NCeagle

I've been researching this topic since posting yesterday and I've got to correct something I posted (above). Relative humidity is sort of tricky to think about because, well, it's relative to temperature. The dew point is actually another key data point to look at as that represents the amount of water in the air (or space containing the air) independent of temperature. Relative Humidity is important because it tells you how close you are to the dew point - where condensation occurs (also called accidental dehumidification 🙂 ). Dew point is important because it tells you how much moisture is in the air. So, my statement above is not always true. You can actually pull colder, more relatively humid air into the cabin and reduce the overall humidity if the dew point outside is lower than the dew point inside (and you have access to dry heat)! It works because the cold air has less water content (lower dew point) even though the relative humidity is high - when you heat that fresh, cool, dryer air to your cabin temp, it actually has less relative humidity than the air it replaced. Confusing? I thought so. Sorry for my misleading statement.

Honestly, I don't know what you do to control humidity when it's 90%+ humidity outside. All I know is that if it's more humid outside than it is in your cabin, opening windows and running fans won't help a bit. I'd say if the humidity outside is greater than inside (regardless of whether you are cooking, showering or just watching TV), the only ways to get the humidity down would be to heat the cabin or remove the moisture from the air in the cabin. Sounds like your dehumidifier does a good job getting some water out of the cabin air - what brand and model do you use? I suspect if you are camping in some PNW moisture, a dehumidifier will do better than just plain dry heat. I don't think running a dehumidifier and heater at the same time would be necessary - I know either / or work for me but I chose the space heater so far this winter because I also think it's best for me to keep the cabin around 60F rather than 50F - mainly because I have been in the Ollie tinkering with something every day and 50 is just too cold. 🙂

Hi Craig, SensorPush Wireless Thermometer/Hygrometer for iPhone/Android - Humidity & Temperature Smart Sensor with Alerts. Developed and Supported in The USA. I'm a "bit" overboard with them - I am using 10 of them for these graphs and I just added 2 more yesterday (one to monitor the backflow valves directly and another to monitor the refrigerator). I also have the gateway so I can see them and they can send me alerts remotely. What can I say - I like data. 🙂

Like @Mcb, we picked up our new Oliver in November, 2020. I took the time to learn as much as I could reading manuals and posts on this forum and many others. I then did the same thing as Mcb - crossed my fingers and hoped for a "good" Ollie with no major problems. Well, 3 months into ownership and I'd say my expectations were still set a bit too high. I have a list of 17 items that I have dealt with or I am still dealing with - I think most if not all should have been caught in any good quality check. Many of them have been trivial and I've been able to fix them myself. Others have required a ticket with OTT Service and they have been absolutely STELLAR in every way. Thank goodness! I have 3 left on my list and they are pretty big in my mind because I can't do them myself. I am certainly still enjoying the Oliver in the meantime - nothing has been serious enough to stop that! I just look forward to a day when maintenance is the main concern. I'm not publishing my list on the forum, but I'm happy to share it with anyone interested via PM. And Oliver does know about most if not all - I'm not shy about opening tickets.

Let's say there are 3 "general" buckets to consider when talking humidity - and each will have a somewhat unique solution. 1. The first is below freezing, cold weather camping where you get condensation / humidity buildup inside the cabin - mainly on the colder surfaces like the windows and walls. In this situation, it is almost always lower humidity outside and cracking a window with the MaxAir fan on makes complete sense. I'm thinking how dry my lips and nose get in the Rockies in the winter - I carry a humidifier (for hotel rooms) with me on ski trips. I have no real data on this situation yet - just educated guesses. 2. The second situation is PNW type humidity - cool and moist. In this situation, the temps are above freezing but not "warm" and the humidity outside is 85%+. Cracking a window and running a fan in this situation will result in pulling in MORE moisture and be counterproductive. A dehumidifier or heat (furnace or electric) with the Ollie sealed up is the best way to keep the cabin humidity under control. This is the situation @Ray and Susan Huffare questioning above. I have some good data on this I can share below. 3. The third situation is common in the summertime, primarily in the SE US. This is HOT and HUMID - I'm talking 90+ degrees and 70+ dewpoints. Heat won't work here unless you want to bake a cake in the cabin heat. 🙂 A dehumidifier almost certainly will be the best in this situation as it doesn't produce quite as much heat. I have no data on this yet, but living in NC I'll have to get it figured out sooner rather than later. For the PNW type humidity, we've had several cold, damp days here in NC. Here's some data to look at and we can then have some fun interpreting... This graph is temperatures: And this graph is humidity: Here are the parameters of the test: 1. Electric space heater (oil) on medium heat (draws 6 amps at 120V) set to 60F. 2. No windows / vents open. 3. The temperature spikes in the late morning each day are from me turning on the gas heat to get the cabin quickly heated to 70F. I often use the Ollie as a nice, quiet place to meditate in the late morning. 🙂 Once the cabin hits 70F, I turn off the gas furnace. The electric space heater is running at all times during all of this. a. On 2/12 it's furnace heat only. b. On 2/13 I first turned on my bilge smart fan for about an hour and a half before turning on the gas furnace (and turning off the bilge fan). c. On 2/14 I turned shore power off and ran the heat on the batteries for 30 minutes or so to drain them to 50%. I then charged them back up to 80%. Some findings... 1. This proves that a space heater set up properly in this type of humidity/temperature situation will keep the humidity in check if the cabin is kept at 60F or so. A healthy humidity level is anywhere between 30% and 60%. I have tried dehumidifiers as well, but I don't think they are as effective in this situation - at least I haven't found one yet - as they don't collect much water and run constantly. They do keep the humidity down, but I suspect mostly by warming the air. The space heater doesn't run all the time - it's off and on as you would expect, so I don't *think* it is taking much more energy if any. Big concern? 1. While the humidity in the cabin is fine, look at the values for the basement. They are VERY high. I think if the humidity stayed this high in the basement for long periods mold and mildew would form. Does anyone have a solution for this? Does anyone open up the hatches in storage and run a dehumidifier to keep the basement from getting mold / mildew? I think my bilge fan may help, but I put it in as a backup for the propane furnace to pull space heated, warm air into the basement.

@Ray and Susan Huff recently posted a couple interesting questions about humidity in a related "cold weather data" thread and I created this thread as I think humidity deserves a thread of it's own. 🙂 Here's what Ray and Susan posted in that thread so you don't have to go back and look: I've been wondering about running fan/cracking a window or two, when outdoor humidity is high. So, to maintain desirable humidity while parked in the driveway in the PNW with outdoor humidity at, let's say, 95% the fan/roof vent and windows need to remain closed? While camping for a few days recently, we had quite a bit of condensation in the trailer. Nighttime temps were in the mid-thirties. We ran the furnace, during the day, set to 68 degrees, but off at night. Daytime temps were in the upper forties and the condensation dissipated as we were outside most of the day, but returned at night. (I don't recall the humidity level registered on our sensors - my bad). When we returned home we ran the dehumidifier for a day. This brought the humidity/temp to 40%/45 deg and maintained it there through the night. The next day we swapped the dehumidifier for the oil heater we use in storage to see what this would do humidity wise. It is set to maintain approx 60 degrees. The humidity has stabilized at 50%. Outside humidity is 95%; night time temps in the low 40's. Is it better to run the dehumidifier to achieve a lower humidity, at the expense of lower temperature (40%/45 deg) or the heater that produces humidity/temp levels (50%/60 deg)? The dehumidifier, running on high heat, draws 3 amps; the oil heater, on med 900w setting, draws 7 amps. What is a healthy humidity level for maintaining a healthy environment in the Oliver while sitting idle?

I did get the same response on the ticket I opened about Oliver ordering the tires mounted and balanced. However, it's not really a "dead horse" for OTT yet as they also said that it's an ongoing issue since Oliver is the only one that asks for balanced tires and the vendor keeps forgetting to balance Oliver orders. So my wheels are not magically matched and balanced with no weights. Oliver has offered to pay for the wheels to be balanced but this one bugs me because I can't do it myself and if it's a known thing it should have been caught in a quality check if there is one.

Point taken - I should not be jumping to conclusions. However, there are no weights of any kind on my wheels. Maybe all of the them are match mounted and didn't need balancing - I did not realize that was possible. It does say in my owner's manual that they should be aligned and balanced though.

Hi ScubaRx, Hull 688, a late 2020 model.

I'm going to open a ticket and get a response from OTT. Mine are not balanced so either they just started in 2021 or mine are supposed to be balanced and it was missed.

I'll check around to see who can balance a trailer wheel. I agree on the $40 well spent. I'm definitely doing it to reduce vibrations and help everything around them (like hubs, bearings, nuts coming loose). Harmonics and resonance are for music, not travel trailers! 😉 Oh well, I wish Oliver had gone a step above the rest and done it (or offered to do it for $) - what a pain and additional expense having to do this after the fact.

I can't vote because I'm in a bit of shock. I ASSUMED the tires would be balanced - why wouldn't they? I just ran out into the freezing cold and checked and unless they are magically balanced rims, there's no lead anywhere on any of them. So this is now on the top of my list. I really do find this hard to believe. My answer to the poll is "They were not balanced and I'm shocked. I'm going to have them balanced ASAP" 😞

Hi Jairon, I settled on 60 psi on our new Elite II (Hull 688). I read every post I could find on the topic and it seemed 60 psi offered the best combination of gas mileage and being a softer ride for the Elite II contents. 60 psi also has more than enough of a safety margin should a slow leak develop. You can see from the tire inflation chart JD posted above that with 2500 lbs / axle, you could get by with less than 30 psi (and no safety margin).

For anyone buying bearings from any manufacturer online, there's a relatively new app from the World Bearing Association that helps identify counterfeits. Search "WBA Bearing Authenticato‪r"‬. I used it recently on my ipad (IOS) and I think it's also available for Android.

I turned the shades on our 2020 Oliver a short time ago and did not have any loose clips (22 for 22 were snug). This may have been something OTT became aware of through the owners and improved. At least I hope so. 🙂

This is an older thread, but I wanted to comment on it since I did buy and test the 15.5" AM Solar brackets for our 2020 Ollie (https://amsolar.com/rv-mounting-accessories/91m-tbs155). The 15.5" brackets do (barely) fit and work using the uppermost (top) hole on the bracket. No way the larger ones will work with the roof getting in the way as JD eludes to - even if you use the lower holes on the bracket. I'm not entirely sure how JD got 20" sections to work on his, but perhaps a slightly different mounting configuration/bracket than the 2020's?

John, I ended up buying the 6" smart fan that has 10 settings from 35 cfm to 350 cfm, so I was able to do some additional testing of the "bilge" fan idea. I also got the programmable thermostat with it (more on how I'm using that below). After lots of testing on lots of different fan speeds, you were right about running the fan longer (thanks again for the ideas). For the first 20 minutes or so, the temperatures in some of the basement areas would go up quickly and others would go down quickly, but if I kept the fan running, eventually things stabilized and all of the temperatures ended up pretty close together. The faster the fan ran, the faster the temps stabilize. The important thing was the temps stayed well above freezing in all areas of the basement that I had the sensors with outside temps in the mid 20's and the interior held at 55 with a portable electric heater. Since this works well, I feel like I have the "all electric" solution to keep everything from freezing - and it's independent of the furnace. I installed the fan under the front dinette seat with a 6" vent and the thermostat in the back up against the inlet check valves. As a reminder, my primary goal was to not have to winterize while in storage, but to use electric as a primary source of heat rather than (relatively expensive propane). So I have my Oliver set up in storage now as follows: 1. Electric space heater set to 55 degrees 2. Furnace set to 50 degrees 3. Smart fan set to come on when the check valve temp falls to 38 degrees What happens with this setup is the space heater will try to keep the interior at 55. Once the check valves get cold (38), the fan comes on and runs as fast as it needs to in order to keep the check valves at or above 38. The valves don't come up in temp very fast, so the fan runs quite a bit once they hit the 38 degree mark. This eventually heats up everything in the basement and of course cools the interior a bit faster. When it's cold enough outside (25 degrees or colder), the space heater can't keep the cabin temp at 55 and eventually the cabin falls to 50 - where the gas furnace kicks on to help out (and it heats everything up in the cabin and basement). Being in NC where we don't get super cold nights a lot, the furnace isn't running much at all in this scenario. It ran last night for the first time when we had 22 degrees - and it only ran a few times and used a negligible amount of propane! I think this bilge pump will work great in the summer too to get the hot air out of the basement. Not sure how I'll use it yet in summer, but at least I'll be able to keep the basement "fresh". 🙂

Picking up an additional supplier is a good business move, especially if Lithionics also offers different form factors - ones that would also work in the Elite I as @SeaDawg eluded to. Thanks for sharing that info @Jairon. My stress level went down when I read your post that Oliver isn't ditching LifeBlue.

Wow, that was a fast switch of Lithium vendors. I'm curious when this change will occur as well although I'm way more concerned now as an owner of LifeBlue batteries. What else has Oliver found in addition to the overheating problem with the cold temp version that has made them switch so fast? Could be cost alone but I doubt it. If I were in the queue for a new Oliver right now and had this new information, I'd be seriously considering what many other owners have done - skip the Lithium from OTT and install your own in a few years when the AGMs die.

The best choice for a hotspot device is somewhat dependent on the service provider. There's a lot of discussion about Verizon jetpack, but if you have AT&T, Sprint, or T-Mobile for example, the jetpack won't be the best solution. Here's a link that identifies the best wifi hotspot device for a given service provider: https://www.tomsguide.com/best-picks/best-mobile-hotspots

Hi Liana, I just did that with our new LEII. You have to pull hard on the blind near the clips to get them to release. There were 3 on the top and 3 on the bottom of ours - not sure about the 2018, but you'd have at least 4. Once you pop the blind off you can figure out how to tighten the loose clip, then just flip the blind around and you'll now be able to see how to line up the back of the blind with the clips. I just pushed hard to get it to pop in as well - one at a time. I did not try to do multiple at once. You will be comfortable once you get one clip to release - so maybe try a few until you get an easier one. Good luck!

Wow - what a dramatic image. Interestingly, that's also what the battery could look like after the travel trailer broke free from the TV and crashed and burned - all because the emergency brakes didn't work due to a blown fuse that isn't supposed to be there. I think I'll wait for OTT to issue a safety recall if it's not correct as is.

Hi RussW, sure, it's nothing special really. I think if you used the owners manual and went through each system / component you would accomplish the same thing. Some of my notes may be helpful. My checklist is also specific to some of the options we chose so not all may be appropriate for your Ollie. I used it both while going through the walkthrough (helped remind me of questions) and at Davey Crockett State Park. I did test everything on my list and while there were a few minor things I had to take care of (I called Oliver service twice and they helped tremendously), nothing required a trip back to Hohenwald. I did exactly what JRK is going to do and stayed an extra day to make sure I had time to test everything before driving back home.Ollie Inspection Checklist.xlsx

Hi John, Like you, I was worried after reading everything out on the forum before we got our Oliver a few months ago too. Now that we have our trailer (for over 2 months now) and I've had a chance to really give it a workout, a lot of the anxiety was unnecessary. Of course the reality is that there can be things that need to be addressed even on delivery day. This is a "tiny house on wheels", so there's the fiberglass structure, the wheels, suspension and a whole lot of components that have to work together. To help with my anxiety while waiting, I also read other travel trailer forums and it was quite obvious that the issues owners were having with Oliver trailers were MINOR compared to other brands. I also developed a trust in Oliver service from what other owners were saying on the forum. I made a (large) checklist of things to look for and check before I left Hohenwald. I'm happy to report that just about everything mentioned by owners in this forum has been addressed by Oliver over the years. We've had a couple minor issues that have cropped up and I've addressed - no problem so far and Oliver service has been stellar as expected. Nothing has been serious enough to impair our ability to use (and thoroughly enjoy) the trailer and it's luxury. I enjoy fixing the little things that I can as it is helping me learn and become comfortable with our new vacation home. 🙂

Final verdict: the Buff Magic worked. I started out polishing by hand and could see it was working, but after my rotator cuff started aching I used my drill with a buffing pad on it. 👍 I figured I'd finish with my random orbital buffer but I probably won't bother as I can't see any swirl marks or blemishes up close from the first pass. Again, tough to see the real results without moving around and looking at it from different angles in the light, but I tried to capture the same lighting and reflection as the first picture. It does look like the rest of the interior now - new.