could use to sweep out the interior of your RV, so you’ve got inside and outside covered.
The company also notes that you can use a broom head or a mop head as well. And, bonus, this is made right here in the good ol’ US of A.
The RV Slideout Sweeper on a broom handle with a plastic broom head attached.
Sometimes someone comes to us with a product and I see it and think “this would be nice” – and then there’s something like this that, if you’re not a roof climber, it’s more of the RV essentials category.
Of course, if you have slide topper awnings or don’t have a slide room the story is different – but for the rest of you, I think this is $26.99 very well spent. You can get one for yourself here.
Even a slide topper awning isn’t enough, having the RV Slideout Sweep would be a great addition to keep that awning in the best shape as you can see by these sticky seed pods adhering to the slide topper.
Bonus hacks
Now here’s a hack for you from your RV Geek. If you have a remote camera like a GoPro, you can attach that to the broom handle as well and use your smartphone to see what’s going on up on the roof of the slide. Again, I’ll go out of my way to avoid ladders. This way you can also be sure you’ve cleaned off said slide roof properly.
Another bonus. You could attach a squeegee head to the RV Slideout Sweeper and squeegee the water off the roof of the slide. There usually won’t be much if your RV is properly leveled, but none is better than some.
