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Showing content with the highest reputation on 10/18/2023 in all areas

  1. Don't run the fridge at that angle in any mode. Propane, 120 volt, and 12 volt modes all work the same way, just with electric heating elements instead of the propane burner.
    4 points
  2. I have much the same situation - if I attach my Oliver while still in the driveway the nose of the Ollie is way too high. Therefore, a couple of days before departing on a trip I will turn on the fridge (not hooked to the TV of course) and let it get cold. This way I can monitor the fridge and have time to correct a problem should one develop. On the day of departure I will turn the fridge off, hook the Ollie to my TV and depart. As soon as I'm on fairly level ground I'll stop, check the rig over and turn on the fridge. This process only takes a couple of minutes. Bill
    2 points
  3. You can hard freeze a gallon milk jug with water in your home freezer (put it in a few days before) and add it to the turned OFF trailer fridge the night before as you load food, then remove the ice as you are ready to depart the next day when you turn on the fridge. Or if you have the room, leave it in there and drink the water later. It won’t keep stuff in the trailer freezer frozen, but it is fine for everything else. You should try to keep it as full as possible at ALL times, the extra “thermal mass” reduces temp fluctuations and conserves propane too. John Davies Spokane WA
    2 points
  4. Very helpful. If you see water coming out of one of these scuppers be sure to investigate as you surely have a water system leak. We have have had two instances where water poured out of one of these scuppers. The line attaching the water pump to the water line popped off when the trailer was new and on another occasion water poured out of a scupper forward of the steps when the overflow hose on top of the freshwater tank split due to faulty installation. We opened interior hatches and ran fans in the bilge for a couple weeks in order to dry things out. Without the scuppers water would have been trapped between the hulls and would likely cause damage over time.
    2 points
  5. Probably will just leave it level in the parking area and hook up in the morning next time. John
    2 points
  6. We have had a fast introduction to our new-to-us Elite I (hull 731) since we picked it up over Labor Day weekend in McComb, Ill. We are four years into retirement and felt ready to do some camping and to get out and see more of our country. We thought we could fit camping trips in between our life with our many local grandchildren – and help with visits to our non-local grandchildren. From our home in Pittsburgh, we’ve now taken 5 trips, visited 7 states (from Illinois to NY to Tennessee), travelled 3400 miles and camped for 13 nights. This has given us a deep dive into the Oliver camping world. I thought we’d share our first impressions and ask some questions. Overall, it is evident that the Oliver is a complex and capable trailer. We love it!! We are glad for our purchase and our start into some years (God willing) of camping adventures. The Oliver online forums and the Oliver University have been a goldmine of advice. Thanks to you all, more than once!! As we got started, we had to: · Upgrade our TV capabilities, adding a class 3 hitch, air bags and a brake controller to our 2022 V6 GMC Canyon. All this was new to me, and I’m glad to say we’ve had no towing difficulties. · Learn how to tow. I got my first lessons from our seller at pickup, a *great* guy. Caution and care were important as we started. As of this writing, we’ve been through the Adirondacks and the Smokies at least once. · Learn how to travel with our Cocker. ‘Brecon’ goes with us, almost always. But she does not sleep on our bed, so… the floor by the door proved perfect for her bed, leaving the isle free to walk to the bathroom in the middle of the night. She travels well, and is a sweet companion. · Learn the basic systems, including parking, electrical, propane, solar, water, sewage, heat, and solar. We were told at sale that both our previous owners sold after 1500 miles in part because of the complexity of these units. We sympathize! · Learn the basics of finding places to camp. We studied up on federal, state and private options, including Harvest Hosts and Hipcamp. We quickly concluded that we love remote camping, so we had to learn how to boondock. Hipcamp has been our favorite. · Learn how to live in tight quarters! We’ve been married for 46 good years, but this is a new season. As soon as we had a week of nights or so under our belt, we began to shape our Ollie to fit us. All these mods are reversable, but to date we have: · Swapped out the Furrion rear view camera (with a dim, small, fuzzy image) for a Haloview BT7 1080p Backup Camera. I used the wiring for the Furrion and relocated the camera below the Oliver light, temp caulking the previous Furrion holes. The difference was well worth it. · Taken the TV and its mount out. We don’t use it. · Taken the rail btw the front dinette seat and the rear dinette seat out. The added headroom in sleeping is well worth it. · Added 6 Tireminder TPMS transmitters. I may add 2 more to our spare tires. · Made solar work for at least two or three night stays offgrid. 8 of our first 13 nights were remote (by choice) with no hookups, so we learned to keep electrical use to a minimum, turned off the inverter when off shore-power, and added a 100 watt portable solar panel to our 230 watt rooftop panels. As we sit here and think back on our first weeks with the camper, what have we liked, what do we love? · Without exception, we have enjoyed the people we have met. This country has a lot of great people, many of them living out in the country. · The Oliver has made visiting our large family and other friends a cinch! We happily sleep in our trailer! · We are pleased with the Oliver itself, with its aesthetics, its evident craftsmanship, and its ‘mod-ability’. It fits us well. · We love being warm and snug and dry inside when it is cold and windy and wet outside. · We love waking up to sunrises streaming in the windows. We love going to sleep with night breezes across our faces. We love the hoots of the owls and the barking of the coyotes in the hills. We’ve loved sitting pondside and watching snapping turtles cruise in the evening, the swallows as they dart, and the fish as they leap. · We love the quiet and the calm of the countryside and the hills. · We love the stars deep into the nights in the countryside. We travel with a small telescope and binoculars. The stars have long been a love. Geoff and Becca Chapman
    2 points
  7. FYI: We made a table for the Lagun mount from some available red oak we had in the woodshop. The mount is centered on the nightstand. The underside of the table is "grooved" and can be fitted on the bed rails so our 55lb husky, Magnus, can curl up between us at night. It is serving us well so far - Magnus seems to like it too. The table and mount is stored/bungie-corded on the left side closet bulkhead. transitioning to the "dog-bed" mode above. View from below with table grooves on bed rails above. Table mode - can swing over either bed or centered in aisle for a secondary workstation....
    2 points
  8. You did not say which camera is installed on your trailer. IF there is a fuse it will be an inline one in the power cord hidden behind the white reflectix insulation glued inside the attic cabinet. You'll have to pull it all down to find it. Put it back into place using spray contact cement. Use of this will probably set off your propane detector.
    2 points
  9. @GeoffChapman, prior to ordering our 2022 LEII, I received what proved to be good advice on multiple points from another Ollie owner. One recommendation was to forego the cellular booster option, as they were widely seen to be ineffective. I also read reviews elsewhere convincing me this was not a desirable option. If you anticipate going into areas with little or no cellular service, I recommend you consider purchasing a Garmin InReach MINI2, or similar Garmin inReach device. These cost approximately $400 and operate on the Iridium satellite network. They will operate anywhere in the world. Several service plans are available through Garmin and the plans may be started/stopped on a monthly basis. The least expensive plan is about $15. These devices provide safety features the cell booster cannot. Carried on your person, they could save your life if you are lost or injured in a remote area. IMHO, the devices are of much greater utility. They provide two way test communication and emergency messaging. The inReach devices can be paired with a smart phone via Bluetooth. A Garmin app on the phone will enable use of the phone keyboard for text messaging, which is far easier than entering text characters directly on the inReach device. Connecting your TireMinder booster to the switch for the rear camera should work well. I had not thought to do that, or seen such recommendations. I installed my booster under the rear dinette seat, so I must remember to turn it off when storing our trailer. You can access the rear of the control panel containing the rear camera switch through the access hatch over the microwave oven. You will probably need to pull out the control panel to access the switch wiring connections, which involves removing only a few screws. I assume you would leave the booster in the space behind the control panel. Regards, Don
    2 points
  10. Beautiful fish! Congrats to the Bride. Many people who fish never catch a trout of that size.🤗 Bill
    2 points
  11. Interesting you should ask. We each caught our limit today on trout here today and we completely filled our Truma freezer. My Bride landed her first big 19” Rainbow, she is a great student and a quick learner! 😊. A gorgeous day fishing here on the Bull Shoals White River! It’s a destination CG for sure! A blessed day for sure! Onward!!!🇺🇸🇺🇸
    2 points
  12. @John Welte, that's not great. These fridges work by boiling an ammonia solution in a tank at the bottom. The vapor rises up a set of sloped tubing, condenses back into a liquid up top, then flows by gravity back down the tubes to repeat the cycle. When you are more than 3 degrees off level front to back, you exceed the slope of the tubes, so the fluid pools in the tubing instead of returning to the tank. The fluid left in the tank continues to boil, getting more trapped in the tubes. Potentially, the tank runs dry and the remaining solution crystallizes in the tank. This could potentially lead to a fire. The Norcold manual specifies a max incline of 3 degrees front to back of the trailer and 6 degrees side to side. In your situation, sometimes I put the trailer on the ball and do the rest of the hitch up, but I don't close the Bulldog. I raise the trailer nose back to level. Then, in the morning, I just lower onto the ball, close the Bulldog, and drive off.
    2 points
  13. Got it, I totally misunderstood your situation. Good that you have the level issue figured out!
    1 point
  14. Is there an Android app for the Oliver Forums? I just had a pop-up in my browser ask me if I wanted to "Install Oliver Forums?" A quick search of the Google app store didn't turn one up.
    1 point
  15. Yes - basically the same thing with my logging on this afternoon. In my case (also using the Chrome browser) the message was asking if I wanted to change the name. I too said yes but nothing was added anywhere. Bill
    1 point
  16. And, don't make the same mistake I did when sanitizing: don't drain the bleach water onto concrete, if you can avoid it! I did this earlier this year, thinking that it would do no harm to the concrete pad in front our our garage. The error in that thinking became apparent the next time it rained. Six months later, whenever it rains, you can still see a light-colored pattern where the bleach water drained onto the concrete and then flowed off of it. Fortunately, once the concrete pad dries up the splotches disappear. But, the next time I sanitize my tank, I will take the extra effort to move the Oliver and drain the bleach water onto our gravel parking area beyond the concrete pad!
    1 point
  17. It popped up again, so I chose Install. It appears to be a function of the Chrome mobile browser. It creates an Oliver Forums icon on the screen that appears to simply open the forums website, albeit without the other tabs and things you normally see in the browser. Just the Oliver site, nothing else. So, not a standalone app at all. It's really just a shortcut to the site, created by the browser software.
    1 point
  18. We are level while under tow. We live on a hill so when the trailer is unhitched and in the parking area, the nose goes up about 12-18 inches after I unhook to get to level in the parking spot.
    1 point
  19. Not only overcomming the “complexity of these units”, but it can be a real chore loading and unloading the TV and Oliver prior to and on return when traveling; as well as setting up and stricking camp, especially after an extended stay. I will share a saying that makes it worth the effort: ‘You work for your pleasure when you RV’! And I will add, as you well know by now, memories are made with each ‘Oliventure’!
    1 point
  20. Thanks, we caught plenty..😊 it’s been an absolutely amazing stay and visit here at Bull Shoals white water SP to say the least. The visitors center is top shelf. Onward!! Patriot🇺🇸
    1 point
  21. Had the same scenario last June when I went on my first ‘solo’ trip to Davis Mountains SP in West Texas. I purchased the inReach Explorer+ and the SAR insurance plan they offer. The Service Plan I got can be suspended and reactivated as a cost savings measure. I was able to let my wife know I was okay when out on the trails or biking AND if something were to happen to me that Search And Rescue (SAR) was a push of a button away!
    1 point
  22. @Steph and Dud B @dhaig I did not know about these kind of devices. They would greatly resolve any family anxieties about off-grid camping. I watched a comparison video on them tonight. Interesting!! Thanks... @dhaig The idea came from a post by @ScubaRx. He called me today and helpfully detailed how he fished a wire from the switch panel down to the bathroom vanity where he grounded and placed the Tireminder booster. The reports on the strength of the booster's broadcasting makes me think leaving it behind the switch panel is far easier. But it certainly is a rat's nest of wires in there! I'll find a ground wire, wedge it in, and give it a try. Pairing it with the Rear Camera Switch seems worth it.
    1 point
  23. You could look into a satellite communicator like the Garmin InReach or the ZOLEO.
    1 point
  24. Thanks for the encouragement. We feel like we've made some good progress. @topgun2 thanks for the reminder; We found @John E Davies' check list, modified it to fit, and use it regularly. I can see how it would be easy to forget an essential sometime!! Geoff
    1 point
  25. Not that I know of. I use my android phone pretty much exclusively. But, via the website.
    1 point
  26. Not that I know of. I know that Matt Duncan was working on one from time to time which would include the Oliver Store, a link to Service, a link to starting a mini-rally, etc., but, with all the other stuff that he was doing it didn't exactly get high priority. The only way to get here is to use your browser and type in olivertraveltrailers/forums. Interestingly enough - when I do this, and, click on a particular thread (like this one), I get "https://olivertraveltrailers.com/forums/topic/9676-oliver-forums-app/#comment-97791" (without the quotes of course. This has the words "app" in it. Bill
    1 point
  27. LOL, my guess is that he is parked on a steep upward slope, there is no way in this universe that an Ollie can actually be towed with a foot and half of droop at the hitch. If I am wrong, please post some pictures. And yes, leaving the fridge on in any mode at that angle is very very bad for it. https://olivertraveltrailers.com/forums/topic/8865-fridge-fires-if-you-have-an-older-hull-you-really-need-to-pull-out-that-fridge-now/ John Davies Spokane WA
    1 point
  28. Iphone owners can use the built-in app that measures slope in all directions and reads out the degrees of slope. It is accurate.
    1 point
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