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I just ordered the ZARCOR with tinted glass, white shades and a white handle. It will ship tomorrow morning. The white handle is not on their website or on Amazon, you have to call and ask for it. The frames are not replaced, just re-use what you have. I’ll post my installation experience! Mike

I signed up about week ago for 2019 and it's already filling up. Last year I was hesitant to go because it was so far. We live in Northern Nevada. But we decided to go after talking to Scott Oliver and I am really glad we did! The thing about trips is you can never judge them before you go and they always turn out to be so much better than imagined. So we took off with the absolute minimum of planning. We didn't even take a map and only had the destination date in mind. We wandered around and stopped when and where we wanted too. Sometimes 500 miles more east and sometimes a 100 mile detour to see something. We saw the vast emptiness of Nevada, Valley of the Gods, The Rio Grande and The Johnson Space Center. We toured the Oliver factory, visited Muscle Shoals Alabama and the Fame Music Studio, where so much music came from, toured the Helen Keller Museum, toured a Frank Lloyd Wright house, camped next to the Tennessee River at McFarland Park and had a marvelous dinner on a floating restaurant on a perfect evening. Crossed Mobile Bay on the ferry, and played in the Gulf behind the Flori-Bama Bar in Pensacola. we stopped at a "picnic area" in Texas for the night and the thunder and lightening was so powerful we stayed in the truck until it passed, nobody around for miles, and watched in wonder. Afterward everything was fresh, a fantastic rainbow and and evening with an endless view. We made zero reservations along the way and found so may beautiful places to stop for the night. Oh, and we had a great time at Guntersville. Met some great people and made some long term friends. Oliver went all out to make a very nice, fun and casual event. Coming home we played it by ear again and were able to wander along at a speed we chose. Cruised through Quartzsite after the rush and stayed in a BLM campsite, by ourselves, for free. Stopped in Death Valley and soaked in the hot springs for a couple of days as our last major stop before the final leg home. About 60 miles in on a gravel road and 60 miles back out on another gravel road. The last 6 miles is across the desert with almost no road at all. Finally, the Oasis arrives. Wild burros casually stroll by, looking for a cookie. Warm clear water fills beautiful soaking pools. Besides our nights at the rally, we only paid for four nights to camp during the month long trip. Two were $7. and two were $10. Each with full hookups. We entered federal parks for free with my Senior Card. If you want some good sippin' whiskey, be sure to get some Kirkland Premium Small Batch Bourbon at Costco before you go. It's hard to get and twice the price in Alabama. The final couple hundred miles up 395 wander through the eastern Sierra and past Mono Lake. Then up to 8,000 ft. A refreshing thundershower rinsed the truck and Ollie. We left pounds of dirt on the highway and got home with a clean rig. Two months later I eagerly signed up for the next one. We'll probably cruise through Yellowstone this time and see some different parts of the South that I'm so unfamiliar with. Alabama is full of beautiful parks. The food is delicious and everyone was very friendly. Heck, we might even take a map this time!

Hull number 366 aka: Nomads’ Nest was picked up last week after what felt like an eternity of waiting during it’s production. We absolutely LOVE her!!! We spent 6 nights camping (1000 Trails/ Natchez Trace and Cumberland Mountain State Park) getting to know all the new systems and procedures and putting the beginnings of our personal touch in place. She is home now in Waynesville NC. May the adventures begin! Again, many thanks to all that share their experience and knowledge on this forum and on the Oliver Trailer Owners FB Page - both have been treasures of information and support for us already. Finally, I just have to give a big shout out to Phil, Anita and Rodney in sales - their customer service excels! Kim and David Thompson

I finally got time to hitch up my EII to my new truck, and headed out to the local Cat Scale for a weigh in. It was about a 100 mile round trip, which quite nicely included 10 miles of I-24 through one of the worst thunderstorms I've had the pleasure of entertaining in some time. Winds were sideways to my direction, and rain hard enough that vision was extremely difficult above 20-30 mph. I must admit there was no discernable sway/shake, and the truck/trailer combo handled better than I had imagined. I have the Anderson hitch attached, although I initially purchased it due to my former truck's lower tow capacities. Not sure it makes much difference in the current set up, but the ride was very good overall at all speeds. Performance was also pleasing, with 65 mph very un-interesting, relaxing really, and getting up to Interstate speed took little effort. The Duramax is really impressive mated to the Allison transmission - Tow haul mode works very cool when off the throttle and coasting to slow. For those so inclined, the certified Cat Scale numbers are as follows: Steer axle: 4660lbs Drive axle: 3960lbs Trailer axle: 5200lbs Gross weight: 13820lbs The truck with full tank, no people, scales at approx. 7800 lbs. Trailer had a full fresh water tank, and I'm 190 or so. Not sure what tongue weight is, but the bed barely moves when dropping the Ollie onto the ball. The 2018 GMC 2500 4wd, crew cab max numbers are as follows - GCWR-25300, trailer - 13500, payload - 2226. For towing with this set up, the Ollie is not an issue - full or otherwise. Hope some find this helpful, or at least interesting.

Hi All, Just wanted to share our experience getting a 30A power pedestal installed at home. Wanted a hookup to run everything at home to check all systems, cool down the fridge, and run the AC while working and prepping to leave for trips from home. Electrician came out and installed 2 RV style boxes with the correct receptacles. BUT, wired them @ 240V! We did not realize this, and upon connecting the Ollie to power and starting the AC.... POP! Very loud, breakers tripped on both ends. It took us a while to realize, and we feared the worst. The Progressive Industries surge protector absolutely saved us... that was the pop we heard. Upon rewiring the hookup to 120V, all systems functioned properly... except the tank monitor. Was not getting anything out of that. Felt lucky that was the only thing we blew up, but upon taking the monitor off and unplugging and plugging back in the connector, it lit right back up. There's some kind of reset on it. Not even any fuses blown... we got lucky. Moral of the story is, if you're thinking about getting hooked up at home, be sure you walk the electrician through the specs- 30A, 120V ONLY. The oversight almost cost us the whole electrical system, or at least all of the devices attached to it. This is not how most electricians would wire this hookup, they are thinking of it like a dryer hookup, which is 240V. Also be sure the polarity is correct. The Oliver wants to see white as the hot wire, not black. Most electricians will wire it the other way around. The polarity will not hurt anything, but you will get an error code on your surge protector.

White is the color of the positive wire in a 12 V system. Black is the color of the negative wire in a 12 V system. This may lead to confusion on many levels, by many people.

Wow, you are fortunate, the Progressive Industries surge protector was worth its weight in gold. Glad to know it works as designed. Your experience, unfortunately, is not a one off, it happens more than folks expect. As has been stated, RV park power should not be trusted until proven correct. Not only incorrect construction, but low voltage will cause RV electrical system failure, not to mention personal harm in some situations. I just completed my own home 30 AMP outside power enclosure. Many, many years ago, I made a living as an Electrician, and even with the training and experience you have as a professional, you always verify voltage, grounding, wire and plug amperage capacities, and in this case GFCI protection. If you hire the work out, you must tell the installer it is 120 volt, 30 amp, single phase. John's diagram is a good reference, but not infallible - some people can screw up anything. RB

Dave: Over the 50 years that we have been camping, I have found numerous campgrounds with electrical issues. I always check their facilities before connection my equipment.

Thanks for the story, you are lucky. You cannot assume a professional electrician will do it right, always check! Your problem is not unusual! BTW: White is NEVER hot in residential AC wiring, I am not sure where you came up with that idea. I ordered a 30A 120V RV outlet for my RV bay, aka "The Hanger Deck" and I provided the electrician and builder each a printout of the wiring, a PHOTO, and also a link to the RV receptacle. I knew he might get it wrong.... especially if he did the job late in the day when he was tired and unfocussed. Everything was fine but I did check it with a voltmeter and VISUALLY before plugging in for the first time. I also made sure it had a dedicated 30A breaker. Since I have an Air Command air conditioner (low amp draw), I rarely use it, I normally have a 10 AWG extension cord plugged into a regular 20A socket, and that is fine unless I need to run other heavy loads on that circuit. http://noshockzone.org/accidentally-plugging-into-240-volt-outlet/ John Davies Spokane WA

Not sure about that white being the “hot” line thing. That’s not the way it’s supposed to be. This is precisely why I never hire anybody to do this kind of work. I just do it myself, then I know it’s right.

We are glad that we decided upon the Nature’s Head Composting toilet when ordering our Ollie. While our composting seems to have been going well (there ARE things to learn from experience and from paying attention to instructions on doing it well), I thought that it wouldn’t hurt to help with the process. I ordered the Sun-Mar product, which is advertised as an additive to speed up the composting process. I didn’t notice much of any improvement after using Sun-Mar for a month or so. However, our local RV repair shop recommended the TankTechsRx product for our grey water tank, and it worked MUCH better than the product we had been using to control odor coming from the sink and shower drains: Camco TST Lemon Scent RV Grey Water Odor Control. So, I decided to mix some of the TankTechsRX with water in a spray bottle and spray some periodically into the composting toilet. (One of the important things to learn about composting toilets is to keep the mixture at a certain moisture level—not too wet, not too dry. Adding coffee grounds, which helps with odor control, as well, is something we do frequently here in the dry Southwest.) TankTechsRX DID seem to speed along the composting process and help illuminate any occasional odor we experienced. I decided, however, to see if--by using a more objective measurement—this product actually did do what it seemed to be doing better than Sun-Mar (both TankTechsRX and Sun-Mar are advertised as containing a blend of microbes) and better than nothing by performing this experiment: 1. I placed a small amount (about 2 tablespoons) of my dog’s poop, gathered from the backyard, into three 8 oz bottles: a) one with water and about a teaspoon of Sun-Mar; b) one with water and about a teaspoon of TankTechsRX; c) one with nothing but water. I capped and shook the bottles briefly and set them outside. 2. After about 24 hours, I opened the bottles. I made the big mistake of getting my nose too close to the opened bottle containing nothing but poop and water. (My wife could hear me gagging outside as she sat inside the house.) The bottle with water, poop, and Sun-Mar was a bit better but still had quite a disagreeable odor. However, the bottle of water with TankTechsRX just smelled like TankTechsRX--which does not impart an unpleasant odor at all. Also, the “solid matter” in the TankTechsRX appeared to be more dissolved than that in the bottle containing Sun-Mar. I can now, with confidence, recommend TankTechsRX as an extremely useful addition to black and gray water tanks, but also as an addition to composting toilets. What we do is to make a solution of about 5 parts water to 1 part TankTechsRX in a small spray bottle that is kept in the bathroom cabinet and spray a bit of the mixture into the solid-waste part of the toilet each time we use it, and of course, give the spider handle a few good turns as usual. You should just follow label directions when using TankTechsRx in black and grey water tanks. I hope that my gross experiment might be useful for folks who use—or are thinking of using—a composting toilet, and for all folks with grey and black water tanks.

Your trailer looks great! Wishing you many happy adventures in your new Oliver. Sherry

I like the look of the black frame against the smoked glass, but the original white outside frame could be used instead of the black one that comes with it. The only disadvantage of the vertical blind setup is that it's either open or closed. At night we leave ours partly open at the top and can see who is outside, if needed, with most of the window blocked. During the day nobody can see in even with the blind all the way open, because of the smoked glass. The folded shape of the blind blocks all light when closed because it's all one piece instead of overlapping slats. Either one is a big improvement over the original.

Great! That is exactly the combination that we are considering. Thanks for the extra information about ordering. Looking forward to reading about your installation experience and level of satisfaction with the end result.

How does the black frame look on your Ollie? I am pretty sure that is the same glass and shade that Lippert Industries offered. When I talked to them a couple of months back they indicated that they were re-working the shade, so I have been holding off on replacing ours.

Mike, You have to open the door to get the screen door out of the way in order to move the shade. It has friction and stays wherever you put it, that's why it works right side up or upside down. I leave ours open about a third of the way (open at the top) during the night and open all the way during the day. This makes it easy to see out, and who is at the door, but not really possible to see in.

While I am not an aerobic-anaerobic expert concerning bacteria, I have long studied the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae in my lab. Saccharomyces cerevisiae is used to make bread, beer, and wine. When making bread, yeast primarily grows aerobically. However, when the oxygen is depleted the yeast switches its metabolism from respiration (using oxygen) to fermentation (anaerobic). Of course a byproduct of yeast fermentation is the production of alcohol, which many of us appreciate. The colon itself is anaerobic, and thus the microorganisms in feces must be able to tolerate the absence of oxygen. The most common colonic bacteria, Bacteroides, Bifidiobacterium, and Lactobacillus, are obligate anaerobes, meaning they do not grow in the presence of oxygen. In contrast, the Escherichia coli gut bacteria is a facultative aerobe, meaning it can grow under either aerobic or anaerobic conditions. I know yeast will grow aerobically, initially, and then transition to fermentation when the oxygen is depleted. The timing of the transition will depend on how much oxygen is available, and how many yeast were placed into the container (the inoculum size). There are a number of variables in Spike’s experiment: How much air was in the bottles, the size of the bacterial inoculum, and the relative ratio of obligate anaerobes to facultative aerobes in the dog poop. I looked at their web sites, and they did not provide any information as to what bacteria these products contain. I suppose it would be possible to analyze samples and figure out what they contain. I agree that additional more dog poop experiments are not warranted. Spike’s experiment did show that TankTechsRX sharply reduced the unpleasant odor from the bottled poop. Of course, a compound in TankTechsRX that inhibits bacterial growth could have the same effect. The best experiment would be two composting toilets, with only one using the TankTechsRX product. After a week, observers would be invited to give sniff tests to the two toilets. The observers would have to be blinded, meaning that the observers do not know which toilet was the experimental and which was the control. Probably more information than anyone wanted….

The power usage was only .01 amp for the entire test. The zamp system seems to adjust amps in according to need. Once I turned the fridge off dc the charge controller dropped from 16 amps to about 2amp. Conditions were under pure sunny skies with out door temp in the mid 70's. Battery temp was 22c. The fridge was chilled prior to testing and set on cool setting 3. According to the charge controller the system brought in 69.3 amps during test. Hope this helps and thanks for the link you posted.

The Zamp system is a work horse and my test has been going on for 4 hours and my batteries are 100% fully charged. This image shows total amp hours used and the zamp controller showing amps coming in. Notice the blue light on the controller is off because the batteries are 100%.