SeaDawg

Beautiful !

I think it's a great backup. Why would you replace the original toilet and tank with something with one third of the capacity? I'm not unfamiliar with portapottiies. Used them, they have their place. Camping In Australia, I reserved and bought a bucket portapotty, thunder down under, because our van had no toilet.. It worked well for our 6 week trip. In my Oliver, I have a much bigger tank. We've used pretty much everything over the years. Pail, Pail with a seat, portapotty, cassette toilet, rV toilet with black tank. Haven't ever had a composting toilet.. I'm happy with the rv toilet and black tank. Usually more than we need. Sherry

I politely disagree. That you can run the ac off lithium, even for an hour, is far more than I can do with two group 27 agms. He never said you could run it 24/7. And, I'm sure there will be qualifiers. Amps to amps, useable, if I replaced my agms with lithium, I could safely discharge to 90 per cent. I try to keep my discharge at 25 per cent on agms, to extend the life. Even if I go to 50 per cent on deep cycle agms, I would double my capacity with lithium. I work with lithium at the house. I won't upgrade my agms in the trailer til my agms die, but oh, I would love to. In my little trailer, I doubt 3 would fit in the tray. But, even two would really expand my battery power. Everything comes with a price. In the case of lithium batteries, it's a sizable one. I wouldn't opt for them, unless you were like us, camping off grid, virtually all the time. If you have access to power cords most of the time, fla or agm is fine, cheaper, and quite efficient. Imo. Edited to add, we rarely use ac, because we can't, without power cord. What would be great for me, is being able to run my fridge, charge phones, and use an inverter to run an induction hotplate from my battery. Everything changes. Evolution. Sherry

FWIW, an additional safeguard beyond pool noodles is reinforcing material added to the chafing spots. We do this routinely with sail covers, where lines or hardware make contact with the cover. I mark the spots with tailor's chalk, and take the cover to our favorite canvas shop. They add reinforcement patches on the wear surface (in this case, they'd go on the inside) as a sacrificial lamb. Helps to keep the cover intact. We do a lot of work with, and refer a number of folks, to our favorite shop, so they charged me about 100 for six reinforcement patches last time. I think I got a little discount. Might be more where you are. I don't know. Our sail covers are to big for me to use my machine, and doing that work by hand is just too much for me these days. Lynn has a huge table and can deal with the weight of the covers better than I can. Just a thought. I'd still use the pool noodles, even so, as a trailer cover shifts a lot more than a sail cover in weather. Sherry

That's a really big price increase! It would make a really good down payment on a permanent carport, or you could buy one of the fabric carports for probably half the price, if your zoning allows you to put up either one. Sherry

With filters applied, I found over 50 4x4 f150s within a 1000 miles of me. Thanks. Sherry

Seriously, I've been suffering from a bad case of amp hour envy ever since I saw Overland's setup. I'm very happy that Oliver is getting into the mix. My house is gridtied, and can run on my lithium batteries and my solar during power outages. I can only imagine how much fun it would be to have that much battery power, and depth of discharge, in my trailer. Any mention of which brand batteries Oliver plans to use?

Congratulations from hull #12. Wishing you many miles of smiles. Sherry

Love the gif. Pass the popcorn. Tests have been done in Australia on far more efficient ac units than the Dometic units available to the US. and, we've all seen Overland's experiment. Will it run ac? Sure. How long.... However, I'm really glad Oliver is getting into lithium. Maybe then, they'll offer a dc danfoss compressor refrigerator . 😄 Sherry

And, another comparison video

I don't know the db rating, but the arv unit is extremely quiet. I've posted this before, on another thread. Interview with an owner, with the aussie built quiet ac running on high. You can hear the entire conversation, without background ac noise. I agree, too expensive for me. But, for those who really need ac 24/7, 365, an alternative. Albeit, a very pricey one. I'm going to wait and eventually install one of the 12v/danfoss/secop compress type ac units, designed for no idle truck zones, when we have to replace ours. Since we have used our ac literally a few times camping, it's not a big issue for us. I know our 12+ year old unit still works, as I test it in the driveway each year, to be sure. Normally, it's the last time I turn it on til the next year. The 12v danfoss/secop units use far less power, important to us, since we rarely have hookups, and I'm just not about hooking up a generator to have ac. We just try avoid that heat. Our trailer has wheels, and we have time to go elsewhere. Sherry

More amazing photos, David. Thanks for the memories ! Sherry

Do you remember what the voltage reading was when the accidental discharge occurred? If they were very deep discharged, you may or may not be able to bring them back to life. When you're hooked to shore power, your seelevel guage reads the charging voltage, not the actual state of your battery. This is also true for a period of time after you've disconnected from shore power, around 15 to 20 minutes or so, so your battery reads "full", when it's not. Also true if charging from solar. To get a true reading of the state of your batteries, disconnect from shore power, cover the solar panels, and after 30 minutes, take a reading with your multimeter. Or, as Andrew suggested, remove your batteries and take them to an auto parts store. Agms are capable of deeper discharge than flooded batteries, but even if you are able to bring them back to life, they may never be 100 per cent again. It's a shame, with your batteries only a year old. Sherry

Brevard is truly one of the prettiest little towns in western North Carolina. A really lovely and vibrant downright , and outside of town, omg, all the woods (Transylvania) and waterfalls. Don't skip it, when it's just a bit out of the way. Asheville is fun and wonderful, but towns like Brevard maintain that WNC heart and small town friendliness that is truly the spirit of western North Carolina. Sherry

John davies, I'm sure at that price point it's not the equivalent of the same size true Yamaha. But, since she uses it a dozen times a year or so, mostly to charge batteries, it's perfect for her, and affordable. An alternative.

Thanks for mentioning the neutral ground plug, Whatda. It's an important, though inexpensive, little bit. As much as I love my 12 year old Honda 1000, I would probably be looking at another brand, if I were buying today. Not familiar with the Ryobis, but sounds like it's done well for you. My sister has had good service from a Costco yamaha engine (not Yamaha genset) genset that she purchased for less than $500. Pretty quiet, very reliable. Came with the cables to pair with another, but one serves their needs. Sherry

Btw, Mike, if I found an Ollie in great shape, and otherwise features that you like, I wouldn't hesitate. We added 600 watts of solar ourselves to our 40 year old sailboat this year. It took some time, but was well worth the effort to us, as there is nowhere to plug in when we're anchored or sailing, and we don't have or want a generator on the boat. It was time-consuming because of the difficulty of pulling wires through tiny spaces, but otherwise not that hard. It saves a lot of engine hours, and makes sailing far more peaceful. Oliver retrofitted the 200 watts that we have on the trailer in 2008, so even if I could remember what we paid, it's kind of irrelevant. 😁 We're upgrading that this year, too, as panels of only a slightly larger size can generate a lot more power than our 2008 panels. Sherry

If the preloved Ollie you're looking at is prewired for portable solar (has the port), you can add portable for just several hundred dollars. Even if it's not prewired, it's not a big expense to add the wiring and port. A lot of people find the portable solar is quite enough to meet their needs. I have a good friend who spent a week at Quartzite, with a single 100 watt panel and a single group 27 battery, and she did fine. But, she's a lifetime camper, and conservative in power management. Take a look at Renogy and Zamp suitcase solar, and you'll see it's quite affordable. Look for a suitcase with waterproof controller, imo. Still keeps you in the hundreds, not thousands of dollars in investment. As to whether you "need it" or not, that's really a factor of how you normally camp. If you tend to stay in sites with power, you don't. If you tend to camp only weekends, or travel camp a lot (driving somewhere new every day or two), you probably don't need solar, as you'll likely charge your battery from the tow vehicle as you travel. If you're like some of us, and spend weeks on end at an unpowered site, you'll probably want to add solar. That said, at many times of the year, I can get more power from my portable 100 watt than 200 watts of fixed panels, camping in the shade... Sherry

Mattnan, we've been pondering doing something like this on our North Carolina property. The proportions on yours, with the porch over the pretty garage door, look great. Would you mind sharing the dimensions? 24 x 32 or 40? How many square feet in the guest apartment? Love that idea. Sherry

Mattnan, I love your barn! And your location is beautiful! Sherry

That's really funny, Geronimo John.

The caframo fans have awesome reviews, for decades. It's all about how much work you want to do, and how much you want to spend. Caframo is not inexpensive. But a known quantity in the boating world.

Fwiw, We tend to remove all batteries at the end of the season. Helps to avoid the leakers, and corrosion. We reuse the aaa and aa in secondary flashlights, next season. I don't trust most batteries for more than a year. At my mom's, I replace all her batteries (emergency flashlights, remotes, smoke alarms) on mother's day. Pick a date. Once a year, is my motto. Sherry

Ours has been outside, 247/365, for over 12 years. But, we use an expensive 3m marine paste wax, twice a year, to uv protect the gelcoat. Same wax we use on the 40 plus year old boat, which is too big to be stored undercover. Sherry

Yes, bleach does have an expiration date. http://blog.rjschinner.com/clorox-shelf-life-date-codes/ like many items, it starts to lose effectiveness depending on date, storage temps, etc. Old bleach is probably better than nothing, but its effectiveness is really only a guestimate.