KarenLukens

I have this book marked and stacked on top in the Chrome Browser - http://olivertraveltrailers.com/forums/ . . . . . . . . . ______________________________________________________________________ Then I use it as the main and open new tabs for new topics or sections. Running an Android Verizon Tablet, nothing changed here except the right menu is gone that I never used anyway. I hope this helps :)

When you leave Jackson Hole and head up over the pass, if you're going that way, over the summit, then just a couple to a few miles down the hill, there is a short road on the left side. There used to be a house there and it's a great place to boondock. You can't miss it if you're looking for it because it's the first road on the left past the summit. You can pull down it and park out of site of anyone. Then there's a nice trail to walk down also :)

Hi John, we picked the hammer up over on the coast at a little gift shop for $20. It's built really well for the price and I didn't want to carry a tack hammer just for putting the plates on our walking sticks, so this filled the gap. I found them on Amazon but I would contact the seller or the gift shop where hwy 1 was closed on the south end and buy it from them, http://www.raggedpoint.us/ragged-point-inn-San-Simeon-CA/ImagesSlideShow/pages/dd-Giftshop1_jpg.htm https://www.amazon.com/dp/B016Y2AXAE/ref=twister_B06XXS5J8T?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

When it's hot out, the fan comes on to help keep the fridge cool, but... With the fan on top, just pointing out the vent, it's simply pulling what hot air it can while getting heated up by the hot air as well. There have been a ton of topics on the fan and where it should be placed on many of the forums and most agree that the fan would be better used for pushing cold air up from the bottom instead of trying to pull the hot air thru itself. In my opinion... The heat is being held in by the Vents Outter edges and trying to vent the excess heat back down thru the vent holes, leaves the top portion where it seals against the trailer, above the top vent holes, holding the most heat and allowing it to recirculate down around the sides. So by opening the vent, it's allowing a lot more airflow out the top of the fridge and not holding the heat in anymore. I think that 2 fans in the bottom would work better over all, but as is in the newer Dometic fridges, with the fans installed up top and connected to a thermostat, the fan does help some in milder climates. If any of you are hearing the fan run all the time or come-on a lot, then try this quick mod or just crack the vent door when the fan is running and see what happens in the next few hours. For me, right now, the fan stays off and the heat flows freely out the now open vent while keeping the fridge a lot cooler then it was with the fan running. So the fan helps some, but opening the top of the vent really does a lot more. So... If the fridge was vented out the top of the trailer... At the very top, above the vent... There may not need to be a fan... Or a stack fan could be put into the 2" bathroom style vent pipe going straight up and out the roof behind the awning...

Then before we leave, I pull the wires out of the locks and push them inside and out of the way of the fan. Then close and lock the Vent Cover normally and leave the wires stored inside and unseen behind the Vent Cover.

Larry Gamble of Little House Customs came up with a great idea a few years ago for the Casita's that doesn't run a fan to keep the fins cool. While we were at the Rally in King City, CA. I noticed that our fan wasn't shutting off at all during the day, so I pulled off the cover and it was really over heating in the sun and it was no longer keeping up with it being on AC and on the 3rd setting. So I grabbed the roll of rebar wire out of the tool locker and used Larry's basic idea once again, but on Goldilocks this time. When boondocking, we don't want to be running fans all the time when they really aren't needed. The fridge door vent, after you open the locks leans out on its own a few inches and this is all it takes to vent all of the heat directly out and away from the fridge. So I cut a couple pieces of the wire about 6" long and made the holder to keep it in place. Now the fridge fan doesn't come on and run down our batteries at all :) You can see how I slip the wires through the lock holders and then just bend them down to firmly hold it in place.

Our Cobb is our only BBQ that we carry now because you just can't beat a good charcoal flavored Tri-tip :)

Some pics

Day 4 of boondocking in our trees on the old road. Even with all of the trees around and overhead, Goldilocks is charged up to 12.6vdc before sundown. We haven't needed to run the generator even though we've been using the inverter, microwave, etc. You can see our tank fill hose hanging off the back end, still connected. We added a couple loads of water today and now we have the Cobb out and Karen is bbq'ing Tri-tip that we picked up from the Lockford Meat Company. The place is famous out here and people travel far and wide to buy from them. It was my first time and the place is always packed with customers :) https://www.yelp.com/biz/lockeford-meat-and-sausage-services-lockeford I am really happy with our 7 stack leveling :)

If you are talking about the tank vent then it's a standard Camco vent cover that usually needs to be replaced every 3 years because it's made from plastic that just wears out over time - https://www.amazon.com/Camco-40034-Replacement-Plumbing-Polar/dp/B000BQWQ0A/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1496091694&sr=8-2&keywords=Camco+sewer+vent+cap A lot of people prefer to replace it with this one because the black lasts longer. But it comes in white also - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00SQ1K19A/ref=twister_B00U2WLGAY?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&coliid=I27U9266F7Y7DG&colid=DVETVI1ZF5E8

I chose not to spend the $550 that Oliver wanted to install the Progressive unit because I prefer to be able to plug in the protector first, every time, before I plug the trailer in. I keep mine plugged into the Oliver's power cord when in storage, so it always comes out with the cord and the circuit gets checked before the cord gets plugged into the trailer. Here's a link to Progressive's external unit with the same specs as the hard wired. http://www.progressiveindustries.net/ems-pt-x It can generally be found for around $300 online. Then without the low voltage protection, this is the most common - http://www.progressiveindustries.net/ssp-30xl-ssp-50xl and it can be found for $90 at Little House Customs. This is what we used on our Casita. Camco also sells their versions and the Defender is their cheapest in being that it is a sacrificial unit. The unit will fry itself during a power surge if needed and it will also throw the breaker powering the circuit that you are plugged into. It doesn't compare in quality to the $300 dollar unit, but for $37.00, you do get what you pay for. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00JGJH8QU/_encoding=UTF8?coliid=IEQRWJQ65XFVP&colid=DVETVI1ZF5E8 Either of Progressives top of the line models will give you full protection, but for me, I want to see what's going on before I plug in :)

We never noticed it until you said something. We use the microwave all the time and it's not an issue for us. The dinette light is always on when we use it, so we've never had a problem. We have all of the reading lights also, but just using the dinette light makes it easy and it's our main light that we leave on after the sun goes down.

Welcome MattyD :)

Beautiful pictures Dave :) A great looking rig and family all the way around :)

We've been getting a bunch of great feedback out here in California at the Rally's we've been to. Out here, seeing an Ollie is really rare and people are really loving it. One of our friends is considering trading in her Casita for a new Elite. That was a great article, Thanks Randy :)

No problem with washout, we're actually parked on an old dirt road that isn't used anymore. We will be taking it down to the house eventually but not right away. We have hook ups at the house, but we really don't need them. I will use a tote for now for the black. I need to rent a tractor for a couple days to fill the road to the house up with some new gravel and to make a turn around up here so that we can get a few trailers in here into a circle like in the old Western movies. This is the woods and we do have lots of bears, mountain lions, bobcats, Bigfoots, etc :) Well, our friend Mark and his 27' Bigfoot anyway :) The Creek is just a short distance away also, so we have fishing and gold panning until we get the swimming hole rebuilt. The floods took all of the top soil off of my driveway to the house and it filled in the swimming hole in the creek, so we have some work to do here and only 5 weeks before we leave for the Bandon, Oregon Rally. So... we may have to pass on the swimming hole repair this year because we will be gone for another couple months or so after Bandon. We really like the Rally circuit, so we've got a couple more booked starting at the end of September. Karen is famous with the Casita owners, because she is the artist that draws all of the Casita Coloring Book pages for the art classes that everyone takes at the Rally's. She will be drawing Ollie's soon I hope :) it's not like I've said anything though ;) hehe This one is from the Bluebonnet Rally

16 weeks and 4 days after leaving home to pick up Goldilocks from Hohenwald, TN, we are officially home :) We arrived this afternoon and are Boondocking in our woods, on our property. We haven't been to the house yet and that will come soon enough. Being a holiday weekend, and because the house is still winterized, we are going to continue living here in our trailer until we get the work done and have the house opened up again. We left early in the morning on February 6th and arrived to stay, today, May 26th. Our longest trip to date :) So we went thru our gate and picked a nice spot up on the hill. We have a spring about 50' away and up hill for water, and for the first time, it took a 7 block high set up to level out Goldilocks. I used up all 3 sets and had to do a double set to get high enough. Set once, roll up, pull the blocks from behind, set them up to 7 high and then roll on up to the top. I guess we will be buying one more set of the blocks ;) We are officially at home, boondocking in the 100 acre wood, with Goldilocks for the first time. Tomorrow we will start trimming branches and setting up the outside.

Karen & I love the Cobb Grill because it does everything including baking bread. We've had pizza a few times now, and that's always a hit :) Yea, it's not propane... But it's well worth it. The propane grill is no longer in the trailer :)

"New Easy Snap" propane cover latches? I see this is being advertised on the new 2017's but I don't remember seeing it before so, do you have them? Or... what are they? I may have them and not know it and was just reading the sale page again. Ours are the old Hummer Hood Latch style that you can upgrade to an after market chrome :) https://www.amazon.com/Hummer-Smooth-Chrome-Billet-Latches/dp/B00WH6MBKW/ref=pd_lpo_vtph_263_bs_tr_t_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=HF9E5T5TKAJ82TPQK3CQ https://www.amazon.com/Hummer-Billet-Aluminum-Chrome-Spring/dp/B00WH6M79W/ref=pd_sbs_263_2?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B00WH6M79W&pd_rd_r=SZW6Q8R1CJQ1RD1YH57Z&pd_rd_w=GHI7Z&pd_rd_wg=JSB2u&psc=1&refRID=SZW6Q8R1CJQ1RD1YH57Z

All decorated for the Fiberglass RV Rally in Pine Grove, California :)

Use a screw driver if needed to pry off the vent (right side of the pic) or just reach thru the vent with your fingers and pull. Then the flow limiter is the thing on the left. I tossed ours into our junk drawer, never to be used again :) Then just push the vent back into place, it will click in and work like normal.

Pull the vent off and remove the limiter, it makes a difference. We also closed off the port under the bed with white duct tape.

It's nice to have numbers for the levels, but being that the tanks are set on blocks to give them a bit of tilt, the percentage will be off by quite a bit. Since you already have your bucket set up, after you tilt and dump some time maybe then add 3 1/2 buckets and see what the number is for the half tank, I've tried and ours reads 75% at about half full. This would give us a close measured half tank value. Also because of the angle of the tank, it reads 100% full long before the water comes out of the overflow. You can't get an accurate tank reading gauge with the flat tanks that we have being tilted a bit because the inputs would have to placed on both the high side by the bathroom for full and down at the low side by the rear bumper for empty . So I just don't go by the numbers. We know that the tank is 100% full when the water comes out the overflow :)

I was wrong, did it tonight again and it empties to 6% now on level. It started at 25% with the rise in the hose, then 13% quickly, but if I leave it open it slowly drains down to the 6%. Then if I tilt it up just a bit, it goes down to 0%. We usually get 1 1/2 to 2 fresh tanks to one full gray but we are cooking with, cleaning and drinking the water also. It would be nice to have a large black tank option like theBigfoots.

Mine was at 13 also, now it empties to zero when level. The fix with pics is here towards the bottom of pg1 - . . . . . http://olivertraveltrailers.com/topic/reed-karens-blog/