routlaw

Wow! And I thought being self employed had its issues. Can't imagine how you would deal with that scenario.

I agree working with the local office has been far better for us dealing with my wife's alzheimer's sister. It was very easy to get a call through, leave a message and they return the call. Apparently, or at least in this neck of the woods SSA office no longer takes in person visits any longer and haven't for quite a few years. It's also true their workforce has been substantially reduced. I would also recommend going back to the source of your wife's work place which is where this problems originates not the SSA per se. It's ludicrous they do not have a record of her working there for 20 years. Get a lawyer then I'll bet they will come up with her work records in short order. Sorry you're having to go through this, what PITA.

Dave I remember seeing that photo in the past. For me the pipe cleaners do next to nothing unless I go out and manually pump them back and forth which will remove quite a bit of water from the weep holes. On one window I have enlarged the weep holes, curb side rear, and that window seems to consistently have much less water in the channels and doesn't tend to leak either. I have never heard of paracord though, what the heck is that? Will have to look into this. Thanks

We've had rain off and on since last night and a sizable downpour mid morning, so with new weather stripping gaskets installed on the windows thought it would be a good time to see how well they have performed. Initially no leaks a good thing given the amount of rain. Brought out my portable wet/dry vac and vacuumed all the weep holes and ended up with around 6 oz of water collected from the windows. IOW's the new gaskets did little to nothing to stop infiltration. Photo posted below to illustrate the amount of water collected. Water was poured into a measuring cup to verify amount. Until this point there were no leaks inside the trailer, but it kept raining. This afternoon I checked again and sure enough a small leak had started to occur on the street side rear window. Not enough to be a major issue yet but the fitted sheet had a wet spot about 3-4 inches in diameter. Weep holes were not emitting or leaking water which was no surprise. The tracks have been cleaned twice in the last month alone. The upside down weep holes at the top of the frames have been plugged all to no avail. The new installed gutters do avert water running down the side of the trailer but offer no benefit from rain hitting the windows directly. I can't imagine living down south where torrential downpours are normal and putting up with this. I'm at a loss for how to deal with this going forward. Thanks

I had thought about buying one of these as well, now I'm not so sure. Seems like another unreliable RV headache in its current iteration.

We have spent a good deal of time on the opposite side at Green River Lake area which is amazing to say the least. Rough ride to get the Oliver in but we have done it twice now. Lander has been on our short list too but have only driven by that part and its been quite a few years now. The Winds are fantastic.

Welcome @carpenter! While I do like to mountain bike and road bike as well, hike etc and live reasonably close to you in MT. We are up here in Bozeman so feel free to stop in for a visit, just understand I doubt I could keep up with you mountain bike at my ripe old age. Just did a 14 mile ride yesterday and my 4 month old new replacement knee is feeling it today. LOL. Good luck with your adventures.

I wouldn't do it as others have stated. You will wear out that Lexus out in no time not to mention the safety factor or lack of it. You also might be surprised at just how luxurious and nice to drive new trucks are these days.

Nice job! Great work!

Well it might indeed but given the smaller size of the Fogatti I would venture to guess it would fit. If you can fit a Suburban it should be a piece of cake for the Fogatti. The interesting and neat thing about the Fogatti is you select your temp, what ever you're comfortable with for showers or dishes and do NOT mix with cold water, using the hot only. Its very easy to go from one temp to another with the remote control. Also @Mike and Carol do make a good point regarding reliability in the boonies.

@Olive2Roam No experience with the Aqua Go but as John stated about a month or so ago I did install the Fogatti WH. In short it works great, very quiet and has an awesome control system via a wired remote. It is much smaller, and much lighter than the older Suburban WH (empty) and you are not carrying around another 50 lbs of water while traveling albeit chump change in weight compared to everything else. Understand other than using it to make sure everything works I haven't been out on a trip this year at all due to knee replacement surgery 4 months ago yesterday so at this point cannot absolutely speak to its in field use and efficiency. It heats up fairly quick but not instant due to the cold water in the lines so we plan on having a container close by to fill with unheated water that will be pumped back into the fresh water tank later given the somewhat smallish Oliver holding tanks. Not that big of a deal really. We never used the Suburban in AC mode, only propane. FWIW I am not a big fan of Suburban products but especially their furnaces like the one installed on the Oliver. As John pointed out Truma is out of the question for a litany of reasons. It is worth noting we never had issues with our Suburban WH other than cleaning and anode rods but have had multiple issues over the years with the furnace and it is loud. I would install the Fogatti furnace in heart beat if there was room in the basement of the Oliver but the shape and size of the Fogatti furnace just doesn't fit unfortunately. It's also important to note DIY people can work on and repair the Fogatti appliances if the need arrives. The Fogatti WH is NOT an easy install however, or rather replacement with the Suburban. How that differs compared to what you already have I don't know. One thing for sure is the Fogatti is light years ahead of Suburban technologically speaking, Design, fit and finish is on another level as well. Suburban products look like relics out of post WWII era by comparison. Hope this doesn't offend anyone. LMK if you have questions about the Fogatti. Oh and they do go on sale from time to time and would expect a 4th of July sale or at least Memorial Day sale if not Dads day sale.

The screen grab below illustrates the window I was referring to, however once they become this wide there is a vertical split cut in half with two operating windows. Looks at 3000 FVD

@rideandfly I was looking at a different model that allowed a larger size but I see your point. I totally agree about frameless canopy windows and would much prefer those. One of the complaints about these 300 series from Lippert is they only open about 3 inches from the bottom but have seen videos where people made modifications which allow about 4-6 inches of total venting. I still prefer the windows we had on our T@b. That style of window seems to have evolved and now made by a few different manufacturers but non of them are made wide enough to fit the Oliver existing window rough openings. The largest I have seen has been approximately 36-39 inches albeit in metric values.

Perhaps I am reading the chart incorrectly but it appears you could order a 48x20 as the smallest vertical dimension. It probably wouldn't be too difficult to cut an inch on the top and bottom away from existing cabin to accommodate the slightly larger vertical size.

It does appear they have made changes to these over the years and perhaps even more than what is readily apparent with the upside weep holes with black plugs that don't work for squat anyway. Have also looked for replacement 8800 series but they appear to be unobtanium anymore or at least in the size we need and I certainly would not want black frames. No way would I cough up $987 a piece for this flawed design, $230 maybe. The 300 FV series looks much more promising as replacements IMHO. Regarding the 8800 series, anyone can take a garden hose to mimic even a light shower if they have the correct hose nozzle by shooting the water up gently toward the top of the camper allowing the water drain down with some water hitting the windows directly. One can actually watch the water flowing into the weep holes due to the 8º upward tilt. Or you can wait till the next shower put your raincoat on and do the same in real time with the same results as I have. The only way to fix this would be create a miniature awning or flashing over the weep holes though I am not sure how practical this would be, but it might solve the issue… sort of. Amazed you can hit them with a pressure washer, not something I would ever attempt in their current state.

I might just take the thing completely off. Watched a couple of videos earlier illustrating how to change the fabric, doesn't look to be a big deal other than the height we have to work at. Might be easier to do this at a lower height as the video shows.

Good grief, after washing and cleaning up the Fiamma this morning, now I can't get the thing to retract properly at all. Both ends are stuck partially open. Can't get in touch with customer support at the company either, messages do not go through.

Update on Lippert 8800 series repairs due to leaking. The new glazing beads from Steele Rubber products arrived late on Tuesday and I went to work on the first one right away. It became obvious right off the bat the application of silicone spray or equivalent lubricant would be needed due to the new rubber having lots of friction. Once siliconed the seals went in easily yet provided actual connection to the sliding window. The window does not slide as easily indicating good connection thus less water intrusion. Thats the good news. The not so good news is the windows channels still take on water but this is due to the weep holes facing 8º tilt upwards toward the sky due to the Oliver body shape. While installing the new weather stripping seals I also took the time to plug the channel where the fixed window is screwed into that channel preventing water from infiltrating this area. Using rope caulk I jammed both the top and bottom area of this potential place for water intrusion. I also discovered the small black plugs installed into the weep holes at the top of the frames DO NOT prevent water from entering into the top of the window and then flowing down through the vertical channels carrying dirt debris mud etc. The top part of those channels on all of our windows were very dirty and stained. Removed all four from one window and found them to be completely encrusted with dirt and debris. Rather than re-install I decided to caulk those 4 slits and will also do this to the remaining other two windows. I had hoped to completely eliminate any water intrusion but early efforts at re-designing weather stripping were an abysmal failure. Effectively the new glazing bead weather stripping will help but certainly not fix the issue entirely. With this in mind what I will do going forward is carry and smallish portable wet/dry vacuum along and clean out the weep holes using wet vacuum mode. I have tried this numerous times now and it works quite well. Just this morning after washing our awning which allowed some water to flow down the Oliver side and window and into the weeps holes I was able to vacuum some 2-3 oz of water from the curb side window. Struck me as quite a bit of water given that the window only got wet indirectly. But for now its a fix for a flawed design.

Well crap wouldn't you know my earlier unit does not have those adjustments to make. However I did discover two wasp nest buried in the awning compartment and one loose bolt on the mechanism. In fact it was almost all the way out. Doubt this has anything to do with adjustment fore and aft for retrieving the awning into its compartment.

Thanks @rideadeuce will give that a try today.

Hopefully you have better luck with your Fiamma than we have had with ours. Within a couple of years the rear part of our Fiamma would not completely shut or close and thus we tend to use strap on the rear of the unit to keep it closed. Nice looking installation on yours! Really good job.

I ordered 25 ft from Rec Pro which is more than needed for the windows but wanted extra in case I goofed up a length or two and thought I might be adding some to other areas which I have not done yet. I cut each length to 56 inches which provides just enough overhang past the window frame. Hopefully adding caulk both above and below the gutter and especially at the ends might help the product to last longer too. On a recent rainy night I noticed water spots on the underside of the gutter indicating the benefit of caulking below as well as above. The real test will come this winter though with the extreme temperature variations we receive here in SW Montana. This method of slightly bending the gutter away from the windows seems to be working very well from my observations so far. Should be receiving new glazing beads from Steele Rubber today and will report back on those once installed. Good luck with your re-install.

Yeah I hear you on that. Likewise have also been fairly diligent about cleaning the windows as well. Doesn't matter this is a very flawed design and made somewhat worse by the fact the channels lean in the wrong direction for proper drainage. By that I mean the side of the Oliver rest at about 5-10º in the opposite direction (inward) that would allow the water to flow out of the weep holes adequately effectively backing up and filling both channels of the sliding window. With that in mind I have drilled larger weep holes in one experimental window. Two holes per weeping slit on either side. Also looking into a way of eliminating the natural water adhesion which prevents easy water flow from the channels. Pipe cleaners have not worked at all. Just this past week we ran into the same issue, new twin beds installed and no sooner than that and we received several days of rain. Mattresses and all were very wet, had to remove the entire enchilada to dry and mop up and this was after having cleaned the windows out thoroughly the day before. Because of this I am now in the process of re-engineering a better prevention system that hopefully will mitigate water intrusion to begin with. If this effort fails we will be buying other windows to install. Is it any wonder so many stick built trailers have rot issues? Its not because stick building is so inherently bad, after all most houses are made with sticks but the windows installed on the vast majority of these trailers are designed to absolutely allow water to flow into the trailers. Previously I ad considered installing window awnings on the Oliver but didn't like the idea of drilling holes into the outer shell and didn't particularly care for most of the fabrics offered with what products I found.

black

I gave up years ago. Probably too much glue/adhesive oozing out from underneath the flooring allowing dirt and debris to become embedded. You might try some chemical or petroleum based products which might be effective, just don't over do it.