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Everybody with a hull number less than 200 should be aware that their propane tanks are nearing their 10 year fill by expiration date. Just before we left on our annual Quartzsite trip, I discovered both our 30 pound propane tanks were out of date and non-refillable. This was going to require us to buy two new tanks plus the cost of filling them. A great price is about $75 per tank with an average price nearing close to $90. I discovered that NexAir will exchange 30 pound tanks. I got two filled tanks with a 9 year life for $50.

Excellent point @Geronimo John ! I should have mentioned the rather high wind conditions in Q earlier. We had several days with back-to-back winds in excess of 25mph. Fortunately, Steve ( @ScubaRx ) brought his hand-held Kestrel 1000 anemometer and measured 27mph+ sustained with gusts over 30. The Tracker's control module has accelerometers on board and will stow the solar "sail" when winds are dangerously high to avoid an inadvertent launch. Not sure where they're set to stow but the Tracker kept the solar module deployed throughout these windy conditions. One thing we noted is that the module accumulates quite a bit of dust (almost like talcum powder at Q) and needs to be wiped down a few times daily to maintain optimum output. All in all an impressive unit. @topgun2 -- thanks for your assist in splitting this thread! More later....

Usually only one of the HDMI inputs on a TV are labeled "ARC". You might want to check that the HDMI cable coming from your stereo is plugged into it.

That is a difference between the Elite and the Elite II's. There is no "long" ducting in the Elite; there's just not enough room under the floor to get very far. In our 2018, like @DavePhelps 2015, the furnace is under the side dinette's forward seat, immediately adjacent to the bathroom. There are 2 fan-forced heat ducts; one dumps directly from under that dinette seat into the aisle adjacent to the bathroom door and the other dumps into the bathroom space on the wall to the left of the toilet. The only return ducting as delivered is via a vent from under that front dinette seat (i.e. beneath the side dinette table) into the furnace.

I didn't know that you could "swap out" 30# tanks - I've never seen that available at any of the usual places. The only situation that I'm aware of - other than places that are rather remote - is in Vail Valley, CO. All of the former "refill" places in that rather large area from approximately Frisco, CO all the way over to Glenwood Springs, CO were forced to close. Therefore, if you are in dire need of propane and you are in that area, your only choice is to swap 20# tanks. Another situation where "dire need" might come into play would be if you run out of propane and it is after "normal" business hours when most (if not all) propane refill places are closed but gas stations, grocery stores, etc. are still open. Obviously, the best practice is to NOT run out of propane in the first place. Bill

What year trailer? Could you fix your signature. Thanks

Every furnace on an Oliver is located under the curb side bed at the rear of the trailer. I've never heard of an Oliver furnace located elsewhere. Could you provide more information. Thanks

In our last 2 years of fairly lengthy (42 and 48 days) trips out west and even up in Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, we have never had an issue or dire need getting our original 30# tanks refilled. We easily found “Propano” refill stations anywhere we traveled. Many CG’s have refill stations as well as many small towns. If you choose to swap out LP tanks it’s a good idea to check the expiration dates making sure the swapped refilled tank is safety compliant post swap. There is a possibility you maybe getting an older tank than you originally started out with. Our best practice is to never swap out our 30# tanks, we simply just get them refilled. This also allows us to maintain our LP tank integrity and actually see and know how much “propano” our Hull 634 XPLOR is sipping. 👍🏻🇺🇸😊 Onward!!

My battery box tray is the same as your on my 2015 Legacy 1 trailer, 14.25" X 14.25" X 11" I was ready to go with the Epoch battery but pivoted after consulting with a local solar company. I am now getting 2 of the Victron 200 amp/hr batteries. They fit beautifully in my tray, and together will give me 400 amp/hrs of battery power ( well, almost). These batteries have a remote BMS, so the room in the battery where the BMS is normally located can be used for more Lithium cells and/or the batteries can be comparatively smaller with more available energy than other brands. Not cheap by any means. The batteries are expensive and then you also have to purchase the BMS module separately. For me and my needs however, it was worth it. I also elected to have this outfit do the install for me. The whole project just grew way beyond my comfort zone for a DIY job. After seeing their part list for the job, I'm really glad I'm going this way. My hat is off to all you folks who took this on yourself. You saved yourself a pile of money! When completed, I'll post a review with pics. Cheers, Dave

Art (MaxBurner) likely will have his there as well. After 6 years, I finally will be able to attend the Alabama rally. Looking forward to it for sure. Generally were I boondock there are extreme winds daily. Morning one direction, evenings the other. So wind stability is always top of my mind. My solution is to keep our 200 watt panel close to the trailer and sand bagged down. I'll turn it during the day 1 - 3 times to optimize solar collection. This could work nicely, but it likely would need a lot of weight to stay earth bound. In the mean time I'm stoked to see this idea in action. Great post GJ

Three 20 pounders here. Two mounted, and one for the fire pit. Versatile, easy to maneuver (I’m 5’7” and apparently shrinking), and easy to refill or swap positions. Allows the fire pit to be anywhere, including toting to friends’s sites.

Yep! Yesterday was the fist day it never got below freezing, so that’s an improvement. 60 sitting outside eating breakfast today, high in the mid-sixties. Perfect!

Gulf Islands National Seashore, Fort Pickens south of Pensacola, Florida, 6:30 PM Central. Awesome!! @olivertraveltrailers @curiositysoftware #olivertraveltrailers #curiositytheoliver Curiosity graphics used with the kind permission of the nice folks at Curiosity Software Ireland

We saw dozens of snowmen all around. Local weather station has a very detailed life size manatee snowman!

Yesterday we went to the white sand beach at Deaton Bridge in Blackwater River State Park in Florida. The river is crystal clear, but is tinted dark by the tannin from the trees, with a white sand bottom. There is an outfitter upstream, and I’m told it is packed on summer weekends. But on this beautiful winter day with snow still on the ground, we had it all to ourselves. weird, some are uploading upside down. I’ll try later after we move to the gulf islands.

sorry, almost no service here, and photos have been failing to load on the forum. Let’s see if this works. Santa Rosa County Veterans Memorial, in Milton, Florida. There are memorials to every war and conflict. A moving and powerful reminder. It’s an unexpected find in a small town

He’s got more hair than I do!

Steve - That's what I call a "bad" hair day!

Gotta go with the circumstances!

Overnight low was 15*, with a high today of 38* and sunny. No problems at all! The Mopeka app shows me using about 1% per hour of propane from one of the bottles. 👍

We had a very rare Texas Snow Day yesterday, rather more properly deemed a Snow Half-Day! Taking advantage of this unusual low temp event to ‘cold smoke’ some sushi grade Scottish Salmon today, following two days of preparations. Looking forward to ‘rolling smoke’ through tonight until temps start to rise mid-day tomorrow. After which a trip to the Cow Barn to see how the Oliver survived this cold snap, winterization is also a very rare event in Texas, as well! UPDATE: Perfect Nova lox!

FYI: Quartzite "Proving Grounds" -- We opted-in on a Solar Tracker at the owner's rally last year which Coy and his business partner, Joe designed. It's been running straight through since arriving at the Q last Monday. The tracker uses onboard GPS, MPPT charge controller, and other programs to "track" the sun's progression throughout the day. It stows itself at sunset then "wakes" up after sunrise, resets its position and its 200W solar module angle to optimize power generation. Even with the low winter sun angles here at the Q, the tracker get's our 300A-Hr Battle Borns back to 100%SOC by noon-ish to 1pm. We're still putting it through its "shake-down" cruise during this trip. More later...

High highly recommend you reach out to Oliver and be able to be in the trailer so they can walk you through the steps. You can then share with Oliver exact steps you have been following and see where the disconnect is😊

I'll throw my 2c in here. On my 2023 LE1 the furnace does have an outlet at the forward end under the bed street side. So far the lowest Temps I've stayed in with this one was in the low teens and very windy. I keep temp set at 68-70 and the only thing that froze was the hot water to the bathroom. Now that I've installed a hatch under the bathroom sink I suspect I won't have much issue there as I can leave it cracked open. More than likely I'll be back up in alaska this coming fall/winter and I'll really be able to put things to the test. I will say I do wish I could fit the 30# tanks on the LE1. When it's under 35 degrees I rip through both 20# tanks in only about 4 days. I'm considering adding an auxiliary propane line so that I can hook up to a much larger tank that I'd set next to the tongue for when I'm more permanently In the PNW and alaska.

Given this statement, why spend much more money than the 300AH Epoch, going to 400AH Victron batteries? Without an inverter these AHs are overkill! It's difficult to use 100AH running 12VDC only let alone 3-400AH. Your batteries will likely sit above 90% SOC most of the time. Another way of looking at it is you could stay off-grid and wait a week or longer for a sunny day!

Sage advice, for sure! Like most folks when one tank runs out we switch to the other and start looking for a place to refill. It takes a while for the big tanks to run out. When we lived in Belgium our home was an old (200 years) farmhouse and hot water was propane on demand, one in the bath and one in the kitchen. Propane was supplied by two tanks outside that didn’t switch automatically. More than once my not water stopped in the middle of a shower on a cold Belgian morning requiring a trip outside to switch tanks so I could finish my shower. That was better than when the well ran dry, though. Sometimes living in that house felt like we were camping. Mike

Stating the obvious there Bill 😂. Fortunately we have never run out of LP thanks to 30# tanks. And as mentioned, we have never encountered a problem locating an LP refill station anywhere we have traveled and base camped out west or on the east coast. Seek and you shall find. Patriot🇺🇸🇺🇸

That is interesting with your furnace under the front dinette, our furnace is curb side in the rear of the trailer. Oliver had put in one main return in the the 2020 the is about 4-5" forward of the rear on the curb side. I have blocked off about 50% of the vent, to increase air return under other parts of the trailer. We also have a heater vent output just below the TP dispenser. So on My rig you would get nice warm air to the the bathroom plumbing if you added a return vent below the heater output. The down side you may not get as much air flow to warm the rest of the bathroom. I just put in the 2 vents (one up high and one down low) in the closet. With this you are just getting natural air flow/equalization with what is in the cabin. I was really surprised on how well this worked in making the the closet warmer. I know that at least one person has put the vent for the closet to under the sink to work as a return. With the changes I have made with hot air vent tubes on my rig, the area between the shells is about 5-10 degrees less then the main cabin at least up to the kitchen front seat. I have no idea what the temps are under the bathroom sink is.

I’ll be setting my thermostat at about 68 in that kind of weather from now on. I’m learning the hard way as usual!

I would recommend cutting in a small 4" return vent under the TP holder. I think this area would be good with no water intrusion from showering. At least, I have never noticed this area to be wet after I take a shower, ymmv. Not sure of your model or year, there have been changes made. I don't get the closet vent at all. It is a separate space from the under sink area. I would rather have a return vent move air directly from the bathroom into that space, not from the cabin, to the closet, to the under sink area. I had great success adding new return vents in the rear of my trailer (my furnace is under the front dinette seat). I blocked off the OEM vent which was right next to the furnace. I had substantial temp increases between the hulls. I have also wanted to put one in the bathroom as well but got sidetracked with a pile of other projects. It is now on the short list however. Good luck. Dave

Took me a minute, GJ! Yes, this only works for those who live nearby and check into their Olivers occasionally. 🤣 Flat spots are not that important on a trailer anyway. You can't notice them when towing and they will smooth out after some miles down the road. May slightly affect the life of tow tires when stored more often than used. The cars/trucks I have in storage get pulled out and moved around every so often (1-3 months). When I used to store for >9 months, I would store on jack stands (along with battery grounds disconnected and Ethanol Shield in the tanks). No real worries re the Oliver over annual winter storage.

The 4,000 miles round trip to do so would get to be expensive and "Tireing" . LOL GJ

Every month or two, you could just use the jacks to lift the trailer, spin the tires and change where the trailer is sitting on each tire. Then put the tires back on the ground, jacks just keeping it stable.

No problem - I'll work on that later today. Bill edit: Mission accomplished - new thread established. And, thanks to both Max Burner and rich.dev for getting us moving on getting this thread split from the original thread.

Certainly no question on this one IF you do a bunch of winter camping and (for whatever reasons) don't mind the extra weight and size. In addition, the 20 pounders can be simply "swapped" out at gas stations, grocery stores, hardware stores, etc. if you are in dire need of propane and there isn't a refill station either open or nearby. Bill

@topgun2 - Good morning, Bill - could you administratively start a new thread for this topic, calling it, "Solar Tracker Module"? @dewdev, @Ollie-Haus - sorry for the delayed reply. Been on the road and just saw the above inquiries. The best way to obtain tracker information is to go to the company's website at: solartrackpro.com The tracker company name is, "Solar MaXX RV, LLC", FYI... The "Tracker" is not in full production yet. Beta and field tests need to be completed on these first three units before production commences. Regarding the question of connecting the Tracker to the OTT - the real answer is, "it depends". Not all owners have configured their trailer the same. For an unmodified factory trailer, the Tracker can either be connected directly to the battery bank with supplied alligator clips or plugged into an owner-installed SAE outlet while insuring correct polarity. In our case, we installed an SAE outlet on the battery compartment hatch for our Renogy 400W suitcase solar module, where the negative lead goes to the Victron Smart Shunt and the positive lead to the battery terminal block. After insuring correct polarity, we simply plug the Tracker into the SAE plug on the hatch allowing us to record the Tracker's output into the 3 Battle Borns using the Victron app. More news to come...

I hope so as I'm a long way from 70,000 miles that I got on my last set of Michelin Defenders. My tire guy at Discount Tire said that this is a old myth from the old tire days. Modern radial tires are much less MORE resistant to flat spots. Just run them slow for a few miles after storage and they even out. Going on seven years and 42,000 Ollie Miles without any tire issues. But I do give them a good look over every year and they only see daylight 3 - 4 months a year. But they are stored in a barn the rest of the time covered. GJ

Two 20s is not enough, love the 30s! I’m 6’ 2” though when standing on the tailgate I’m about 9 feet tall! 🤣

So really, two of you winter camp with the Oliver thermostat set at the same 58F? Day and night? Y’all must wear a lot of sweaters! Sorry, but lately I’ve read many posts on freezing issues, running space heaters instead of the furnace as designed. If we noticed a hint of pipes freezing, I would up the furnace temp asap.

I would also recommend 30# LP tanks if you don’t have a set. We really like our 30# tanks and they have served us well.

Even the best wax will not totally stop oxidation. Some almost don't even slow it down a lot. I believe that any Ollie parked outside needs to be well detailed, waxed AND covered for good protection. Then there is the ceramic route, and that's both out of my wheel house and pocket book size too. Steve: For your two year+ sun soaked baking of your Ollie. In order of likely cost, least to most expensive: Cover it. If you go this route PM me. Find barn space for rent and cover it. (This is what I do) Find a commercial overhead cover storage facility and also cover it. Do nothing. Then plan on spending $$$ for ceramic. And then plan on having it renewed every few years. Likely only $$, but not in my wheel house. Do nothing. Then plan on spending $$$$ for OTT to restore it. Build a storage out-building or Man Cave like MaxBurner and others have! (My dream solution) Good discussions for sure as many Owners struggle with this very issue. GJ

Maybe we need a conversion rate 😀. I imagine it would be self-reported and not an official metric we somehow track on everyone, some claim whatever badge you feel good about claiming LOL.

Took a break over Thanksgiving, leaving trailer and truck with brother in law for a couple weeks. Also, visited some friends who insisted we sleep in their house, even tho I always sleep better in #841. Those are the nights I slept in the trailer during this trip. I think I'm at about 7k miles since I left.

Nice idea. Maybe someone artistic will step up. I like it! We never have kept up with nights, just miles. 160k plus, and we've slowed down a lot since covid/2020. And infant grand baby, who limits my travel, but brings me daily joy, this year! We've already traveled so many places with our Oliver, and foreign camping with rented equipment. None of them compare to the smile I get every morning from my grandson.

I am no longer apologizing for our Florida weather. We are setting new records, all along the i 10 belt, and so very cold (to us) in Tampa Bay. When the wind is cold and moist, we are kind of like the iguanas. Immobilized. Looking forward to a few nice days, soon. We've been through a hot summer, hurricanes, and crazy cold, now. It will pass.

I like the idea of badges. They probably need more granular steps than just those 3 (every 250?). I am still in the early phase but dreaming of the day I can start racking them up faster.

High 52F and sunny today, 40F at 7PM, 29F now at 10PM, near the forecasted of 24F at sunrise as late as7AM, to start the new day! Tomorrow will be another sunny day in Arizona, high of 57F when I take my afternoon walk, sun always on my face. Another sunny day in Arizona, you can count on it!

Rich.dev, Yes, that’s the one. Only swapped out the black because the grey is fine. Not sure how long the wires are. I’m good at splicing if it comes down to it. Steph & Dud - The valve pushed in dead easy. So pretty sure the cable is binding in the sheath around the bends. And yes, I’m loathe to complicate simple systems, but if those systems don’t work…. Besides, this is the “fix” Oliver uses. Worst case scenario - you can actuate the valve manually - just have to go under the dinette seat. V

We won the ticket lottery for THE WAVE! So now I need suggestions for where to camp near Kanab in mid April (that's where we will be meeting the guide company we hired). Anybody care to share?

Another option...