Galileo

I think you’ve got a handle on that. We generally don’t go more than 4 hours between camping stops.Its just our model. We don’t get fatigued or arrive after dark. So though we -have- had to stop for a toilet break once in a while - we try for highway rest stops - or the good old gas stations. To save weight, we don’t tanker water or waste around in any tanks. We always dump tanks before leaving a campground. That, and we use the facilities at the campground for everything except midnight trips. That said, there’s generally a gallon or two sloshing around in the FWT to flush the toilet if need be. If there’s not, urine still goes down. I think we’ve only put “solids” into the holding tank once or twice in three years. Never any paper. With an R/O system with a tank, there’s always a tankful available for a drink of water or to make coffee or tea even between city water hookups. The few times we camp without a city water hookup, I put a few gallons in the FWT before setting up. Haven’t been to a campground yet that doesn’t have a potable water tap. We're not -really- “full time”. We do crash every couple of months with friends and relatives. That, and we store away our camper for 3-4 months a year for European travel and spending Christmas with family. I don’t especially enjoy spending the $20 or $30 for the pink anti-freeze, but it’s cheaper than buying a pump, accumulator, or valves. Certainly less work than finding split pipes and fixing them. My dad used to “blow out” the lines on the old ‘73 mini motorhome - but it had a LOT simpler water system. I guess you’d need to make sure your air pressure stays below 50psi to avoid blowing out a line or damaging something. You just reminded me of one MORE line I neglected to winterize. Then again, if I’m sucking antifreeze in through the boondocking port, I did it without realizing it. 😋

Will prolly just set it up so that it tees into the “city water” line with a shut/off so the whole she/bang can be pulled out and taken indoors. If one doesn’t look at ALL the information on winterizing, they wouldn’t know about flushing the city water and fresh water tank fill lines, nor the San-T-flush lines. I hadn’t been doing that. -Luckily- where our camper lives during the winter rately freezes. Like I said - lucky.

One of our cats - “Mascot” didn’t appreciate being left inside while my wife and I cooked and sat by the campfire outside. He launched himself at the screen door and managed to unlatch it. His momentum carried him out onto the ground. He looked around, freaked, and then took off into the woods. Lake Vermilion Underground SP - Northers Minnesota. After two hours of me crashing through the underbrush - being able to SEE him but not get a hand on him, we had to face the fact that we weren’t getting him back - and had to leave in the morning to leave the state. Just on a whim, I left the tailgate open on the truck. I didn’t really think that he’d go in there. Luckily, at some point he calmed down and realized he was in the great outdoors without his food bowl. Early the next morning I checked the back of the truck and sure enough, he was tucked w-a-y up at the front of the truck bed. I closed the tailgate on him and fished him out 20 minutes later. He’s escaped at least two more times - but opted to hide under the truck and climb up onto the exhaust system. Luckily, he hasn’t fried himself yet. We’re trying to get him acclimated to a harness, but as most any cat owner can tell you, they turn into meatloafs and refuse to move when you harness them. I guess they get used to it eventually.

I guess I was thinking some kind of durable plastic material (HDPE, LDPE?) cut or milled to shape and “glued” to the room with RTV or some other sealant would be required. “Foam” is a kind of vague term. Could be squishy, compressible foam, or could be rigid. (I’d assume rigid would make more sense.)

The GMC system has “hiccupped” a few times as well. Once, it went totally dark - no display, no sound, no OnStar. Zippo. Three hours and Two restarts later it was back to normal. That was the day after I had a 45 minute OnStar discussion with them. I think they “pushed” a reset or update and didn’t tell me. That’s not to say that GM or Ford have the market cornered in buggy systems. I had a rental car in Scotland or Ireland that decided to go out to lunch and do a complete reboot as I was driving. Luckily, it wasn’t controlling anything critical at the time.

Those look similar (or exactly the same) as the one I bought to try out - and have yet to install. We have both styles of USB cords as well.

Cool! We’re in Winnsboro right now - just down the road from you. You may wanna check out Lake Bob Sandlin. A pretty nice place to camp!

Last I looked there seemed to be a pretty good amount of useable space by the furnace. I’m just trying to find a storage tank that is smaller than the 4-ish gallon tanks common to home under sink models, but bigger than the toy .4 gallon plastic tank sold to give the tankless R/O systems a little more utility. @SeaDawg - indeed - quality filters make (or break) the filtration system. The four R/O systems I’ve installed over the years have all had three pre-filters - primarily sediment/particulate filters, the R/O element, and a final carbon filter. Because I’ve been installing these systems in locations with “good” water - treated, “city” water systems. No wells, no questionable/untested sources, and they’ve all been low-volume use (drinking & cooking water only) Filter replacements are few and far between. Literally years before a filter change is needed. Last two R/O systems I bought had a set of replacement filters included. IMHO - R/O systems are pretty much impossible to winterize. Unless they’re in a well-insulated, heated space, they are gonna die if it gets below freezing. We store our trailer in Southern Louisiana - but still winterize it. Probably (probably) not necessary, but I hate repairing broken plumbing. Hate replacing expensive equipment even more. Were I to install an R/O system in a trailer, I’d likely have to remove it to warmer climes come winter.

The installation price sounds great! From my 5 whole minutes of research, it looks like the 15k btu Dreiha sells for about the same amount as the 13.5 k btu Houghton… Sounds a little better than $4,000 to have Oliver install the Truma….

At the moment - being able to install a decent weather app - like weather channel - would be great. I had Weather Channel downloaded and installed on my 2021 GMC with no problem. No hacks, no back doors, just go to “apps” install it, it shown up on your Home Screen, and runs like you’d expect. Current weather and forecast for wherever you are, weather radar, etc. Can’t even get it on the 2025. The “App Store” on the 2025 looks like a motley assortment of also-ran applications and stupid things you wouldn’t dare install on an important piece of hardware.

I’m on the outside looking in here, so feel free to tell me to take a hike. Pretty sure the “high” amperage figure(s) being tossed around are starting amps, not running amps. We’ve had out trailer plugged in to a friend’s very old, very iffy 15/20 amp circuit with our stock 30 amp cable, a 30-20 amp adapter, and a 100’ 12 ga extension (yeah, not one of my prouder moments) and tried out the A/C (Dometic) JUST to see if it would work. We have the soft-start option. I watched the LED display on the power monitor, and it spiked at about 12-13 amps for a moment when the compressor kicked in, then settled down to about 6 amps or so and worked fine. The voltage stayed above about 114, so no serious concerns about frying things. That’s not a situation I’d feel comfortable running under for any length of time. More of just an experiment. The only time we’ve had the power monitor call things off and shut the whole show down was at a campground that swore they had good power, but my Multimeter said it was barely over 100v open circuit. BTW - I had one of those old Skil 77 work drive circular saws. It did NOT like running on that 100’ extension - even if it was 12ga. I now have a 10ga one - but sold the saw.

I love it when my head spins… Im always a little gun-shy about digging into new or relatively new pieces of equipment. With my old beater cars and trucks, I’d be hard-pressed to screw them up worse than they are. So - assuming I can figure out all the wiring (I think I can, I think in can!) the main concern I have is proper support if the outside part of the unit. I THINK I read that @Ronbrink cut some piece of supplied foam in half, apparently doubled it up, and that supported the end of the unit. Did I read that right? I think I also understand that OTT changed the roof design at some point, so older/newer hulls need/don’t need additional effort to support the unit? Once that issue is put to bed, the other is the thermostat. I really don’t care for the capacitive thermostat that came with our unit (“hate” is such an ugly word) so I’d like to just go with the remote that comes with the new A/C. I’d probably even install a more straightforward one to run the remaining furnace. (Unless/until I decide to replace THAT unit as well.)

I half expected to see some sub-forums out here in “Towing your Oliver” land, but don’t, so hope this topic is relevant here. Driving a 2025 GMC Sierra 1500 Denali and like the previous TV - a 2021 stablemate - the Infotainment system and “tech” in general strike me as a bit dodgy. I either have a traveling poltergeist - or GM’s periodic pushed software updates just don’t install as smoothly as Apple’s do. I’m pestering the OnStar folks to make the promised functionality work. (Ability to set climate control preferences and radio presets via the myGMC app). Beyond that, I’m finding that I can’t get a simple Weather Channel app that I could get on my 2021. Pretty much have given on the AudioBooks app that was never ready for prime time… I don’t want to get into it on a GMC forum, but was hoping to find someone to commiserate with here on OTT forum.

I know Berkey has a long history and a loyal following, but I’d wager dollars to doughnuts that it doesn’t (can’t) remove the stuff from your water that R/O can. There’s actually an awful lot of wasted space under the dinette seats. I know someone on here made up drop-in bins that fit under said access panels to store stuff. I’ve already got some lightweight items stashed under there. (“Not a storage area” be damned! 😋) Of course, something bulkier, heavier - and potentially -wet- requires considerable more care in siting, securing, and leak-proofing to avoid causing problems. I like to keep plumbing runs short, so I’ll be carefully scrutinizing the areas on the curb side of the trailer. Most home R/O systems come with a tank that holds 3-4 gallons. That IS too big to find a home for, so I’ll likely have to source one that holds 1 or 2 gallons at most. R/O systems are also all but impossible to winterize, so that may be another reason this never sees the light of day. Anyway, these are projects for when I get bored. So they may end up on that great to-do list in the sky.

Since I could screw that up fairly easily, I opt for the old school methods of assuring that one tank stays full: closing the valve. ”Regulator” sounds like such a pedestrian moniker. Shouldn’t it be something more ostentatious like “Regulator with automatic tank selection and gas status indicator”? Anyway, the 30-second “orientation” we received on delivery day was all of the insight I have on the device. I’d have to actually READ the manual to have any confidence in my ability to operate it without shooting myself in the foot. Back in my motorcycle riding days, there was a “on” setting on the fuel taps that left about 8/10 of a gallon in the tank to limp home on “reserve” when you spaced out and forgot to monitor your fuel. That’s how I use the “regulator”.

What was Groucho Marx’s famous line? Something about not wanting to belong to any organization that would have him as a member? 😋

JD - we’re homeless these days. Sold our 1/2 acre “city” property in Chicago northern suburbs (“Goodbye $13,000 annual property taxes” - and climbing EVERY year or so.) and also our “country” property in Rural NE Texas. $400/year property taxes on 40 acres - go figure. (Ag exemption mainly) That said, we crash in the same part of Texas (Winnsboro) a couple of weeks a year. And likewise in Joliet area south of Chicago. Our camping trips are typically pretty long by comparison. (“I got nowhere else to go!”) At about 2-3 months at a time. We left Chicago just after Christmas, and only stashed the trailer in storage on March 8th. It will only be there until the end of the month, then camping again in Mandeville (NOLA) area for all of April. June starts the long trip cycle again, and will be in the trailer ‘til end of August. Though we’ll be staying near NOLA between two state parks for a month, and campground hosts for 5 weeks in Minnesota later this summer, we generally cover a fair amount of ground, aiming to stay in each place 3-4 days, and driving 100-200 miles between stops. “Home Base” for the Oliver (AKA “Indoor Storage”) is Hammond, LA (again, essentially New Orleans) and we’ve covered from there to the Florida Keys & back, Grand Canyon & back, PEI & back, and Yellowstone & back. Put 78,000 miles on previous tow vehicle in three years. (Whew!) My wife could easily hold down the role of a professional travel agent, as she researches and makes all of the reservations - as well as all of the travel arrangements for our annual fall Europe trips. (Me? I just drive the truck…) We’re trying to get smarter as far as spending the “cold” months in the South, and the hot months North. (No more Winslow in August please!) But with family in Chicago and Northern Indiana, we usually have to suck it up around Christmas. Biggest concern there is diesel trucks don’t like Chicago winters…

I don’t mind knowing there are other beings on the planet when I camp. I just don’t want to sneeze in my trailer and hear one of them say “Bless you!”. I don’t concern myself with snack bars and pools. Hot showers and the occasional washing machine are nice though. We’ve “camped” at everything from urban campgrounds - basically parking lots with hookups - to the aforementioned Harvest host - with zero hookups. (But a cool impromptu youth rodeo!) I prefer something comfortably in the middle. I admire the dedication of the tent campers. (BTDT, enjoyed waking up in 2” of water in my sleeping bag.) I scoff at the guys in the half-million dollar coaches. (I like getting more than 4MpG, thank you very much.) Friends often call what we do in our Oliver “Glamping”. That’s ok, I need some glamour in my life.

If I can’t get a cell signal on my phone or hot spot, I take that as nature’s sign that I need to disconnect and enjoy the great outdoors. I do kick and scream a bit, but sometimes I have to surrender.

Last year or so - when everything seemed to go from USB-A to USB-C, I purchased a cigarette-lighter sized USB outlet with BOTH types of outlets. I intended to replace the USB-A port with that one. Haven’t gotten around to it yet…. It looks pretty jammed in up there over the cooktop. The one under the dinette looks to be an easier target. I just wish the folks who make the USB powered toys would pick ONE standard and stick with it! I had to buy a new hardwire kit for my dash cam because GMC deleted the “cigarette lighter” port AND the USB-A power port between 2021 and 2025 models….

We don’t have a front camera. I’ve only used the backup camera once. The monitor you keep in the TV is too clunky and in the way most of the time. Our new GMC has connectors to put a backup camera display through the vehicle “infotainment” system - but you have to buy their camera. I’m still working out a multitude of bugs, er, I mean “undocumented feature” with the folks at OnStar to want to further complicate my life at the moment. For us, I think the $1,900 (at the time) “Electronics Package” was a bad investment. The only thing we use is the RVLock keyless door lock. I’ve already had to replace a faulty circuit board on that. I’d remove the booster antenna - but too lazy to patch up the hole. 😋 To be fair - maybe - I get one more “bar” of signal strength if I hold my phone tight by the indoor antenna. Then again, that might just be from being closer to the window. Honestly, I thought some instructions said you had to “register” that device with your cell provider, but I can’t find any info on it. It’s just some blinking green lights in the port aft cabinet…

Sorry if I’m using the wrong term or if my not including a picture is making it less obvious. Whatever that Thingamabob that connects the two tanks together and has a little lever that swings left and right is called. Ours has a little indicator that shows 2 green “sectors” if the tank is supplying gas. I think it shows red if no gas (but it might show black - I’m 400 miles from the trailer at the moment). Anyway, it’s the contraption that is supposed to automatically switch tanks when the primary one runs out of gas. I never use that function as I don’t wanna end up with both tanks empty because it switched and didn’t tell me. If the little indicator is dirty, or you are just viewing through the round access port of the front of the propane enclosure, you may never see the indicator. (So you may not want to deviate yourself colorblind just yet!)

I suppose if you’re the “Hitch up a go!” kinda guy, then have solar and/or a lot of battery capacity would be more important. These days, we don’t head off -anywhere- without a reservation with at least electricity. We did a “Harvest host” overnight once just for the heck of it. We survived. Yeah, “technically” we can get by without any hookups for at least a few days, but we just like the ability to watch TV - more importantly - run our espresso machine - without needing a huge ($$$) lithium battery bank and a big ($$$) inverter. I think since Covid (maybe before?) there’s a ton more RVers out there. Trying to drive to the next campground up the road without a reservation is likely to leave you driving on to the NEXT campground up the road. I think a LOT of people retired early when Covid hit and half of them bought RVs and hit the road. I know Elkhart has been cranking out cheap trailers 24/7 since Covid (and the quality shows…) I worked for a hardware store, an “essential employee” all during the worst days of Covid. The Interstate Battery guy was in and says they couldn’t even keep the RV makers supplied with batteries the demand was so great.

Definitely a thumbs-up from me! Did you pull out one of the DC “outlets” and use the hole for the switch? Kinda surprised this isn’t at least an option from the factory. I think it would be more useful than the cell phone booster. I don’t even think that thing does anything.

We scrubbed our planned trip to Alaska two seasons ago mainly because we couldn’t reserve a camp site West of Yellowstone at the time. Not keen on driving through Canada any time soon anyway - they didn’t like me having pepper spray in the camper when we went to PEI and I’m on their s___ list now…