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This was the second year we made our own DIY RV skirting out of billboard tarp vinyl for a winter spent in living in our fifth wheel in cold weather, so I thought I would do a blog post to show how we made it.
To read about other RV skirting options, check out my article “RV Skirting Solutions for Every Budget”.
To read about other ways we prepare our RV for winter, click here.
RV Skirting Options
After researching the options available for our 5th wheel skirting, we found they pretty much boiled down to these:
- Custom RV skirting – Some companies will come to you, and some require you to travel to them. Either way, this option is typically of great quality, but it's also usually the most expensive option. It also usually requires drilling holes along the bottom of your RV to install the snaps or channels for hanging the skirting.
- An inflatable AirSkirt. Inflatable RV skirting that can be easily transported and doesn't require a difficult installation process. This option actually didn't exist when we made our skirting–I only recently (as of October of 2020) found out about it. I've provided some more details below.
- EZ Snap RV skirting – This self-installed skirting kit is popular with many RVers, but reading about it left me wondering if I could make the same thing myself at a cheaper price.
- DIY RV skirting made from various materials including:
- Plywood or particle board – Sturdy and warm, but not cheap to pay for all that lumber, and not easy to install, remove, or transport.
- Foam board insulation – Sturdy and warm, easy to install, could possibly be transported, but not very environmentally friendly and can look tacky (some RV parks won't allow it for that reason). Update: In our third year of RVing, we stayed at a mobile home park that thought vinyl skirting looked tacky and ONLY allowed foam board skirting! We ended up making skirting from white foam board and were really happy with how it turned out. Click here to read about how we made our foam board skirting.
- Plastic – Cheap, but not as sturdy. Also not very environmentally friendly, and installation presents some challenges.
- Vinyl – I ended up choosing vinyl skirting because I hoped to be able to re-use it, and because it's the time-tested choice of most professional skirting companies. I purchased billboard tarp vinyl, which is essentially a reused billboard (more details below).
Update 10/29/2020:
I just found out about a new type of RV skirting called the AirSkirt. It's inflatable skirting made from heavy-duty vinyl that is inflated by an electric pump and is held in place by the pressure, so it doesn't require drilling holes or using any adhesives. It's designed to be easy to take down, transport, and put back up, so might be a great option for people who are needing to move frequently instead of staying in one place all winter.
What type of vinyl is good for DIY RV skirting?
Some RV owners use insulated tarps to make RV skirting. At first I was thinking along the same lines, that thicker is better, but then I learned that R-value isn't necessarily the most important factor when it comes to RV skirting, because the insulation actually comes more from trapping air underneath the RV than from the thickness of the vinyl.
Since insulated tarps are more expensive and much heavier, I decided the thinner vinyl would be fine. In the end, I chose to use 11 mil billboard tarp vinyl (these are actually recycled billboards!) after realizing this was the same type of vinyl used by many custom RV skirting companies.
However, it's worth noting that my experience is mainly with temperatures below freezing but above zero; if you will be RVing in a climate where temperatures stay in the single digits or below zero for extended periods of time, you may want to consider a thicker material, such as insulated tarps or rigid foam board, as discussed later on in this article.
You may also want to purchase a remote wireless thermometer so that you can accurately monitor the temperature under your RV and wherever your pipes and water lines are located. This will tell you with certainty how well your RV skirting is working, and whether you need to supplement with a space heater under your RV.
The billboard tarp vinyl company I ordered my vinyl from offers two color choices: Black or White. Since making my skirting, I've found out about other companies, such as CoversAndAll.com, that sell new vinyl tarps in a variety of colors pre-cut to the exact sizes you need. They will even add grommets, D-rings, or loops along the edges if you want them to, which would save a LOT of time as you will see as you continue to read through this post!
How We Made Our Vinyl RV Skirting
Supply List:
Below are the supplies we used along with what we paid for them at the time (prices may have changed since then of course). Click the name of each item to see where to purchase it.
- Vinyl tarp material – enough to skirt our 38 fifth wheel, including the gooseneck and three of its four slides: $92.27 (We used 11 mil weight billboard tarp vinyl purchased from BillboardTarps.com, but since then I've discovered CoversAndAll.com, which sells really nice vinyl in a variety of colors, so I would compare the two and see which you like best and which one fits your budget.
- Brass tarp grommets & grommet tool. This set came with 500 grommets, and that was way more than enough. Last year we didn't use a grommet tool, just a cheap tool and dye with a hammer, and the task was much more difficult and time consuming. This handheld grommet punch made this job one thousand percent faster and easier. Both the grommets and grommet punch cost us $42.48
- Steel tent stakes. We ended up needing about 75, which cost around $30.
- Clear adhesive hooks. We used 65 for our 37-foot fifth wheel.
One garment bag (optional)– I no longer recommend this – will explain later! – $10.99- Duct tape (I already had this)
Total for the project: $213.45
We didn't do as good a job of making the skirting last year as we did this year (we improved on our design this year), and by the end of the winter last year's skirting was really worn and muddy, so we threw it away and planned to have professional skirting made for us this year. I got a quote from a local guy for around $1,600. If you've priced professionally made trailer skirting, you know this is a great deal.
But the more we got to thinking about it, the more we started thinking about how much money we would save if we made our own again, so we decided to give it one more try. We are so glad we did, because our homemade skirting turned out so well that feel completely content with it and no longer wish we had professional skirting.
Determining how much vinyl to order
To figure out how much vinyl to buy, I measured the total distance around the RV (including slides and gooseneck) as well as the height from the ground to the top of where the skirting would need to come, and then I ordered tarps that were either already the correct height, or else double the height and could be cut in half lengthwise to the correct height.
There was a lot of math involved, and I recommend drawing out the pieces you need and how you'll cut them on a piece of paper.
Measure twice and cut once, as they say!
Overview of the Installation Process
Here's a quick video overview of the process:
Read on to get all of the details and additional tips!
Cutting the Billboard Tarp Vinyl
This is what the billboard vinyl looks like all laid out. It literally used to be a billboard. The black side is the back; the other side of this piece had a Cracker Barrel billboard printed on it.
The first thing we did was to cut the vinyl into the sizes we needed. Calculate and measure carefully! “Measure twice and cut once,” as they say. Last year I made a few mistakes in my calculations and we ended up having to order more vinyl, which meant paying double in shipping charges. The vinyl cuts easily with scissors. We cut this piece in half lengthwise to make two long pieces of skirting.
Applying the Adhesive Hooks
Below you can see the adhesive hooks on our RV leftover from last year. When we put them on I wasn't thinking about how the ones on the sides of the slides would interfere with bringing the slides in. We haven't brought the slides in since we moved to this location, but when we do we will obviously need to remove those hooks.
A word about hook removal: These hooks are extremely sturdy. At one point over the summer I thought I might as well remove all of the hooks since we were planning to get professional skirting (so glad I didn't), and I had to use pliers to pull one off. I was so difficult to remove I gave up on the project at that time.
However, once the hook was removed, there was no damage or residue left behind on the fiberglass part of the RV. I haven't yet pulled off any of the ones that were stuck to the decals or to the gold painted fender area, but since some duct tape we pulled off the gold area took some of the paint with it, I am afraid these hooks may do the same. We don't plan on pulling them off though.
Update 10/17/19: Removing the Adhesive Hooks
Well, plans change, and after three years in our RV, we've settled in a house again and are in the process of getting our RV ready to sell, so last Sunday we removed all the hooks. We used an inexpensive heat gun and a plastic putty knife and were able to remove all of them in a couple of hours. Goo Gone took care of the residue from the hooks. There were a couple of places where we accidentally chipped the paint with the putty knife. All in all the hooks were a good option for us for what we needed, but you might not want to put them on a brand new RV if you care a lot about not damaging the finish.
Alternatives to the Adhesive Hooks
If you're thinking about doing this project but don't like the idea of using adhesive hooks, I have seen some people who used heavy duty Velcro instead…but I don't really see how that would be any better since it is also adhesive. It is also more expensive than the hooks. It does have the advantage of forming a seal all along the top of the skirting, whereas our skirting has small gaps at the top that may allow some of the warm air to escape – not an issue for us in Kansas City, but it might be for someone farther north.
Some people have also made their own vinyl skirting and hung it with adhesive snaps. That many snaps are kind of pricey (IMO), but that is an option, though not without some problems to anticipate. I am thinking about ordering some adhesive snaps for the area covering our propane tank access doors, though.
Update 10/4/18: I had an idea that I believe I will try next time we need to use skirting (not sure yet if we will use skirting this winter as we are currently in Texas). Rather than stick adhesive hooks directly to the sides of our slides only to have to pry them off again next time we need to pull our slides in, I believe I will use acrylic mounting tape to stick the same hooks to the slides. This tape stays put in cold weather (as I explained in this blog post) yet it is very easy to remove. I might even suggest trying it for all of the hooks if you're concerned about the hooks being difficult to remove later, especially since the clear hooks do turn yellow in the sunlight over time.
Last year we originally tried hanging our skirting with heavy duty suction cups, but even with following all of the instructions for using them (cleaning the area, applying in temperatures above freezing, etc.) they wouldn't stay stuck. I was very glad to find the adhesive hooks we ended up using.
This is why you don't use duct tape on your RV, learned the hard way. We used Gorilla duct tape for some of the tricky spots last year, and to tape foam board to the bottoms of our slides (which made a big difference in the temperature of our slide floors). If I need to use tape on my RV in the future I will use foil HVAC tape as it can withstand any temperature and supposedly comes off cleanly.
Hanging the Skirting
Here's what the skirting looks like hung from the hooks with a grommet. We folded the top of the vinyl over about four inches to make it sturdier and make it look neater.
Below is a photo of last year's skirt-making process. First we taped the skirting in place temporarily and marked the places where we needed holes, then we took it down and used a hammer to punch the holes using the small inexpensive tool that came with the grommets we purchased last year.
Adding the grommets with a hammer took a long time, and that was only doing grommets along the top – we weighted down the skirting on the bottom last year instead of staking it down. The weights we used weren't very efficient, though (we used plastic gallon jugs of water) and we were constantly having to fix and adjust the skirting after a windy day.
And here is my husband using the grommet punch this year. It was so much easier as we were able to just go along punching holes as we hung it – no marking or measuring required. I wondered if it would be hard for me to use the punch tool since my hands are smaller, but I have no problem using it; it doesn't require more than a normal amount of hand strength.
Sometimes this new skirting with the tent stakes along the bottom still comes unhooked in a few places and has to be rehung after very strong winds, but it does a much better job of staying put.
Update Spring 2018: Over the course of this past winter, a few of the grommets pulled out of their holes and a few ripped the vinyl. That didn't happen the previous year, so I'm wondering if the handheld grommet punch didn't always cut through as cleanly or close as tightly? Anyway, most of them held up just fine, so to remedy the situation I plan to use black Gorilla duct tape to cover and reinforce the torn places and then redo those grommets. To prevent this from happening, I would suggest that you really make sure your grommets are tight, and possibly reinforce the holes with a piece of black duct tape before you punch them.
Fastening the Skirting Along the Bottom
After we got the skirting hung along the top, we went around the bottom punching holes and pounding in tent stakes. (If your RV is sitting on concrete, I will be providing some ideas later on that other RVers have used as an alternative to tent stakes.)
By now you can see how buying pre-cut vinyl with grommets already added would have saved us a lot of time!
Going Around Tricky Areas
We cut and folded the skirting to go around vents and other things we didn't want to cover.
How We Joined the Seams Between Two Pieces of Vinyl
For the seams between pieces, this year we just overlapped them by several feet. Last year we tried using Gorilla duct tape to tape the seams together and it did not stay. It ended up coming untaped, blowing around in the wind, and making a sticky, dirty mess.
Overlapping the skirting without actually joining it worked just fine for us since it was fastened at the top and bottom, but if you are concerned about making a tight seal you may want to find a different way to join the seams (see the idea suggested at the end of this article).
I planned the seam in the photo below to be at the spot where our sewer hose connects so that it can be easily unhooked if we need to access that area. That area is kind of ugly because I forgot when I was measuring that there would be a white pipe sleeve along the edge, so I didn't end up having enough to fold over for that short piece.
Skirting the Stair Area
Going around the stairs was kind of tricky. I ended up taking the vinyl across the front underneath them, then adding a second piece to line the area behind the steps, hung from adhesive hooks I stuck to the steel frame.
I actually decided to use a heavy duty clear shower curtain (which already had grommets!) weighted down with a few bricks instead of tarp vinyl to line the area behind the steps because our cat loves to play under the RV, and this lets a bit of light in. He also likes having this little spot under the stairs as a place to jump in and hide if something scary like the garbage truck shows up.
He can slip underneath the RV there too, which I know means our skirting isn't 100% sealed, but as I mentioned earlier this doesn't matter too much in our climate; we mainly just need to block the wind.
Update 2022: Our kitty's wild and free days are over as we've finally transitioned him to being an indoor only cat, and now he only goes outside on a long leash.
[irp posts=”7418″ name=”Helping Kitty Adjust to RV Life”]
Skirting Around the Fifth Wheel Gooseneck
Below you can see a picture of what the front part of our skirting looks like. When we skirted our fifth wheel with foam board two years later, we opted to leave this part un-skirted, and I honestly don't think it made that much of a difference, because we didn't do a very good job of sealing the skirting to prevent wind from entering, so this area of the RV (my husband's side of the bed, and our closet) still got pretty cold even with the skirting. I ended up lining the walls of our closet with a type of foam wall covering for extra insulation, and that made a big difference. Alternatively, I think lining the closet with Reflectix would have helped, too.
I think if I had it to do over again, rather than try to make my own skirting for the gooseneck area, I would just purchase a fifth wheel skirt like this:
Adding a zipper to access the storage area under the gooseneck
To access the front storage area without having to remove the skirting, I decided to add a zipper (an idea I got from the EZ Snap skirting website). Instead of buying an expensive long zipper, though, I decided to surgically remove the zipper from an inexpensive garment bag. This is an extra long garment bag designed for wedding dresses.
I ended up cutting more off the sides until I had about six inches of plastic on either side of the zipper. I should have trimmed a bit more; I think about two inches on either side of the zipper would have looked better. Just enough to have something to stick tape to.
Then I taped the zipper to the back of the skirting using extra wide Gorilla duct tape.
Next I cut a hole in the front of the skirting over the zipper.
And now I have a zipper opening for my skirting.
ETA spring 2018: Unfortunately, the garment bag plastic didn't hold up to cold weather. Since the plastic was not made for outdoor use, it became brittle and tore to shreds. To fix it, I plan to cut off all of the plastic and attach the fabric of the zipper directly to the billboard vinyl.
Here is our RV with its 5th wheel skirting, all ready for cold weather!
Click here to read about other ways we prepared our RV for winter.
Ideas from Other RV Owners
Since I originally wrote this article, countless others who have read it have now made their own billboard vinyl skirting and adapted or improved on my process to fit their needs. (I just love the ingenuity of RV owners!)
One RV owner named Rob Dodd allowed me to share photos of the skirting he made, along with some additional ideas he came up with:
Idea #1: Sandbags Used to Weight the Skirting Down on Concrete
Rob used sandbags he ordered from Amazon and filled with sand from a local supplier to weight down the skirting since he was on a concrete pad and couldn't use tent stakes. He says his skirting was able to withstand a wind gust recorded nearby at 52 mph without even budging! (Other RVers use pieces of lumber to weight down their skirting.)
Idea #2: Snaps Used to Join the Skirting at the Seams
Rob used snaps and a snap tool to attach the skirting pieces to each other. I love this idea and may do it to attach my front piece to my side pieces if the duct tape I used in one place ends up coming undone. If you don't mind screwing into your camper, you could also use screw-in snaps to hang the skirting…personally I was too afraid I would make a mistake and end up with a bunch of holes in the wrong places to try that.
Idea #3: Skirting Over the Stairs and Adding a Porch
Rob avoided the tricky issue of how to skirt around the steps by folding in his steps and covering them up and building these steps using free pallet wood instead.
I think Rob's skirting looks really sharp!
Idea for Creating Access to Storage and Mechanical Components
Here's another idea from an RV owner named Guy Hoffman. He went ahead and covered his storage access doors with skirting but created a flap that opens for access and stays closed with the use of magnets.
If you end up making your own skirting and come up with any more great ideas to share, or if you have any questions for me about our skirting, please leave a comment below! 🙂
Update 3/5/2019: As I mentioned at the top of this blog post, this year we had to use foam board to skirt our RV because the mobile home park we are in now doesn't allow vinyl skirting.
The project was actually easier and cheaper than the vinyl skirting ($106 plus tax for materials) and we like how it ended up looking.
The only downside is that it's one-time use only, and not very environmentally friendly. 🙂 I wrote an in-depth blog post about the process, which you can read here. We also made a video to demonstrate the process as we made the skirting, which you can watch below.
Real quick, would you be willing to click the button below to help me get to 1,000 YouTube subscribers? It would really help me out!
Click here to read about the other ways we prepare our RV for winter!
For more winter RV tips, check out my Winter RVing Resource Page:
It should be noted too that the EZSnap skirt website also sells just the snaps themselves and a fairly reasonable price (~$160 with shipping for 100 snaps). That paired with the recycled billboard vinyl ($106 with shipping for the size we needed for our 26 ft camper) and you’re looking at a really easy way to save a few bucks and get a good looking final product. We’re spending less than $300 for our whole skirt set up vs. the over $900 price tag of the entire EZSnap setup.
This is a great point! I considered buying the EZSnap snaps individually myself but ultimately was concerned as to whether the adhesive would hold. I’m curious to know how they hold up for you!
I quedtion the efficieny of vinyl siding as there is no research on this and everything is speculation as to how much heat loss this prevents.. Yes, it stops the wind, but there is basically no insulative value in the vinyl, so the temperature would proably be almost the same on both sides of the vinyl. The only way to effectively test the theory would be to have two identical trailers side by side, one with and one without the skirting and thermostats set at the same temperature and then see the difference in fuel use over a winter in a cold climate.
I put hard foam insulation under my trailer everywhere except where the holding tanks are. Two sheets of 2″ thick R-10 back to back, using spray foam insulation to glue it in. All outside compartments are lined with R-10 hard foam and even inside compartments are backed with 1″ thick R-5. There is also a roll of R 16 fiberglass batt stuck in places where the hard foam wouldn’t fit. All roof vents have foam rubber insuation covered with vinyl for aesthetics. There is even insulation stuffed in the air conditioner, as it isn’t needed in the winter. The top of the slider has 2 sheets of R-10 on top, covered with a “topper” and one sheet on the bottom. Also made plexiglass storm windows for all the windows. and added 1/2 ” thick R 2.5 to the door and the bathroom wall using a stick on wallpapper that durprisingly matched the existing walls. Oh, and carpet with padding to add a couple more R’s.
Bryan, you don’t have to have two identical trailers to test the difference with and without skirting – you can also test in the same RV before and after adding skirting if you waited until after the weather got cold before you put up your skirting. 🙂 Another way I could tell the vinyl skirting made a difference was when a gallon jug of water sitting on the ground outside my RV was frozen solid and one sitting a few feet away from it under the RV and behind the skirting was still liquid. Lastly, lots of people put remote thermometers under their RV inside their skirting to monitor the temperature via their phones, and they report a difference with vinyl skirting vs. outside air temperature as well. As you said, the vinyl itself does not provide any insulation, but the air trapped inside the skirting takes longer to cool than the air outside the skirting, and so the air is what’s providing the insulation. No question that foil backed foam board would keep the air warmer than vinyl does, which is why I would recommend it over vinyl for folks in the far north, but for places where the weather goes below freezing but usually stays above zero, vinyl does just fine, in my experience (and I’ve used both vinyl and foam board).
Does skirting the front part of a 5th wheel where the hitch is at make a difference in temperature also? I was curious as I see some RV’s are skirted there and some are not.
I would say yes, it does make a difference, but it’s less important than skirting that lower part of the RV because that area is comparatively small. In our fifth wheel, that area was on my husband’s side of the bed and under our closet, and without the skirting in winter the floor on his side of the bed was very cold. But it wasn’t a lot of surface area for heat to escape from, if that makes sense. So I would say if you can skirt that area, it will definitely help that part of the RV stay warmer, but if you don’t skirt that area and that part of the RV is cold, it might not impact the rest of the RV very much. However you may end up with condensation on the walls in that part of your RV. My perspective is that everything we can do to prevent heat loss helps!