Mike and Carol

The switch on the hot water tank does fail. I’ve replaced mine twice and I carry an extra in my spare parts bin. Great idea to use the circuit breaker and avoid the switch. Mine is now always on because I don’t plug into electricity when I store unless it’s going to be below freezing more than a couple of days. When that happens I want the hot water on anyway to provide a little extra heat. (When I had AGMs I did plug in while in storage to keep the batteries charged. With lithiums I just turn them off.) My 30 lb propane tanks last for weeks while we are on the road. I’ve had one run dry a few times, I just switch to the other and fill once we get home if it isn’t more that a couple of weeks. I think the furnace may be the biggest draw but we only use it when dry camping. I understand gas mileage improvements, but I don’t think the trouble of draining the fresh tank is worth the effort. We’ve decided on campsites while on the road and a good number of those have been no hook ups, so having a full or near full fresh tank gives a lot of flexibility. I insulated my basement door. My unscientific view is that if it is 25 degrees outside and 70 degrees inside the surface areas that are at 70 degrees are going to counter the surface areas that are at 25 degrees keeping the stuff in there above 32 degrees. I haven’t installed any thermostats yet (I should and probably will, now) but we haven’t had any freeze issues while on the road even down into the teens. Good luck!! Mike

Sorry to hear about the issues on your first voyage! We have a different refrigerator, but a gap that lets in cold air does not sound right. A propane tank, 20 or 30 lb should last longer than a couple of days even running what you were running. Question: if you have electric hookups why don’t you use electricity for your hot water and heat? A small space heater that runs quietly is much less annoying that the furnace cycling on and off. I leave the switch on the hot water tank in the on position when we travel so that when hooked up to electric it is always on and we always have hot water. Propane is only used for dry camping. Yes, it takes almost forever to drain the freshwater tank. That’s why I rarely do it. Question: If you are traveling why are you draining your fresh water? I try to travel with it full. I would hate to get caught in a dry camping situation with an empty fresh tank. We’ve been camping in below freezing weather at night this month so we have been using our fresh tank for water. Here at Zion there is no water hook ups at sites. I top off the fresh tank when I can so it remains as full as possible. I’ve never winterized. We regularly camp when the low gets into the 20s and a few times in the teens. When at home in storage I keep a space heater on during cold spells. I would have service check you propane system. You shouldn’t be getting an alarm like that with everything so new. Smoke detectors can be finicky. I replaced ours last year and it went off in the middle of the night last week. We hit reset and it didn’t come back on. Weird. We sleep with the vents open unless it is super cold and then with just the bath vent open. Mike

What kind of camping do you like to do? FHU? No hook ups? National and State Parks? You will get lots of advice on this forum! Alaska is on our list, we’ve done all but 5 of the lower 48. We lived in Hawaii for years so… Welcome to the group. Escape makes a nice trailer. Mike

We’ve been below freezing almost every night the last couple of weeks. No issues except when I left the water hose connected and woke up to 29 degrees and a frozen hose! 😳. We’ve been using the fresh tank ever since. Mid 50s today at Zion NP, low last night was 33. Enjoy your trip to SC. Mike

Glad to see another one roll out of Hohenwald. Congrats! There’s warmer weather all around. It’s been nice in AZ the last few weeks and now southern UT is not bad either.

Winter camping at Zion National Park. No crowds. It was about 60 degrees this afternoon, short sleeves in the sun. Scenery is spectacular. We’re at Watchman campground.

6 Olivers a week ago in Catalina State Park just north of Tucson. Met some new Oliver friends!

I went with Battle Born because they are assembled in the US, they have great customer service and I know several others that went with them and were satisfied customers. Mike

I used a local graphic designer and a local print shop. It sounds like Banana Banners does good work. Mike

I got the box on Amazon 4 or 5 years ago. It was about $100. It holds my chocks and blocks, gloves and locks. Not much overhang. If you do a search on aluminum box there’s a thread in there about the installation.

Sunrise at Dead Horse Ranch State Park just south of Sedona in the town of Cottonwood. Just 20 minutes from Sedona. This is Red Rock State Park a few miles north of Dead Horse Ranch State Park. No camping here but some nice hiking. We hiked to the top of the “hill” behind me for some great views. Dead Horse Ranch State Park.

Ours has looked like that for a while. I keep meaning to fix it…..

Don’t winterize. Pick up your trailer and camp in it as planned. You’ll be fine. We’ve been out a couple of weeks, it’s been below freezing almost every night. We just make sure our water hose is not attached when we go to bed. We’ll be in Zion National Park tomorrow for a week or so, night time temps will below freezing the whole time, 40s and low 50s daytime. Mike (Our first night in Catalina State Park, AZ the forecast said a low of 34. I left our water connected. Woke up to 29. Our hose was frozen solid! I didn’t move it and it thawed out by noon. Thankfully, no damage. Left the hose off the rest of the week and used the water tank. We did that last week at Dead Horse Ranch State Park, too)

Maybe Coy @hardrock will give us an update.

Pete’s Tacoma was the same model that I had and it had a towing capacity of 6,500 and a 650 lb tongue weight.

Our logo has been on for almost 6 years. There’s a small spot at the top where it separated, maybe 1/8”, it’s hard to see unless you’re on a ladder looking. I installed it at our first campsite, after pick up in Hohenwald, at Land Between the Lakes. I had a local graphic designer draw it up based on what we wanted (Texas star, compass points and Oliver winding road, in red and gray). A local print shop printed it on some kind of 3M material. I actually have two of the big ones (23.5” diameter) and 6 smaller 5” diameter.

Do a search for aluminum box. Maybe this will help? https://olivertraveltrailers.com/forums/topic/3292-aluminum-tongue-tool-box/#comment-32114 Mike

I’ve never jackknifed either. We’ve had a couple of tight spots but maneuvered without any extreme trailer positioning.

Looks like you’re in the right spot for a spectacular sunset!

If you have any flexibility even AZ state parks will have some availability on short notice this time of year. If you aren’t flexible then you need to start making reservations about 12 months out!!

On both of my Ram 1500’s the lowered tailgate hit the top of the Andersen hitch. On my Ram 2500, with no Andersen, the tailgate doesn’t even come close to hitting the hitch. Mike

You can use your Blue Sky display to see what you’ve got going out and coming in. A low winter sun combined with a cloudy or rainy sky will limit your solar panels. We had to pull out the generator when camped at Grand Teton and Glacier National Parks a few years ago. Low sun angle and clouds prevented the solar from fully charging our batteries during the day. Your Blue Sky display should tell you what kind of phantom draw you have. Steve’s estimate of .4aH is a little lower than ours. If I turn everything off I still get .6 to .7aH draw. We store under cover so now I just turn the batteries off with a battery cut off switch that I installed. Mike

Here’s my feeble attempt, windsocks not flags.

The Outlaw Oliver has a nice flag pole setup. @ScubaRx

Sunset tonight at Catalina State Park!