ahattar

Thats what I was thinking on the cooler style freezer/fridge in the truck. Glad to hear you like it, I've heard good things. We won't use it all the time, just when we're packing a bunch of salmon from the north or seafood from the south. Our Yeti cooler packed right can keep things cool for 10+ days so we use that for extra fridge space. Don't know what to tell you on the fridge. I had 3 160w panels if I remember correctly with quality controllers and proper wire sizes with 4 6v mediocre cart batteries. Almost never had to switch to propane. Granted we didn't have anything else other than led's and the toilet fan using DC. The nice thing about a 3 way fridge is in the winter when there isn't enough sun, propane will run the fridge forever.

Its pretty much the same exact toilet I installed in our truck camper. We had the Airhead. I guess you guys have more fun emptying urine than I do! I got tired of the airhead tank almost immediately and diverted to my black tank. Only downside was I dropped a 7/16 socket in there! Still makes me mad today. Like you said, if you fill it anywhere near full, its a nasty balancing act. We did the vinegar thing plus the diluted vinegar spray bottle and all that jazz it still gets gross when you're living full time with it. My first choice will be to divert to grey and then use the black tank to expand the fresh. I hope to find a simple elegant way to do it since the toilet is basically in the shower. Grey tanks smell because of food particles and funky stuff that comes off your stinky body, I really don't see urine making any of that worse. I also think if you're dumping grey water in the wild, its worse than dumping straight urine or the same as dumping urine mixed in with the grey. Back to wilderness rules. We can pee in a river but we are not allowed to dump dish water in the river without first straining the particles. We can pee in the river but we can't bathe in the river with soap regardless of the type. Now if only Oliver would hurry up with my damb trailer so I could get started!

Doesn't seem like a lot of effort to me but I won't know until I have the trailer. How often do you have to empty your urine tank? I guess I just see the perfectly good and out of the way 18 gallon tank sitting there so why not use it. Having extra water rarely hurts and not taking up space in the truck is good too. Why DC compressor? I had a 3 way fridge in my truck camper that worked fine. Took very little propane if needed but the vast majority of the time the solar more than covered it. My biggest complaint with the Oliver fridge is the lack of freezer space.

Thats pretty good getting a week with two daily showers. I'll for sure check out your mods, thanks. We use a solar shower a lot during the warmer months so the water inside is mainly for all the little things. We're going to be traveling full time with a lot of toys and a couple of dogs one of which weighs as much as 15 gallons of water but takes up more space. I like to be able to drop the trailer and go play pretty quick so having as much as possible loaded on/in the trailer is pretty handy. I have one of those truck bed drawer systems, Decked I think its called. Jury is out on if its worth having. It takes up almost half the bed height as it is. We've traveled in everything from a 45' pusher to a truck camper. Every time we change it up we just try to live with less and less stuff. For me the hassle of loading and hauling everything usually outweighs the convenience of having it along.

Will do for sure. We generally camp right on a river or lake and have always pumped water, so water is easy to come by. Its the desert hunting trips and what not where the water is more sulfur than water where it would be nice to have an extra 18 gallons for a couple weeks. Loading up the pickup is definitely an option but since the black tank is there, unused and out of the way I figure I might as well try to make it work.

I'm pretty familiar with composting toilets. I forget the brand we used last time but I'm sure its pretty darn similar to NH. Emptying the urine tank on the other one was not fun though if you were just barely too full. I got rid of the urine tank and plumbed it to my black tank on the truck camper which made it all pretty painless. Thanks again for the info.

Great info, thanks John. Once I can get my hands on the trailer I'm sure this will all make perfect sense. Do you know, are the black tanks made from the same potable material as the fresh tank? I've never had an issue with grey odors. I will look into it more of course, but I figure actually taking a pee on the sage brush would be more harmful than the very diluted grey tank. When we do wilderness river floats, we're instructed to pee in the river because it dilutes so quickly. This prevents a bunch of burn marks and stink at camp. We use all natural soaps but I would still guess the soap would hurt the environment more than the urine. I installed a composting toilet in my truck camper a long time ago. it wasn't a natures head and the pee tank was horrible. If the natures head is quite a bit better then just having a second tank sure would be an easy solution. Thanks

Thats a bit literal. I'm not going to drive it off a cliff, I just don't let keeping toys shiny get in the way of what they're built for. I'll take very good care of it, but I'll use it.

Getting a little ahead of myself here since I don't take delivery until early 2020, but thought I'd throw it out there. I'm sure somebody has redirected urine from the composting toilet to the black tank, I'm wondering if anybody has looked into going to gray? The only benefit to this would be to use the brand new black tank as a second fresh water tank. Its possible its not a potable tank, but it could be used for outdoor showers and such. I have no clue if it will be way too tight under there to do any sort of mods since I've spent all of 15 minutes looking at an Oliver in person.

The good news is the Oliver is on wheels for a reason. I don't have to stay in Montana. We don't stay in campgrounds very often so none of the closures really matter to us. I know you wanted to visit The Breaks at one point. While its fantastic at various times of the year, it and many places like it can be life changing in the winter. We like to go up late December early January and watch the smaller 100+ elk herds bunch up. Sometimes we're lucky enough to have a shoulder tag for December. I've stopped counting at 800 and figured there were at least double that. I've heard of a group in Eastern Oregon as big as 6000. The game preserves of the world are ok, but put yourself in the middle of them all in a natural setting with deer, antelope, big cats, wild dogs and sometimes even bears in a warm winter, it feels like you're in the middle of a great migration. Snowmobile in yellowstone, hot springs in Idaho and New Mexico, skiing anywhere, hiking the parks in Utah and Arizona, rafting in Moab, fishing and stone crab season in Feb. when people from Florida think its cold! Winter camping is literally endless depending on what you like to do. I'd highly recommend it. As for dumping, thats the magic of the composting toilet. It is not technically raw sewage until you mix liquid and solids so you can dump anywhere once you've dried everything out sufficiently. We always carry an extra primed and ready container for a composting toilet, the hardest part is keeping the full one warm enough to compost. Between the two though even if we don't dump it, we can get well over a month. As for the liquids, it's no different than taking an Andre The Giant sized pee in the woods! I don't cary trailer chains. I keep two sets for the pickup but rarely use either. I expect the Oliver to be the best tracking trailer I've ever owned so I don't anticipate much we can't get through. I've towed a horse trailer with 6 horses through 16" of snow getting into The Bob during an early season storm. You'd be surprised what vehicles can do nowadays and as long as you're not doing anything silly, your trailer will just follow your tracks.

Seems strange to me to buy an Oliver only to leave it parked for the winter! So much to do and see and usually you have it all to yourself. I'll be picking mine up in late January and driving it back to Montana after a quick scoot down to Florida for some fishing. I fully intend on beating the snot out of it. I'll let you guys know if I can break it.

Did you ever mount a bike back there? I'm thinking of trying to squeeze 2 light 2 strokes back there totaling about 400lbs. I also thought removing the spare and tying into the mount would be a good choice.

Good move. I was wondering if you went up there. My wife was going to go watch my niece's soccer game in Chinook but it got rained out yesterday. Figured you'd be stuck for a couple of days! For future reference, even if it rains hard, its usually good to go again after a couple of days on the main roads anyway. If you like to fish and you ever end up in Georgetown again, give it a go, there are monster trout in there. Have fun

The Breaks is a love it or hate it kinda place. I personally love it and have spent a total of several years up there. We spend most of our time on the other side though. If you were in Winifred and went down to the ferry (stops running soon I think), cross the river and roam your way towards Chinnook or Big Sandy through the Bear Paws. BTW, there is a surprisingly mean burger in Winifred at the bar. I can't tell you much info for camping on the route you're headed on but if its like the rest of the breaks, you can probably just pull over anywhere and nobody will bother you. You can also most likely pull your trailer if you don't mind giving it a workout like I do. The thing you really need to watch this time of year though is rain. Maybe you're familiar with Gumbo? It doesn't take much moisture to turn it into a sloppy mess out there that only an ATV with chains can get through. As we get closer to winter if you get stuck you can just wait until morning to get out when the ground is frozen. Its dumping rain where I am just east of Missoula right now, not sure what its doing up on the hi-line. NOTE: If you have dogs, there is a mean case of blue green algae going around this year even in flowing water. My sister in laws pup died within 2 hours of swimming in the creek a couple weeks ago. Also, much like eastern washington, it can be littered with rattle snakes out there. As for elk, if you know where to look they are everywhere out there. Not sure if you want to see them in the wild or if you're just heading to Slippery Anne, though even at Slippery Anne they're gonna start heading for the hills fairly soon. Browning can be fun if you like to booze it up with some rowdy natives, but for the most part you're gonna wanna keep moving. In fact all of the reservations in the areas your going can be rough. Rocky Boy, Hays, Browning. Have fun exploring. The sunsets/rises and stars in the breaks are hard to beat. You're covering a ton of ground in only two weeks. If you find yourself heading through Clinton on your way to Helena and want a place to park for a night, send me a note. I live up Rock Creek.

They still allow you to pick your graphics. I agree the name looks good as well as the logo on the front.

BTW, what are they doing with those silly graphics! You guys got it right with the clean look. Takes it from the 80's to being modern looking just by removing that swirly crap.

That looks good, for sure wouldn't effect departure angle build like that. Nice design. I don't know what you guys carry with you but adding mass up high is negligible. Also I'm guessing I'm younger than most of you so climbing up a ladder to get stuff I don't need on a daily basis is no biggy. We do a lot of different things during different seasons so being able to tuck away our backpacking gear, pack rafts, climbing gear, etc, etc. up on the roof would be fantastic. We'll be traveling full time for a couple of years so having it all with us is a must. I would argue that putting a couple hundred pounds on the roof towards the front of the trailer would have less effect on handling that cantilevering it off the rear. I would also argue that you won't feel either. It would be no higher than the A/C and quite a bit lighter than the A/C. Don't overthink this. Designed properly using thin walled rectangular aluminium tubing with dryboxes the entire rack would be less than 75lbs. I'm also building a rack for the pickup that goes around my softopper. It will also have small dryboxes on the sides and will be able to carry my inflated raft on the roof. Dogs get the bed on top of my full length bed drawers which house fishing, hunting goodies, tools and other odds and ends. So storage abound. I promise I won't overload the roof gents, but thanks for your concern.

Gotcha on the tax credit, thanks. Problem with adding storage to the rear is ground clearance. Departure angle through some creek crossings can get pretty steep. One reason to have it on the roof is security, just harder to rob me. I'm not talking crazy tall boxes, thinking more like the final product would be about the level of the A/C/ Figure I can build around it too cause I think the A/C makes campers look ugly, especially the Oliver. Silly, but hey, if you don't have pride of ownership, whats the point.

Thanks for the links, I'll definitely read through those. Glad to see other people are doing cool stuff with these things. I'm not sure I totally understand what you were saying about the tax credit, etc. I've only factored in that I absolutely want Lithium and I absolutely want another panel on the roof. I'm hoping to get Oliver to just build the trailer with a solar port wired in on the roof and some wires hanging somewhere for the charge controller, but we'll see. I've literally never seen an Oliver so I'm not sure how easy it is to run wires once its built. Maybe your two links will show me. I don't really like how they mount the panels on the roof so I'm trying to get them to add additional aluminum backer plates that I can tie into after building a roof rack. A friend of mine has a nice shop where I can build aluminum dryboxes which I'd mount the panels too so I can have storage under the panels. I'll also build a moveable ladder into it. If I ever want to add more panels, I can attach to the rack rather than trying to fasten to the fiberglass.

Hey Raspy.....or John......Thanks for taking the time to write all that. Not to sound like the ungrateful new guy, but none of that is new info to me. I do appreciate hearing it from an X oliver owner though. Its not new because I spent a fair amount of time at the dealer in Bozeman checking out the Black Series and communicated a fair amount with the company in LA. The biggest thing right off is the cold weather issues. I'm not talking cold either, I'm talking winter almost anywhere in America other than far south. This thing will freeze up during travel in North Florida in Jan! If they weren't asking for all the money, it might be worth it to me to come up with a closed in basement with ducting and all that jazz, but I think we all know it would be a nightmare trying to get an actual air sealed finished product not to mention it would be just as inefficient as any other cheapo RV in the US. I don't think the Oliver is particularly well insulated but there is nothing on the market with better air sealing, which anybody that has built homes in cold climates and pays even the smallest amount of attention to modern building science knows is the most important thing. That said, I am a little skeptical of how the Oliver will perform in actual cold weather. They play the "R" value game like every other company in the RV industry and the building industry. The thermal bubble wrap style insulation (reflectix) is a hoax. It might help a tiny bit in reflecting heat if it was exposed and used in conjunction with actual insulation, but by itself between walls its almost useless. In other words, science has not invented anything that takes the place of wall thickness which is why every single RV will run the furnace non-stop in cold weather. Its why my last three rvs have had small wood stoves in them so that we could do late season Elk hunts when it often drops well below zero. Since there is very little sun that time of year its either burn a fire or run a generator or have a $10k lithium bank and extra propane tanks. That said, the Oliver is air sealed and has a thermal air break between the inner/outer shells, hopefully it does an ok job at least not losing heat. The other problem with RV's is that there is no real thermal mass to hold heat so you just end up constantly heating the air which is getting the heat zapped out of it by all the cold materials in the cabin. With a wood stove, it holds heat so even on very low settings you get some actual radiation which is ultimately what provides comfort. Ok, rant about cold is done, but thats a main reason I'm not going with Black Series but I also remain skeptical of the Oliver so if you've done any camping even in the teens I would love to hear anybody's performance reviews. I think the suspension, hitch, outdoor kitchen, etc are all awesome and like you I'm sure, its what drew me to the brand. BTW, Jayco started making very similar units in Australia. If they introduce them here I think they'll crush BS. https://www.jayco.com.au/promo/adventurer Towing. I think unless you have a full size diesel, these things are going to be a bastard to pull. Even with a full size and the trick suspension, I think they'll buck and sway, especially the single axle models. I don't think they paid much attention to towing behavior just based on where they mount their holding tanks which also has me skeptical of their tongue weight specs. They are also just heavy in general across the line and I'm not 100% sure why. I'm sure the chassis is a pig but I guess cabinets and everything else. Lux. I agree completely that the layouts, full shower, finishes look very nice and liveable. However if you look closely with an anal eye, the fit and finish is similar to other cheap RV's. Plumbing, electrical, etc. You are right about the charger/inverter and electrical components in general. I also feel Oliver has quite a markup on some of the upgrades, not all, but for most people thats fine because they get the unit ready to go. I don't intend to get many upgrades, I plan to do them myself. For example, Zamp does not offer a MPPT controller and at 340 watts, a 20% gain in panel performance starts to make a lot of sense. Upgrade to 510w and you're leaving a lot of power in the sun. The inverter upgrade is a good efficient (.8 non-load draw), but its a $375 inverter that would take 20 minutes to wire in, Oliver gets $1200. Again though, 9.9 out of 10 buyers will never need anything more and the premium they charge is well worth it for them to have it dialed from go. A combo victron charger/inverter is how they should do it and just make it a standard feature, but I guess some people want to save the $1200 if they're only gonna plug in at campgrounds so I get it. Must be hard to create value for all types of buyers. I don't even know what I'm writing at this point, I'm just writing so sorry if its unorganized thoughts. Another thing I really like is the narrow egg shape design. As much as we're way off road a lot of the time, there is also inevitably going to be a lot of highway time, especially on shotgun runs to BC and Alaska for our beloved Sockeye runs. Or cross country to Florida for some lobster diving. Obviously fishing and hunting dictate our lives! Now even off road I find the narrower camper to be a huge plus for getting into tight places. Lets be real, unless you're a crazy SOB which maybe you are, at the end of the day a 23+' trailer is only going so many places. I am a bit hesitant with the Oliver because of that, but a good amount of their length is the rear bumper and long tongue. At least with a 7' wide body and the long tongue you can get that thing cranked over pretty good on those tight switchbacks down into some secluded mountain lakes and rivers. When my wife and I sold our business in 2012, we traveled in our truck camper with cargo trailer for 3 years. We thought back to all the places we camped and could only come up with a handful where we don't think we could get the Oliver in but if we couldn't we could camp close and drive in. Not the same but the sacrifice for some extra comfort and storage capacity. Ok, not sure I addressed everything you said, probably not. But now you know how I think a little so you can run next time you see me post! I appreciate the input and congrats on the HQ. Its a badass unit that I for sure lusted after for a while, but once I really looked at what I needed I just don't think it will fit my needs. I cant wait to see one being hammered on flying past me on a dirt road!

Well, I was hesitant to join a forum until I saw the conversations you guys were having. Been looking at the Black Series HQ15 but decided its gonna be too much work to make it worthy of our shoulder season elk hunts here in Montana. Came across Oliver and am strongly considering the double axle. We spend 90+% of our time off road. I wouldn't say that we're full on overlanding through rivers and crazy articulating obstacles, but we intend to test the lifetime warranty. I've gone through multiple RV's over the years and I'm trying to justify the Oliver's price tag on the fact that I can be done swapping trailers every few years before they fall apart completely. I'd love to get some feedback from you guys if you've got the time or desire. Either way I'll check out some of your past posts so I can limit asking you to repeat yourselves. Thanks for all the info, glad you guys are here.