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VBistro

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Everything posted by VBistro

  1. I've slowly converted everything in our house to rechargeable. And now I am doing the same with the Ollie, wherever possible. I keep a charger and a bunch of spare rechargeables on board.
  2. We just bought 2 of these. One forward viewing in the TV and one that fits nicely in the rear window of the Ollie (plugged into the USB port on the ceiling). I can't view live video from the cab of the TV, but that's fine. It will auto record events if something happens.
  3. That's good to know. We were running the heater only overnight too. Maybe the quantity we used over the one night wasn't that off. Still experimenting....
  4. True. I have not tried to pinpoint mostly because when I get in the general area, there are really only a couple of points/joints where the leak is most likely to be coming from, well at least the points that I can see. More detailed investigation would likley mean pulling things apart, and I would rather an authorized repair person do that since everything is still under warranty. But I do have a little squeeze bottle I can use for leak detection -- used it when we installed the gas stop valves before I bought the sniffer. I'll throw that in the toolbox. Can't hurt to have on the road. Thanks!
  5. This is horrifying, but I am so glad to hear that you are all well and that you want to continue adventuring! EDITED TO ADD: You've also inspired us to pick up a dash cam....thank you.
  6. Really, both. My nose and the sniffer picked up propane outside at the furnace vent (without the furnace running) and as soon as I walked Inside the camper.
  7. One other clue that we have a leak: our 30lb tank dropped about a quarter overnight. Seems like a lot for having only run the heater at 45 degrees on a 30 degree night.
  8. We were. Nice and toasty
  9. We will absolutely have it serviced. I worked with various hazardous gases as a grad student and have a healthy respect for their lethality/toxicity. I'm pretty sure that at most we reduced the leak. We aired the cabin out thoroughly. Re-tested with the tanks open, leak detected. Aired out again, then retested with the tanks closed. No leak. I guess it is possible we were detecting residual gas trapped low under the bed. I can do the experiment again, in reverse, when I get home. thanks!
  10. UPDATE: Operator error. Apparently hubby pulled the hose out of the liquid in the bucket while in boondocking mode, with the pump running. This caused vapor lock that could only (and easily) be solved by hooking up city water to the boondocking port. This “flushed” the system and the pump works just fine. We still plan to travel with a spare pump. It’s kind of critical to boondocking for us. Now to find and correct our propane leak…
  11. It's been a heck of a week getting Ollie ready for her maiden voyage -- water pump issues last week, and now a propane leak. We had a couple of cold nights here since we de-winterized, so I opted to run the furnace overnight to make sure things didn't freeze. I noticed a distinct odor of propane this morning when I went into the camper to pack some more things. Oddly, the propane detector under the dinette was not going off, and was a steady "green". But it was definitely propane. Headed off to Home Depot to buy a sniffer, and that puppy lit up like a christmas tree as soon as I walked into Ollie with it. Huh? Checked all the fittings at the tank first, since we had recently switched over to gas stop valves, and all was good there (our leak, though, is clearly not big enough to trigger the gas stop function...). Next stop, the rear of the camper. No leak at the HW heater, but as soon I put my nose (and the sniffer) near the furnace vent, PROPANE. I called Oliver immediately, and Mike was quite surprised that we a) had a propane leak on a brand new camper, and b) that the propane detector was not sounding the alarm. He had us try tightening up the gas line connection inside the furnace compartment, but that didn't really help. Next step will be to schedule warranty service somewhere. He's also shipping us a new detector. Alas, service won't happen before our trip on Sunday, so propane will remain off at the tank. Also, fortunately, this isn't a dry camping trip, so we'll have access to electrical for HW and the fridge. We haven't converted our campchef stove to quick connects yet, so we'll be able to cook on that outside with a regular tank connection. We also ordered a Vornado ceramic heater for the chilly mornings we are expecting. Am I missing anything? New camper pains....
  12. Eeek. 2021 Expedition here. Will be checking on this with our dealer tomorrow! thanks!
  13. And the verdict is….no suction. I’ve ordered a replacement pump that will be here on Tuesday. Pretty frustrated right now. I’ll also open a ticket with Oliver in the morning so they know the issue. Wish this had happened on our shakedown nights in TN instead of right before our first real camping adventure. Oh well. This isn’t our first rodeo with sh*t going wrong on brand new campers - I just had higher hopes this time. (I also checked the inlet hose…no obstructions at all).
  14. If it is defective, I’ll likely replace and still file For warranty. Worst case, I have a spare water pump…
  15. Thanks, John. Filling the filter bowl is enough water to prime? That’s only like 10ml. Will try it in the morning. Sad. About to go on our first camping trip next week. Dry camping, as luck would have it. How does a pump fail when it’s been used for fewer than 5 days? mb
  16. We’ve also tried to “prime” the system by running city water through the lines before trying the pump. City water works just fine, but when we switch to the pump….nothing. we’ve also removed the inline filter at the pump, and that was totally clean. the only thing we haven’t tried is removing the pump I let and manually “filling” the pump. Mostly because of the awkward configuration - hard to reach and fill.
  17. Hi there. Searched here and can’t find an answer. just dewinterized Ollie and set about doing a system sanitization after all lines were flushed of antifreeze. Here’s where we’re at: Water tank full, hot water tank bypassed, valves in normal configuration, drain valve closed. When we flip the water pump to on, it runs forever and never pressurized the system to the point where anything will run from any faucet - not even spitting g water/air. Has run for several 3-5 minute periods. Does it just need more time? (We first noticed this when the system would not pull a bleach solution into the fresh water tank while in boondocking mode, so used a hand pump to get that solution in, and then switched to normal mode, hoping that would work better. ) we’ve also attempted putting nose up and nose down to see if that could help dislodge any air in the lines, all to no avail. any suggestions? photo, just because
  18. Nicely done! We'd be interested in a set, too. Have you traveled with them in place, or do you uninstall before hitting the road? mb
  19. Are you retired yet? 😉 JK...sort of! No access to the tools (or skills?) necessary to make ourselves one of these, but it might be the solution we are looking for for working on the road.
  20. My inclination right now is to remove the street side seal since we will only ever use that side for shade. I do want a gutter/seal on curbside, though, so we'll do our best to fix that. And I will save my email from Jason. mb
  21. I submitted a ticket yesterday and Jason's response was to try to reattach with double sided tape. If that failed, they would replace. I supposed that means they would have a local shop replace it? mb
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