Cort

Propane checked out fine - as expected. We went to RV Henderson - a smaller place - and had a good experience. The guy said the regulator was working fine but thought it might have failed in the cold - something about the diaphragm getting too stiff I think. Apparently regulators are not that difficult to replace if it goes.

For sure the more options the better - It's pretty darn cold right now in the southwest. We are on the way to this one - 3000W Inverter and lithium's to run the Heat Pump or other options. and maybe this one - generator Thanks

Ha! Good to know - thanks!

Beautiful = It's on our list 🙂

Thanks for that - we are replacing that. 🙂

" Simple solution is to turn off all propane users, disconnect the tank hoses. Reconnect, and crack just a bit your tank valve and light off one stove burner. it will purge any air and you can ignite the burner. Let it burn for a few seconds and then fire off the refer and furnace and hot water heater." Great idea! Thanks :). I wonder if we did something like you suggested to tweak it. We were without any heat with some propane left in one bottle (the other was as bone dry as propane canisters get) but maybe the levels were too low at that temperature to get the system going. I was getting frost on some things. Another learning experience! 🙂

We did keep the arrow level pointed to one tank or the other. This is what it looks like right now. The tank on the right is the full one.

Got it - thanks 🙂

Thanks - it was in the 40's at night. The question about the regulator is that it showed that the tank was empty when it wasn't. Right now the regulator shows that full tank is only partially full and it looks about as full as the partially full tank even though that tank is a lot lighter. Thanks for the Mopeka idea. I put the information (year of trailer, type) in my profile...Is there another place it should be?

A couple of days ago I heard a ringing sound coming from the tanks at night when the heater would kick in. I switched to the other tank and the sound disappeared but the night after that the heat failed. I checked out the regulator and it showed all red - both tanks empty. I thought there might have been a strange smell in the trailer. We drove quite a ways to get the tanks filled. I filled up one but noticed the other one was quite a bit heavier than the empty tank and did not refill it. I turned on the furnace for a brief period (we were on the road) but this time it really stunk and we didn't sleep in the trailer. We tried turning on the furnace the next day and we both could smell something. Oliver advised us to get the trailer tested at an RV shop and we will on Monday. In the meantime, I got a little gas detector, washed the smell out, turned on the furnace and everything was normal!? Was it just low propane levels combined with the gauges perhaps left open? Should the system have worked with one completely empty tank and one tank that was probably a third to a quarter full? Are there better regulators out there? Is something else going on?

I checked them with a volt meter and found 3 at 13 something and one that was dead.

It is isn't it! Thanks 🙂

Thanks to everyone for their help and I apologize for the misleading terminal covers! I took the new and really dead battery to Batteries Plus for testing. Their testing showed it was low enough that they assumed it was a broken battery. They were able to get it to hold a charge but said the numbers were jumping around a lot which they thought was strange. I was able to return the battery at Camper World and then went to West Valley RV and bought 4 Interstate batteries for about $150 less than I would have paid for the Camper World batteries. Since then everything has been fine. 🙂 What a strange thing that putting that one battery in caused such bizarrely high readings - at least when hooked up. (When I took the batteries off the circuit the new one read dead and the others read 4 something. ) We're camping a couple of hours west of Phoenix now - thanks again for all your help 🙂

Thanks! The questions made me look at battery placement more carefully and helped me get them in correctly. The batteries - Interstate - are in and charging. So far so good! 🙂

Hmm Oliver says the configuration is correct. The wires will only fit that way. If you look at the two batteries at the bottom the posts are on top (to the center) and the cells are on the bottom (to the left). The next row over the batteries are facing the other way. It's like the two rows of batteries have their backs to each other. ?