Bill and Nancy

That sound very plausible. my original thought was that the temperate was being taken from the control unit within the ac on the ceiling. But after thinking about it I tested it by putting a blow drier directed at the thermostat and it shut the heat off proving my original assumption wrong. I think you may be on to something with a draft through the wall. But so far my solution is working perfectly so unless something changes I will leave it the way it is. I actually like it better because the thermostat that I installed shows the inside temp and the heat setting simultaneously unlike the Dometic thermostat. The remote unit you installed sounds like a good idea, I may switch to that at a later date. If I get to use my trailer like I hope and money allows I most likely will change out the AC at some point for a quieter one. Bill

No I’ve been playing email tag with Oliver for months. They said that they got approval from Dometic to send me a new thermostat but is back ordered. I haven’t gotten an update in weeks. No I never got a schematic either but there are two wires that come out of the furnace and they are labeled thermostat. It was pretty straight forward. In my drawing what I labeled thermostat is the new thermostat I mounted on the wall. It was -13 degrees this past weekend and the way I have it wired works perfectly no cycling on and off. My wife spent a better part of today in the trailer and she said the heat worked perfectly. Feel free to email me if you have any questions bill

It would seem to me if the battery is capable of being charged 100% by solar which I believe they are then they should eligible for the tax credit. If I boon dock for a year and never connect to shore power seems to me Im running 100% on solar. Just because you can charge them by plugging them in doesn't mean I ever will. What if I plug them into an external solar array it seems to be a gray area

Thanks for the information

I totally agree if we were out months at a time the cost would probably be a deal breaker, but for us it is the perfect solution. I figured it works well for us maybe others would like it also. Bill

When we Bought our trailer if I’m not mistaken the composting toilet was over $1,300.00 the laveo is $845.00 and they are having a sale for $745.00 free freight if you buy it while they are at the RV show. I Just bought one for a friend today Bill

So this is what happened to us. When we were in the Oliver camp ground I put on the tire sensors. We took the trailer for a short test ride of a few miles and came back to the camp ground. I figured out that I had put the wrong sensors on two of the tires so when we got back I took one sensor off and it was fine. Took the other one off and it was leaking so I quickly screwed it back on and I figured I would deal with it when we got home. That afternoon I stopped by an auto part store and pick up some new stem cores. That night I decided to change the valve stem and I couldn’t get the stem out it was stuck and in the process I lost all the air. So I got out my handy dandy air compressor and to my surprise It had the wrong connection for the 12volt and I couldn’t plug it in. So I put the spare tire on and drove 10 days no problem until we got home. I then took the tire to a garage and said I’ve never had a valve stem get stuck, first words out of his mouth do you have balancing beads. He then explained what I told you and he said it is a common problem.I called Oliver and mike said that they used to put balancing beads in the tires but they no longer do it. Guess what we had beads in our tires. So with some struggling we got the core out and replaced it with a new one and all is good for now. But when I get some free time I think I will either take the beads out and balance it with weights or pay the money for internal sensors . I think I will just balance them with weights and move on. hope this helps Bill

It cost us about $1.50 a flush so $3.00 a day. It’s kind of a moot point seeing how I’m pulling a $80,000 trailer with a $60,000 truck. Also like I mentioned earlier we usually only get out about a week at a time with day trips in between it works perfect for us. The other thing is we almost never go to a camp ground so black water is a big issue. Its not for everyone but for us it’s perfect. Bill

No because when you screw tire sensor onto the valve stem it opens the valve core and it remains open. Then the balancing beads get stuck and jamb it open. Things will be fine until you remove the sensor to add air and it starts to leak and you can't stop it. If you move the trailer so that the stem is at the top of the tire and then add air it will usually blow the beads out and it will stop leaking. The only way I know to resolve this is to either remove the beads or buy internal tire pressure sensors and have them installed by a tire garage. I had exactly the same problem Bill

I just wanted to mention that we have a Laveo dry flush toilet and we love it. I haven't seen anyone mention it on the forum before so I thought I would mention it. It may not be for everyone but if you dont want to deal with black water or the pee bottle of a composting toilet this may be your ticket. If you Boon dock as we do it makes life so much easier. Work prevents us from traveling a whole lot and we can only get out for 1 or 2 weeks at a time and then back to work so its a perfect solution for us. We often only get out for a day or 2 at a time so the convenience of this toilet makes shot trips so much easier. If you use it for a few days then park the trailer you dont have to do anything, just walk away. Its odor less and takes about 2 minutes to change a cartridge. You can get about 14 flushes out of a cartridge so we usually flush it 2 times a day and we go a whole week, we have gone 10 days but that was pushing it. Another interesting feature is you can remove the whole thing with one wing nut and bring it in. So if you need a portable toilet for some crazy reason and your not using your trailer just pop it out and take it with you and its 1/2 the price of a Natures head. Its not for everyone but it is perfect for us, we think its the Cats Meow! Check out the link and watch the video its interesting to watch. And its made right here in the USA Check it out Bill https://dry-flush.com/

Yup we had the same problem it is caused by the balancing beads in the tires. The tire minder causes the valve stem to remain open and the balancing beads get stuck and jams open the stem. If you have a good compressor move the trailer so the valve stem is on the top and put some air in the tire this should clear the stem of beads. we had the same problem and had to change a tire on the way home from picking the trailer up from Oliver. Once home I brought the tire to a tire shop and the guy knew right away what to do and fixed it. We will probably remove the beads and balance the tires the traditional way. Bill

I plan to do something like you suggest I was just trying it out to see what effect it would have before I got carried away. If and when I change out the duct I may also put the splitter in the line feeding the two vents under the bed rather than the duct that feeds the bathroom. Providing a straight shot to the bathroom, I think that will also improve the overall air flow. I’m also thinking of putting a butterfly vent in the upper left corner of the bathroom door like mainiac did not so much for heating but to improve ventilation when using the shower, I like his idea. We tend to camp in colder weather and opening the window when using the shower tends to get rather chilly when it’s below freezing out side. Bill

I would have never thought of putting it there. I would think it would be low to get the cold off the floor rather than the heat off the ceiling. But I also think its a tiny trailer and it doesn't make much difference its not like we are trying to efficiently heat and cool a 4,000 square feet house. The only reason I did what I did is it took me literally 10 minutes and I was curious to see if it would make a difference. I like the vent it looks like art, Nice Job Bill

Yes my original plan was to do that. But I wanted to see if it would even make a difference before I went through the extra effort . This took me about 10 minutes to swap the piping around to try it and it worked better than anticipated. Next step will be to clean things up a bit and most likely run rigid pipe where possible. Bill

I switched the supply lines around. The red line is now connected to the defuser under the bed from the right side of the furnace. It is a very short line about 3 feet in length from the furnace directly to the defuser. I disconnected it from the left side of the furnace and re connected it to the right side of the furnace. Then I shortened the other blue line by almost 2 1/2 feet and connected it to the left side of the furnace so that runs to the bathroom. The red line makes a tight 180 degree turn more than I would have liked but that’s the amount of line that I had and it may provide a little resistance to the air flow which is a good thing. I’m amazed at the difference it made in the bath room. Its hard to calculate the difference but It’s at least 3 time as much heat coming out of the bathroom defuser than before. And the other two defusers seem to be putting out just as much air. See video. Bill IMG_0165.MOV

Thanks for the info I have a new I phone and every-so often I would see the sos feature pop up on the screen. I asked my wife what it was and she had no idea and said that it doesn't do it on her phone. Thanks for the answer and the video link. Hopefully we will never use it. Bill and Nancy

We have reviewed this program but defer to the information that @Rivernerdprovided. We have been in retail far to long and had to defend ourselves against a franchise in the past. This language is all too familiar. We wouldn’t move forward until the language is changed. If it is changed we would look forward to showing our Ollie and would be happy to be part of the program.

Ok I did some more test to confirm my beliefs based on comments from bhncb and jpk323. To be honest I’m kind of surprised with what I’ve found. Bhncb believes there is not a remote heat sensor in the AC unit. Jpk323 said he had a phone call with an independent RV repair person and he believes it’s the control box in the AC unit. If it turns out to be either the Dometic thermostat on the wall or the control box in the AC my solution does not fix the problem it just circumvents it. So today I ran the heat connected exactly like it was wired from Oliver and then warmed the Dometic thermostat with a blow drier. To my surprise the furnace shut shut off. So this would lead me to believe it is either a faulty thermostat or the control unit in the AC . Oliver said they will send me a new thermostat and to try it. If it fixes the problem then that’s that. if it doesn’t then it must be the control box in the AC. In any case if it turns out to be the control box I don’t think I will replace it unless the AC is also messed up because of it. The heat works great the way I have wired with no cycling or clicking in the AC. It’s never easy Bill

Jack we live in new england and We don’t like the heat either. As a matter of fact we are heading out to go skiing in a few minutes. We had planed to use the trailer while skiing so heat is a must. But on the flip side like I said we live in NE so when the temperature gets above 70 the ac is on high. The way I have it hooked up now you just flip the switch and you are back to the way it came wired from Oliver and your heat and AC works just like it did before the modification. If you or any one else wants to talk or needs better pictures just shoot me an email. Got to go skiing and have a scotch at the mountain Bill and Nancy

I believe the problem will still happen because the temperature sensor is in the AC unit on the ceiling. On a cold day the furnace flame would light then when the temperature was reached inside the trailer according to the temperature bulb in the AC unit the flame would go out. But before the cool down cycle would even finish and before the fan shut off the flame would re light because the temperature bulb in the unit is against the cold roof. The heat rises up to the AC unit causing the flame to go off It then cools enough in about 45 seconds to re-light the furnace. This went on for about 2 hours until we just decided to shut the heat off so we could sleep. The next morning it was 45 Degrees in the trailer and 22 degrees outside. We tried camping 3 other times with the same problem making the trailer almost useless to us. With the fix It no longer does this, it works like expected. As far as running the AC for circulation its not necessary, plus its very noisy. We just run the fantastic fan with the cover closed like a ceiling fan and its quiet and does the job. Im sure there are other ways to deal with this problem but this has seemed to fix the problem and it was cheap and easy. Another plus for us is we may switch to a different ac unit that is quieter and it will be completely independent of the heat. Bill

I decided to fix it my self because I dont trust a lot of the service people. Everyone I spoke to were hours away and i would have to take time off from work, and Im sure it would have been more than one trip. On top of that no one I spoke to would fix it under warrantee they would bill me then I would have to submit the bill to Oliver to try and get compensated. Jason from Oliver got me approved to send me a new thermostat for free but I dont believe it is the problem.When I finally decided to fix the problem my self it only took me a couple of hours to complete. I spent about $50.00 and It not only is working perfectly but I dont have to shut off the heat in order to see what the temperature is. The thermostat from Demetic that was installed by Oliver still controls the AC but the heat its controlled by a separate thermostat that I mounted above the passenger side bed. Its been in the 20's all week and its working perfectly. I also think that its using less propane because its not going on and off like it was before. Bill

I’m back and I think I resolved my issue I had to wait until after the new year so I had some free time. After many phone calls and web searching I decided to try what I read on some other RV forums. This is not an uncommon problem and it drives not only me crazy but a lot of other people in the RV word. From what I can deduce the actual temperature sensor lives in the AC unit on the ceiling not in the thermostat mounted on the wall. This poses a problem because heat rises into the unit then it cools fast because it is against the roof and not on an interior wall. so I isolated the thermostat wires coming from the furnace and with the use of a DPDT switch I isolated the furnace from the AC altogether. Now the heat in the trailer is controlled from the battery operated thermostat independent from the AC. If I put the switch up I have heat controlled by the remote battery operated thermostat and no more cycling on and off. If I want AC I switch the switch down and now the AC works exactly the way it was wired originally using the Dometic thermostat installed by Oliver. So far it seems to have fixed the problem completely. Now that the cycling has stopped I plan to add a return air vent under the front Dinette along the floor. That should help with the return air flow by taking the return air directly from the floor up front away from the supply air. Sent from my iPad