Jim_Oker

Yeah, good tip. I decided to just pay for the convenience to reduce the number of things I would be doing myself to get the trailer tuned for our first camping outings. I also priced getting good quality custom fit latex mattresses from a reputable local mattress place and found that the Oliver option was actually way less $$ believe it or not.

Cool - thanks. The sensors I got are just dumb sensors that broadcast to a little LCD base station display unit and show current conditions plus 24 hour high/low levels. I will look at those to ponder whether I want to bother upping my game around sensors (i.e. would I view that as a "fun hobby" or more of "chore"?). BTW one more thought for this thread. The Oliver is more like a fiberglass boat than any other RV I've seen. I am pretty sure that boats have all the issues RVs have with moisture and then some. It's a tried and true design for such living/travel spaces.

BTW I also have temperature/humidity sensors in the main cabin and the bathroom cabinet as well as on both sides of the basement so I can see if any spot is getting unreasonably high humidity whether during storage at home or while camping. (we also have temp sensors in the fridge and freezer which I've found quite helpful for tuning the temperature level as ambient air conditions, which have a big effect on this sort of fridge - much more so than a compressor fridge IME)

Another PNW resident and camper here. I agree with comments above that ALL RVs have potential for condensation problems - the nice thing with the Oliver is that the extent of the problems can be more quickly noticed. That said, thus far even camping during cool wet weather out at the Pacific coast in the rainforest, the most we've seen has been some fogging of the windows overnight. We have the KTT latex matress option plus the hypervent pads and while yes they're slightly more of a hassle than a heavy mattress alone I haven't found them to be that troubling - the thick heavy mattress is the main thing making it a chore for me to get in those compartments but so worth it for the comfort (I'm quite certain we would not like sleeping on the base/stock cushions given the feel of the dinette cushions which are on my "to do list" to replace with something more beefy btw as I don't love them even for sitting on). Anyway, we've not seen any condensation beneath the mattresses and the bit of fogging of the windows in the early morning has gone away quickly during the day. And we've only noticed the window fogging on particularly wet and/or cold nights - less than we've typically seen in our Class B camper van with its fuzzy walls and ceiling fwiw. We do keep a few windows and a roof vent cracked while sleeping (and turn on the fan to 10-30% if it's feeling warm inside) and turn the fan to whatever level is required to keep the bathroom door mirror from fogging while boiling water or otherwise cooking inside (most of our actual cooking we do outside but have liked heating coffee water on the Oliver's stove in the AM). We run the bathroom vent fan and if needed the MaxxAir fan during and for a little bit after showers and I squeegee and wipe the wet bath's surfaces after showers to move that water down the drain. We've also slept in single wall tents which are way worse for condensation issues and from that you will necessarily learn a few things including that wet gear makes it worse as does "sleeping hot" - if you can comfortably tolerate less covers over you you will perspire less overnight and thus put off less water vapor into the cabin. In any RV it pays to think about how to mitigate the amount of moisture you send into the cabin air and what level of ventilation you need for the significant moisture you'll put in there despite reasonable mitigation efforts. To repeat - the design of the Oliver simply makes it more likely you'll notice if you could be striking a better balance there.

I came to the same conclusion.

We’ve been using a refillable one gallon tank for a long time with our stove and portable grill. We keep a few green cylinders handy as backup and for when we’re using both grill and stove at the same time. We’re often using these far enough from our camper that I wouldn’t want to run a long hose and I wouldn’t want to be constrained to be close enough to the camper to use the built in quick connect.

I'll be curious what you've seen. As I mentioned above our BMS is reporting that our batteries are significantly lagging the daily highs.

My car claimed 106 as I pulled in to the driveway a short bit ago. The self-reporting from our LifeBlue's BMS says both batteries are just under 90F - they've lagged daytime highs each day thus far (and as you might guess also don't cool down to nighttime lows). They must have a fair bit of thermal mass. The adjacent basement area on the sunny side of the trailer (batteries are on north) is reading 99F. The National Weather Service says that the wind is going to shift this afternoon out at the coast, bringing badly missed breeze out of the west off the water as the trough that's been pulling hot air from the east over the Cascades (essentially a Foehn wind) finally stumbles eastward. We get some semblance of cool air overnight tonight if the forecast holds - "cool" being relative to the overnight temps of the last three nights, a lovely 67 per NWS, though normally we'd be seeing temps in the fifties at night now. Given the battery readings and the forecast short duration of the most intense part of this historic heat event (historic for WA and OR and also BC which is setting all-time-any-month heat records for all of Canada) I'm feeling OK about the choice to leave the batteries where they sit in the trailer. Within a month we should have a carport type structure under which to park Ollie in a shady cedar grove (where it tends to be significantly cooler than in the sun of our driveway) that will further moderate the temperature swings the trailer experiences, so as long as we don't keep making history then I likely won't have to fuss with carting the batteries back and forth for storage. I hope y'all in other parts of this heat dome are doing OK. Looks like Spokane will be a bit of an oven through at least mid week. I'll be rooting for that predicted sea breeze to stiffen and make its way to the ID border and beyond!

The LifeBlue battery data sheet says "over temperature protection" from the BMS kicks in at 149F and cuts back out when it drops to 131F. They recommend a temperature storage range topping out at 95F but I presume that sitting for a few days just a bit above that as I'm likely to see here near Seattle from Sat-Mon is not a dealbreaker. I could pull them out and stick them in my basement (the rest of the house will probably be at least as hot as the battery compartment in the trailer) but I'm not convinced that it's worth it.

Yeah. Enjoy the dopamine spurts while they last

BTW in my cabinets it was more than just dust. There were little bits of fiberglass that I quickly learned would quickly make nasty slivers in my skin in the cabinets if I happened to slightly slide a finger in the wrong spot along the rubber mats or the surfaces below them. That got me to quickly prioritize the full dust and debris bits cleanup.

Maybe it's a delivery date based difference? Us newer trailer owners seem to consistently have a LOT of dust based on comments in the thread. In mine it was on some uncovered surfaces in the interior but even more so under the cushions and matresses and wow so so much in the cabinets and closet and even more between the hulls. I spent quite a while using a brush and a crevice tool on a shop vac and a dust rag to try to get as much of it up as possible but as Overland notes there's quite a reserve supply to be further scattered about in harder to reach areas between the hulls. While I'm impressed by how much Oliver got right on my trailer (and my net impression is overall positive when I look across all factors) I would be lying if I said I was anywhere near satisfied with how they cleaned up the construction dust. I spent some time building custom and production furniture and cabinetry and get how dusty work environments can be but I also recall that we had a lot of procedures to ensure that this did not impact the delivered product whether via dust specs embedded in a finish or in loose dust in nooks and crannies of cabinetry. The state of the dust in my trailer came across as a BIG corner being cut to me.

Yeah, though no need to be waiting for your real life to begin! Nice Tom Petty reference!

Welcome. If you decide to buy new or if you have a long hunt for used, you can do some field research by renting from one of the multiple RV rental platforms that are now brokering rentals. You likely won't find an Oliver to rent but you'll gain experience with the same basic RV systems and with your own camping tactics. And it may help a bit with the waiting...

BTW I should add that I came to my opinion while van camping and therefore pretty much never being the one causing the wait - I was always waiting. But anyone with even shreds of situational awareness and empathy will just look at their phone or talk to their partner or see what interesting radio stations might be out there to distract their impatient monkey mind for the very few minutes it's going to take.

BTW the impatience is likely to be worst (based on tuning into my own type A - ness 😉 ) in first come first served settings in that period of mid morning through mid afternoon where the rats are trying to find the limited number of pieces of cheese in the maze and they know other rats are already exploring other parts of the maze. That may be a setting in which to more quickly go to the "take another loop and clear your head" move.

Patience varies but generally my sense has been that my job is to wait patiently for even 5 or so minutes if needed. Even if I have places to go and people to see. IMO it's their problem not yours.

Yes, I have not seen any studies by cognitive science folks but I would gladly wager $20 that any such would show that a well designed touch screen experience is more cognitively demanding for driver than well designed physical buttons and knobs. I think we're still going a bit in the wrong direction regarding distracting drivers. I fear its my former industry that's largely at fault... (computers/software), though the car companies are the ones choosing to use the tech thusly. I see why they do but clearly I think it's a misguided choice safety-wise.

Yes - you are practically speaking on your own there if you are swept to sea. I guess the coast guard could eventually get a helicopter there but even if you have a PLB handy it's going to take a good long while. Frankly I'm most worried there if I'm on the beaches at high tide and there's driftwood around. Those big logs get tossed around like little matchsticks when big waves come. I feel that in decent weather and no big swell happening that the risk on the flat expanse of sand is not huge on outgoing tides. The other thing to watch out for there is not getting stuck on the wrong side of headlands as the tide comes in. That can make for an unpleasant wait for the whole next tide cycle (sometimes two if you rounded the head on a super low tide and the next low is much higher). In most places around there you won't make much headway trying to go overland up off the beach!!

And yes, we gassed up on our ways in and out down along the Aberdeed/Hoquiam strips. Arco had a particularly good price this past week, as is their tendency. Surprisingly, though, I mentally noted that the price near Queets was not terrible, even if not a budget shopper's dream. I would not have felt awful if I'd needed to add a bit while near there.

Yeah, when the tide is way out but incoming it can be surprising how quickly a two foot high flow of water crosses a hundred yards or so toward the land. It's not zero risk on outgoing tide but the risk is for sure lower, especially if you watch several wave sets come through to see what's going on. But yeah sneaker waves are real. We really enjoyed walking both Ruby and Beach 4 during this stay, and of course the beach right at the campground was handy for several nice walks. I think I like Second Beach even a bit more than Ruby but now I'm splitting hairs I suppose, and I can't take my dog there. There are some beaches between Bandon and the CA border that I am fully smitten with but it's a MUCH longer drive from home. Will be heading down there (with reservations at Cape Blanco and a few other spots in-between here and there for before and after) in late October when the weather is often surprisingly awesome on the coast. The beaches down along the Samuel Boardman corridor are pretty wild and of course the beach at Bandon is super photogenic. Here's a pic from Second Beach (currently closed due to being on tribal land, due to COVID concerns btw!) four or five winters ago, when I was staying at nearby Mora campground, which used to be FFS all year but now is on the reservations season along with Kalaloch Beach CG during high season 😞. Mora is also "boondocking" per the definition being used here.

I hope to meet you in person whenever you are around the region.

We spent last week out at the coast of the Olympic National Park at the Kalaloch Beach campground, which is "dry camping" (no hookups) i.e. "boondocking" for the sake of this thread. We scored a sweet bluff-edge site overlooking the beach. The campground is currently "first come first served" but changes to reserved sites later today or tomorrow as they start their "high season" policy. Hopefully it will remain FFS in the off season forever as it's a nice place to head to in the colder months (which often aren't *that* much colder out at our coast versus in summer!) when the forecast is half decent. I miss the degree of spontaneity we used to have and hope we retain at least some of that forever!! There's lots to do in the area both along the shore as well as inland in the temperate evergreen rainforest which has some HUGE trees and tangled undergrowth and wildlife and water lots and lots of water. I hope folks don't mind the major photo dump - I had time on my hands and a few options for cameras 😄 Oh, and dogs are allowed on the beaches near Kalaloch, and there are a few trails in the adjacent National Forest near Lake Quinault where you can take them as well. Otherwise they are not allowed on trails in the National Park around there though.

Re: Truma, their manual does say NOT to use vinegar in the Truma. They say you must use their stuff for descaling the heater. But you can still do a vinegar flush of the rest of the system with the water heater cutoff valve set to divert it from from the heater.

There are also pre and post towing checklists in the 2021 model year manual (which can be found on the Oliver University section of the Oliver site).