Here’s how to level a camper, start to finish: raise the low side on leveling blocks while you’re still hitched, chock the wheels, unhitch, then run the tongue jack until the floor reads level front to back. Stabilizers go down last, and only until they touch. They stop the bounce. They never lift the rig.
We’ve leveled our trailer this way since our first season in 2019. The details below decide how smoothly it goes: how many blocks to build, how high a stack can safely go, what changes on a motorhome or fifth wheel, and when a site isn’t worth the fight.
Leveling vs. Stabilizing a Camper: Two Jobs, Two Tools
Leveling changes height. You raise a low tire or the front of the trailer until the floor sits flat. Stabilizing adds contact: stabilizer jacks fold down from the frame corners so the rig stops rocking every time someone walks to the fridge.
Neither can do the other’s job.
A parked trailer still rides on its suspension, so it sways as you move inside. Stabilizers calm that sway without carrying the trailer’s weight. The makers of electric stabilizer systems say so in their own manuals: the system is for stabilizing the trailer, not leveling it, and the legs shouldn’t run more than two seconds past first contact with the ground. Check the manual for the system fitted to your rig.
Here’s camper leveling vs. stabilizing, side by side:
| Leveling | Stabilizing | |
|---|---|---|
| What it does | Makes the floor flat | Stops rocking and bounce |
| Tools | Leveling blocks or ramps, tongue jack, fifth-wheel landing gear, powered leveling jacks | Stabilizer jacks (scissor or electric), pads under their feet |
| Carries the rig’s weight | Yes | No |
| When | First | Last, after the rig is level |
| Classic mistake | Quitting half a bubble off | Cranking “a bit more” to lift a low corner |
Powered leveling jacks, the hydraulic or electric kind on many motorhomes and larger fifth wheels, belong in the leveling column. They’re designed to lift. Stabilizers are not.
What You Need Before You Start
At CamperishTrails, the loose gear rides in one milk crate by the trailer door:
- Leveling blocks or ramps. Stackable plastic squares, about an inch thick each, built into a low step you drive onto. Curved ramps skip the fixed steps.
- A 24-inch bubble level. Easy to read on the floor, and the measuring tool for the lift math below. A phone level works in a pinch.
- Wheel chocks. Wedges pushed snug against the tread. Carry two pairs.
- Pads. Jack pads, or a spare leveling block, under every jack foot on gravel or soft dirt.
The jacks come with the rig:
- Tongue jack. The crank or electric jack on a travel trailer’s A-frame tongue. It holds up the front and sets front-to-back level; fifth wheels use landing gear.
- Stabilizer jacks. Fold-down corner legs that steady the rig and carry no real load.
Motorhomes and some fifth wheels add an auto-leveling system: hydraulic or electric leveling jacks, run from a touchpad, that lift the rig to level.
One habit pays off fast: once the floor reads level, stick small bubble levels on the tongue and beside the entry door, so the next site’s tilt reads from outside.
How Level Is Level Enough?
Center the bubble. Read it in the same spot each time; we use the floor just inside the door.
The clearest published limit belongs to absorption fridges. The fridge manuals we’ve read allow about 3 degrees side to side and 6 front to back before the cooling system is at risk, and yours prints its own figure. A fridge that won’t cool on a level site needs its own checks.
For scale, 3 degrees across an 8-foot-wide trailer is roughly 5 inches from side to side, so a centered bubble leaves plenty of margin. Near-dead level still matters: leveling-system manuals note that an unlevel RV can knock slide-outs out of alignment, and you’ll sleep better without your head downhill.
Where Leveling Fits When You Pull In
Leveling comes right after the rig stops rolling and before anything gets plugged in or slid out. Connect a sewer hose first, then nudge the trailer onto a block, and you’ll be unhooking it again. Blocks before cords.
Slide-outs wait for level, too, though some motorhome manuals order it differently, so check yours. Once the rig is level and stable, the slide-outs come out and you can open the camper awning. Everything from the pedestal onward is in the full RV arrival order. If a slide-out still drags on a level rig, that’s a repair question, not a leveling one.
Step 1: Level a Camper Side to Side While It’s Still Hitched
Keep the tow vehicle attached. It’s the only thing that can pull a tire onto a block; unhitch first and you’ll be hooking up again. If you’re learning how to level a travel trailer, this step sets up the rest.
Read the tilt. Lay the level across the floor, side to side. The bubble drifts toward the high side, so the low side is the one away from the bubble.
Do the math before you grab blocks. Guessing cost us three tries per site that first summer; measuring gets it in one or two:
- Lift the low end of the 24-inch level until the bubble centers.
- Measure the gap under that end.
- Multiply the gap by your tire spacing (center of the left tire to center of the right), then divide by 24.
Say the gap is ½ inch and your tires sit 84 inches apart: ½ × 84 ÷ 24 = 1¾ inches of lift. With blocks that add about an inch apiece, that’s a two-layer step. Using a phone level that reads degrees? At 84 inches of tire spacing, each degree of tilt needs roughly 1½ inches of lift.
Build a step, not a tower. Butt the blocks against the front of each low-side tire, wider layer on the bottom. On a tandem axle, each tire on that side gets its own stack.
Pull on slowly. Creep forward with a spotter, or stop for GOAL (“get out and look”), until each tire sits centered on the top layer with its whole tread on the block.
Check again. Off by a layer? Roll off, adjust the stack, and try once more.
Step 2: Chock the Wheels, Then Unhitch
Chocks go in before anything at the hitch comes loose. Georgia’s commercial driver study guide opens its trailer-uncoupling steps the same way: park on a firm, level surface and block the trailer tires.
Chock the tires that aren’t on blocks, one in front and one behind, snug against the tread. The same guide adds a check worth copying: make sure the ground under the jack pad will hold the tongue’s weight before the jack takes it. Then:
- Unplug the 7-pin cord, unclip the breakaway cable, and unhook the safety chains.
- Open the coupler latch.
- Set a pad under the tongue jack foot and crank until the coupler lifts clear of the ball.
- Pull the tow vehicle forward and park it out of the way.
Towing with a weight-distribution hitch? Its spring bars come off before the coupler lifts, following that hitch’s own instructions.
Staying one night and leaving at dawn? You can stay hitched: level side to side, chock, and sleep. It’s also the quietest option when you’re arriving after quiet hours, since an electric jack motor carries across a campground loop.
Step 3: Level Front to Back With the Tongue Jack
Lay the level lengthwise on the floor and run the tongue jack up or down until the bubble centers. A power jack takes seconds. A hand crank takes a few minutes.
Keep a pad under the foot, on ground that passed the check in Step 2. If the jack runs short, stand it on a leveling block rather than cranking it to the end of its travel.
Take one last reading both ways before the stabilizers touch down. Order matters: stabilizer manuals warn that using the tongue jack or fifth-wheel landing gear after the legs are extended can damage the legs.
Step 4: Set the Stabilizers, Snug and No Further
Lower each stabilizer until its foot meets the pad and the leg feels firm. Then stop. Aim for even pressure across all of them.
A stabilizer has started lifting instead of steadying when:
- the tire on that corner looks lighter,
- the bubble slides off center, or
- an electric stabilizer shuts itself off, which the manuals read as the system trying to lift too much weight.
We learned this the slow way. In our first season, my husband ran the rear scissor jacks down a few extra turns to “finish” a half-bubble. By morning the entry door was rubbing at its top corner. Backing the jacks off to snug fixed it in two minutes; the lesson stuck much longer.
On soft ground, set a pad or a short stack of blocks under each stabilizer foot. Some block makers allow a taller stack under a stabilizer than in a leveling pyramid, which is a good hint at how little load a stabilizer is meant to carry. Your own blocks print both limits.
How High Can You Stack Leveling Blocks?
There’s no universal number. The limit is whatever your block’s maker prints, and it varies by product. Across the ones we checked, the printed caps fall in this range:
| Limit | What the manuals print |
|---|---|
| Total stack height when leveling | Between about 4½ and 5½ inches, built as a pyramid |
| Total stack height under a stabilizer | Up to about 8½ inches on some products, the same cap as leveling on others |
Those are the ranges, not your number. Read the figure printed on your own packaging or in the product insert, and use that one.
Build every stack as a pyramid so the tire climbs one step at a time. Block makers’ FAQs also rule out muddy ground prone to sinking, large rocks under a block, and mixing blocks with other brands, wood, or stones.
Keep the whole tread on the top layer. If a tire spent the stay half on an edge, give it an RV tire inspection before you drive home.
Need more lift than your blocks allow? Don’t build higher. Move.
Leveling a Motorhome
We tow, so this section leans on leveling-system manuals rather than our own driveway. Motorhomes come in two setups.
No leveling jacks (common on Class B and C). Blocks still do the work, fixing both directions at once: drive the low corner, low side, or low end up onto them. On a rear dual axle, both tires on that side go up together, full tread on the blocks. Set the parking brake once you’re up.
Hydraulic or electric leveling jacks (common on Class A). Auto-leveling manuals list the conditions for running the system:
- a reasonably level spot to start
- parking brake engaged
- transmission in neutral or park
- load distribution pads under each jack on extremely soft ground
- people, pets, and property clear of the coach
- no lifting all the wheels off the ground
One of those manuals draws a hard line: at 3.5 degrees out of level, the system reports EXCESS ANGLE and says to move the coach. Auto-level on that system also needs the engine running and nobody moving inside. In manual mode it levels front to rear first, the reverse of a trailer on blocks. Your coach manual also settles whether slide-outs go out before or after leveling.
Leveling a Fifth Wheel
Same order, different front end. Level side to side on blocks while it’s still on the truck, then chock; auto-level manuals for fifth wheels want it parked level with the tires chocked before unhitching.
Next, lower the landing gear onto pads until it takes the pin box’s weight off the hitch, release the fifth-wheel hitch, and pull the truck forward. Set front-to-back level with the landing gear, and lower the rear stabilizers last.
On an auto-level system that remembers your hitch height, start auto-level with the nose above level so the system can find that height later. The same manuals warn never to let the tires leave the ground while lifting.
When to Move to Another Site
Know when to quit. Move when you see any of these:
- The low side needs more lift than your block maker allows.
- A tire won’t fit fully on the top layer.
- The jack or landing gear runs out of travel, even standing on a block.
- An auto-level system shows an excess-angle or out-of-stroke error.
- Blocks or pads sink while you watch.
Try the same site differently first. Rolling a few feet forward or back can put the low tires on higher ground. If that means backing into the site again, go slow and use a spotter.
Out on BLM desert near Quartzsite, “another site” meant creeping 50 feet to a flatter patch. In a campground, it’s a short, friendly conversation with the host, ideally before you’ve unhitched.
Stop Here: Never Get Under a Raised Rig
Blocks, tongue jacks, stabilizers, and leveling jacks hold a parked camper. None of them makes it safe to work underneath. Stabilizer and leveling manuals say their systems aren’t for service under the rig, tire changes included.
Workplace safety rules don’t trust a jack alone, either. OSHA’s workplace jack rule requires blocking under a jack’s base when the ground isn’t firm, and says a raised load must be “cribbed, blocked, or otherwise secured at once.”
Flat tire or something dragging underneath? Stop there. Call roadside assistance or a mobile RV technician; tire changes and anything under the rig are outside this guide on purpose.
Breaking Camp: Reverse the Four Steps
Leaving runs this guide backward. Slide-outs in, stabilizers fully up, tongue jack to hitch height, hitch locked, then chocks out and a slow roll off the blocks. Stabilizer manuals say the legs must be fully retracted before the trailer moves. Hoses and cords follow the rest of the departure order.
Frequently Asked Questions
Both. Side to side before, while the tow vehicle can still pull the tires onto blocks; front to back after, with the tongue jack or landing gear.
No. They stop rocking and aren’t built to carry the rig’s weight, and stabilizer manuals warn against lifting the trailer off the ground. Level with blocks and the tongue jack.
As many as your block’s maker allows, built as a pyramid. The products we checked cap a leveling stack somewhere between about 4½ and 5½ inches. Need more? Move the rig.
After side-to-side leveling, before unhitching. With the low-side tires up on blocks, chock the other side’s tires front and back, then uncouple.
Side to side first on a trailer or fifth wheel using blocks, since the tow vehicle moves the tires. Some motorhome jack systems reverse it, going front to rear first in manual mode.
Get the order right and leveling stops being guesswork: blocks while you’re hitched, chocks before the coupler lets go, the tongue jack for the last bubble, stabilizers only to snug. When the math says a site is too steep, believe it and move. That’s how to level a camper without twisting a door frame or trusting a jack you shouldn’t.
– CamperishTrails
