Mcb

Congrats from #685 down around the corner in Damariscotta Mills!

We have been Harvest Hosting our way to Florida from Maine this week.. Both Oscar Scherer and Myakka River State Parks had available spots this weekend which surprised us.. I guess we beat everybody else down here this year.. 🙂

what would an Oliver Certified Tech be certified to do that any reputable RV Repair guy can’t already do?… weld aluminum? Fiberglass work? I’ve never had our camper serviced by OTT, as when we’ve had issues it’s been thousands of miles away from the mothership, and I do the general maintenance myself. My experience ( this is not a complaint ) with the service dept has been to be directed by them to contact the manufacturer of the component that’s having issues directly… whether Xantrex, LifeBlu, etc…. Which has always worked out fine.. When issues have been beyond me, I’ve found Moble RV repair guys who are certified by Norcold, Dometic etc and are therefore connected to those companies and can deal with warranty issues etc, and know what they are doing because they do it everyday… this has worked out fine too. What I’ve found is that if you need an RV repair guy and you are in a campground, ask the folks that run the place for advice… ask the folks that obviously are long term campers at the place as well.. they will be quick to tell you who to have work on your camper, and who not have work on your camper.. Or at least that’s the way it’s worked for us.

Three of mine stopped working all together, and two were dim and wouldn’t shut off . This happened simultaneously … So I opened a ticket, and ended up replacing all of them, which wasn’t a big project..

we’ve got one of the 15 gallon rigs.. it has lived in the back of the pickup off and on for a couple years, and we’ve never used it… The bed of our truck is a pretty organized place, with everything stowed away in its place, with things that get used a lot pretty accessible, and things that don’t get used can take some effort to access… which is the case for that piece of gear. The few times we’ve stayed in a campground without sewer hookups long enough to require emptying our tanks amidst our stay Ive just disconnected the power and water, raised the jacks, hooked the trailer to the truck and dragged it to the dump station, because as crazy as it sounds, for me, it’s less of a hassle moving the camper then emptying the bed of the truck… and then putting it all back in.. We can be ready to roll in 10 minutes or so. If I leave the wheel chocks ( the ones behind the tires) in place when I pull out of the campsite they provide targets to help guide me back into the exact same position the camper was in before I moved it, which is kind of fun anyway🙂

Did the inverter signal an E01 error code while it wouldn’t handle loads over 1400 watts by any chance? I’ve had that happen, the inverter won’t handle the coffee maker, or microwave, and the issue is that the battery cable has somehow loosened slightly while bouncing down the road, and once tightened, the problem is solved..

Thanks Richard and Bob for making these mini rallies happen.. they’ve been lots of fun for sure.

We spent alot of years working to restore fish passage for Alewives in Maine, and still get home every spring In time to do it all over again.

I’m not sure what I did to help deal with the potential freezing of this pipes in the garage is a good idea or not, and since I’m not out playing in the same cold temps you are it may not apply…but.. what I did was to cut a “hatch” through the floor of the garage area under the rubber mat that allows me to access the pipes and fittings. This gives me the ability to stuff “handwarmers” under the floor on top of and around the pipes. I haven’t set up sensors and have no idea as to the efficiency of such a strategy but my pipes haven’t frozen yet, and maybe it might help you out in a pinch. I also built a sort of insulation “block” which fits very tightly over the city water and fresh water intakes, as I worried about those fixtures, and figures it might help out with those pipes located just inside.

So that’s where all those diabolical ingenious upgrades, modifications, and hacks to “Mouse” have taken place!

Our tv is wire tied so it can’t come down while driving.. which it did several times. since we don’t use it this isn’t an inconvenience ..

This is really great stuff. Its one thing to deal with night time temps dropping into the 20s when day time temps recover well above freezing. Its a whole different ball of wax when those day time temps stay in the 30s or below.. Its interesting reading about how you folks are managing those conditions.

Lonesome Dove while driving around the Southwest a couple years ago… Harry Potter series has been fun to listen to as well, read it to the kids back in the day.. it’s entertaining to revisit it..

I was 8 or 9 I’m guessing. Somewhere in NH in an old Army surplus tent, full of old army surplus gear…it rained and rained.. I remember sitting on a cot with my little sister and brother eating cold spagettios and trying to keep our feet above the water as it rose, and watching stuff float around the tent. The three of us got a kick out of it.. not sure my mother felt the same..

Looks like it was a blast, really wish we’d been able to make it this year. love the photo of the gnome… whom I assume came from The Gnome Lady around the corner. Since we ran into her while at last years get together we haven’t traveled without ours…

There are some great county parks.. Brownville Park near Arcadia is my favorite.. They take reservations starting 90 days out from your arrival date, which we did.. but we spent more than a week there and there was always open campsites..

Oh and it’s not just a Southern thing…I don’t know if this still applies but years ago folks in Lincoln Massachusetts were pretty proud of their 25 MPH speed limits and it’s enforcement…. They even had bumper stickers on their cars letting the world know about it. Why a fella could get pulled over a couple times in a week for doing 26 if he wasn’t careful as he passed through town slightly late for work…. Which resulted in the need for elaborate routes circumnavigating the town as I recall..

We won’t be doing any winter camping… if I wanted to be where it’s really cold, why I could just stay home.. We do however seem to end up occasionally driving where it’s cold, or dealing with overnights in the low 20s. Sometimes we travel with the furnace on, but not often. We do always make sure the hot water heater has been doing it’s thing so we can run hot water through the pipes once in a while. I added insulation to the basement door, and have some in the outdoor shower compartment as well, where if needed, I can stuff a 10hr hand warmer. I cut a hatch in the basement to gain access to the check valves and pipes at the water intakes, where I can stuff hand warmers as well. I also made an insulation block for the water inlets out of 2” rigid foam insulation. It basically clamps tight on the intakes when in place. When temperatures are in the upper teens or low 20s I can keep those intake fixtures at least 10 degrees warmer than the outside temperatures, so it helps somewhat. These little things help with occasional cold spells.. but wouldn’t do much good if the temperatures didn’t moderate during the day.. Insulation block Inside the block, cut our for water intakes.. the bolts, wing nuts, and steel plates squeeze it together in place

Have fun tomorrow ! 🙂

Good Choice! If you have a chance to go the Stan’s on a Sunday afternoon it is a blast….

Mcb 2020 685 Dometic 11k Mid 90s, full sun…. Kept us cool We will replace it with something quieter in the future.

The only warranty work we had done was the replacement of the furnace’s motor, which we had done by a certified Moble RV repair guy while in FL. We paid the bill, and Oliver reimbursed us. It was a very simple process. I would recommend being in touch with Oliver throughout the process so they know what’s going on… in our case, it was impossible to remove the furnace from the outside as the hole through the Hull was too small to do so ( they must install them from inside) which resulted in us needing to enlarge it….. resulting in unexpected labor charges. I discussed this with Oliver and they paid for those as well . The real question surrounding warranty work is the availability of qualified ( certified ) technicians in your area. Where we live there aren’t a lot of options, which led me to repair things that would have been covered by the warranty myself… that being said, none of those projects were on the scale of replacing the guts of the furnace. If anyone ever needs something worked on in their Ollie in the Venice Fl. area I can’t recommend Mike Leger highly enough. Our furnace project was a complicated one and involved a fair amount of troubleshooting and head scratching to work out what the actual issue was. I was really impressed with Mike’s methodology and ability to figure out what the problem was… while having never worked on an Oliver before he has been doing RV repair for many years and it showed.. Mike’s company is Second Home Repairs Inc which offers only moble on-site RV service. 941-234-6196. We ran into a number of folks ( including friends from home) who had worked with Mike before and they all were as positive about their experiences as we were…

I know of two other Ollies hanging out in Lee County right now as well.. and it sure is nice🙂

Mattnan, Don’t forget to explore the options of County or City Parks if you’re looking for a place to stop for a night, I can think of a couple that are in the general vicinity of where you are headed.. East of Houston there is one in Winnie Tx we stayed at off 10.. There is one in San Jon NM on 40 just west of the NM/TX state line. We’ve stayed at both and will again if the timing is right..

Yup let’s do that. Sounds like you’ve got a great winter ahead of you. We’ve spent time in Everglades City and Goodland in the past near CSSP..love that neck of the woods. You can get out in the Boonies really quick around there which is very cool.. we are bouncing around between Sanibel, LGI, Brownsville and Nakomis, which is really close to Oscar Shearer. We will be there in February with visiting kids and grandkids from Maine before we head West…