Mike and Carol

That’s strange. Our furnace will run for 10-20 minutes or more if it is really cold. Is it on for 2 minutes and off for 2 minutes constantly? Does it ever warm up the living space? I’ll be interested in what Oliver service says. My first guess is a faulty thermostat. Mike

Your frustration is understandable. What are the obvious areas you’ve checked? Have you determined what fluid is leaking? Probably fresh water and not gray? Since it is leaking all the time, have you emptied your fresh tank to rule that out? In Arizona you aren’t getting enough rain to make it leak all the time. Is there any moisture that you can see between the hulls? Have you checked under the dinette seats and under the beds? Does it make any difference if you raise the front of the trailer? If your tanks are empty and it’s not raining I can’t think of what would be causing a leak or what could be leaking. Did your reconnect the black wire to your light? Have you thought about getting a local RV repair shop to look at your issue? You should still be under warranty and Oliver should reimburse any cost. Have you opened a ticket with Oliver service? There is a long time Oliver owner down in Sierra Vista, not far from Benson, that has an RV guy there who has done work on their trailer that might be able to help. If you are interested, let me know and I can PM you their info. Mike

Will the temperatures be below freezing during the day? If not, you can move about without worry. If they are below freezing while traveling you can run your furnace while traveling. If you are camping at campgrounds with electricity, a small space heater is a good investment that will save you propane. We’ve camped with night time temperatures in the twenty’s many times without issues. Mike

I looked through the offerings. Missing is the Coffee Drinkers upgrade with Oliver mugs and the Camping Attire upgrade with Oliver branded shirts and hats. I can think of others, too. Mike

The blower on the furnace is 12V only. It is powered by your batteries. Your solar doesn’t run anything, it just charges your batteries. I don’t know the specifics of the new inverter arrangement Oliver is using. My old Xantrex is only turned on when not on shore power and I want to use a 120V outlet, which is rare. If you have shore power using a space heater will save you propane. Mike

The furnace runs off of 12V (your batteries) not shore power. No reason you couldn’t run both if connected to shore power. It doesn’t matter if you are winterized or not, the furnace is independent. When I run a space heater I am always connected to shore power. Your batteries will drain pretty quick if you run a 120V space heater through your inverter. Mike

Glad it’s going well. There’s a steep learning curve in the beginning. The best way to learn is to use it! Have a great trip home. Mike

Ours is folded up while driving, not down. In fact, it’s been folded up for several years since we don’t really watch TV while camping anymore. I should just remove it. Mike

Our son and family live in Durango. We visited for a week in January two years ago. Night time temperatures in the middle teens. Furnace did fine. We were not winterized and we had no freeze issues. Mike

We’ve always had the manual Fiamma awning. It’s probably not as convenient as an automatic but it has proven to be very reliable. It’s easy to stake down when winds are more than just breezy. The support poles can sit on the ground or in brackets on the side of the trailer. We do have to be careful not to leave it out when we’re not there in case some kind of storm blows in. I also usually roll it in at night unless I’ve very sure the overnight winds won’t be bad. Mike

We prefer to use propane since it works wherever we are. An electric unit only works if you have shore power. We’ve got a Blackstone grill and a Weber Q1000 that we use outside almost all the time unless the weather is really bad… then we use the inside propane cooktop. Mike

We sit outside a lot. Comfortable camp chairs are important, there are a bunch to choose from. It’s mostly personal preference. As far as reclining goes, we recline on our beds quite often. A couple of pillows on the back wall and you’ve got a nice recliner, not laying flat on the bed but sitting leaning against the wall. It’s quite nice. We sit in the dinette but also recline on the beds. Our trips are usually much longer than 1-3 weeks and comfortable sitting hasn’t been an issue. Mike

UPDATE: I opened a ticket with service and was told that the drain pipe is just inserted into the rubber grommet with no adhesive. I asked if there were any issues with my repair (epoxy both the grommet and pipe to the tank) and was told there were no issues that they were aware of. It might be a good periodic check to look under the dinette seat and ensure that the drain pipe is seated tightly into the rubber grommet on top of the gray tank. Or, it looks like you could make a more permanent seal like I ended up doing. I will say that it took about 90,000 miles and just under 7 years for my drain pipe to dislocate itself. Mike

Hey Mike, welcome to the forum. There is a lot of information you can spend time on here. Also, from NW Arkansas you aren’t too far from the factory in Hohenwald. It would be worth a trip there to take a tour and see some trailers there. As you think of questions just make a post and you’ll get lots of answers, experience and opinions! Mike

This was my third deer strike, the first not in our local area. We normally have a half dozen or so deer in our front yard most days. Saw this guy 15 feet from my front door the other day as I was going out to check mail.

We’re fine, the deer not so much. It came out of nowhere and ran into the corner of the bumper on the drivers side. It happened about a half hour before I found the gray water leak. Mike

We spent most of October in the Ozarks and Tennessee. Great trip, except for the last few days! Besides hitting a big deer in rural Louisiana and not being able to use our black tank flush, we also had a significant gray water leak. While stopped at a rest stop just inside Texas to check and fix all the inside chaos after driving I-20 through Shreveport, I noticed a steady trickle of water coming out of the rear bumper. We were parked facing uphill. Further inspection showed water coming out of the area where the black/gray drain pipe exits the trailer. It was pooling on the ground and was easy to see that it was gray. I started inside by checking under the dinette seat near the bathroom. There was standing gray water in the area where the drain pipe exits the back and goes to the gray tank. At that point we decided to cancel the rest of our trip and head straight home. After the deer strike my ability to turn right was cut in half without significant rubbing and I knew that black tank was an issue until I got the part. By the time we got home the area under the dinette seat was dry. I decided to tackle the issue in the morning so we just unloaded and called it a day. The next morning I checked again under the dinette seat, still dry. I checked as far under the shower pan that I could reach, it was dry. I check the gate and the connections there and it was dry. I moved to where the drain pipe enters the gray tank and BINGO, there it was. The drain pipe makes a 90 degree turn down into the tank after the gate. What I saw was the drain pipe half over the entry hole and half on top of the gray tank. So, showers and teeth brushing sent drain water half into the tank and half on top of the tank and then down to the floor. I disconnected the section that included the gate to get a better look at it. There is a rubber ring that fits inside the hole on top of the tank. The end of the drain pipe is somewhat tapered and it looks like it is meant to be held in place by friction - just jam the pipe into the rubber ring and call it a day. I cleaned the area on top of the tank, the rubber ring and the drain pipe end then mixed some epoxy and…, well it won’t be popping out anymore. I neglected to take pictures, I was still on my first cup of coffee and was intent on getting it fixed. I took one after I was done. So, my truck is in the body shop - should be done next week, the black tank flush is fixed and the gray water drain pipe is fixed. Ready for a January trip to Arizona! I’m going to open a service ticket to see how that drain pipe is supposed to be connected to the gray tank. Here is the drain pipe epoxied to the rubber ring which is epoxied to the top of the gray tank.

We didn’t go to Mesa Falls when we were at Henry’s Lake, mostly just Yellowstone. Driving through Idaho we were impressed with the scenery and landscape and plan on returning. Mike

Gray water already goes directly to the gray tank from the sink and shower drains. Not sure I understand this. Fresh and Gray tank capacity are good for an Oliver sized trailer. Black capacity is the limiting factor for boondocking. A 20-30 gallon black tank would be better! Mike

I would add Gros Ventre campground in Grand Teton NP. Also, a good place to camp while visiting Yellowstone is Henry’s Lake State Park just across the border in Idaho. It’s about a 20 minute drive to Yellowstone from the campground. Mike

Congrats and see you at the rally! Mike

Great pics! Looks like it was a great trip.

When I looked at both valves when I disassembled them, they both looked very similar. I assumed they were both check valves. It makes sense that the one that screws into the tank is a spray. Mike

Good question. Also, why do I have two check valves, one connected to the other? I thought about just eliminating the bad one (gray in the picture) and just going straight to the one that screws into the tank (white one).

Just to close this out…. I ordered a replacement Thetford valve from Amazon, $8. It’s one in the picture in John’s post above. There are actually two valves, one inside the tank (white) which comes out when unscrewed and the gray one which is the one that went bad. I put on new thread tape and reinstalled and we’re back in business. The replacement is a little shorter than the original, but fit with no problem. I’ve seen some pictures of what is in other trailers and they are not all the same. Here’s the assembly and the new part. The white part on the right is the second valve that screws into the tank. The new black valve replaced the old gray. Here it is back in place.