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KarenLukens

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Everything posted by KarenLukens

  1. What's on our list? Hahahahhhh :) Sunshine first and soon hopefully so I can fix the leaks from lights outside, needs to be 70°+ so we're heading to Arizona, kinda taking the long way being we're in Southern Oregon on the coast for a couple more days but the waves are supposed to be huge tomorrow :) So far Santa has brought me Butyl Tape, 3M-4000 sealant, Captain Tully's Crack Sealer, a Stanley Black socket set, new bolts for the bumper, bathroom Caulk, and I'm hoping for a new fan switch for the bathroom, more magnets for the drawers, a chamfering bit for the light screws and a Hot Buttered Rum :)
  2. I'm about to break into my bathroom fan today... I do believe that I also have a bad switch because it has become spongy. I realize that this is an older post but, does anyone have any tips? Our bathroom fan quit working yesterday. Reed
  3. Is that the 60psi pump? That would be a nice upgrade :) Have you tried insulating around it to quiet the whole compartment? It would probably help quiet the water heater and furnace also... Reed
  4. Hi Steve, I had a friend break a Spring, he had the 3500lbs axles but apparently not the right springs on his trailer, not an Ollie... You've got the 5200lb axles but do you know for sure that they upgraded your springs to the 5200lb springs also? I'd never thought about the springs having a lower rating until his broke last month and we ended up changing his out at a Rally. It was an eye opener and he was a lucky dog as usual :) On another note, I was surprised to see that our Ollie's come with a 2" ball and a 7000lb hitch, they should have an upgrade option on the order sheet to the 2-5/16" Bulldog coupler being that the 7000lb coupler isn't enough of a cushion for me. I've got a 10,000lb 2" ball, but I'm really wondering if the Bulldog Hitch will hold up if there's an impact. Personally, I think all of the trailers should have the 2-5/16" set up. Reed
  5. No hatch because we leave the bed up all of the time. That's MY tool box :)
  6. You should go into the owners manual for the pump and look at the pump and filter position... You may decide to replumb to the pumps recommended specs because it says for best results, the filter should be mounted at least 18" from the pump... The pump has a built in accumulator and the pump is set to come on at 40psi. Generally, you want the extra accumulator set 2lbs below the pump starting pressure. I haven't seen Oliver's newest fix myself yet but probably a new mounting board with a place for the accumulator built in to it is in order. I think that I read on the accumulator PDF that it's supposed to be mounted between the pump and the filter, but I couldn't get Oliver to send me one for free :) I did try though :)
  7. I wasn't going to chime in but we did ask a lot of questions when ordering ours last year and the Lagun table can be left in for sleeping but it makes the drawers in the nightstand unusable. I don't remember if it had a swivel on it when we talked about it but a sliding swivel could be easily installed. The big problem that we had with it was that it needed to be stored in the closet where the King bed insert is stored on that model. Our closet is full, making this a tough spot to get too. You can see the lock on the bar under it for removal and it does need to be removed when towing. We went with the King bed and it was an option for that also last year but just trying to store it for us, plus having it block access to the nightstand, turned us off. You should call Anita and see if they have any new pictures of it. Reed
  8. Here's another tip for the Reflectix insulation, when you cut it to size, cut the first piece to fit behind the window latch on the fixed side of the window. This way it can either sit behind the slide window, allowing the window to open over it or it can also be pulled inside more to complete the seal. Then cut the piece for the sliding side a couple inches longer so the Reflectix can become a slider itself. Cut it long enough to cover the lock. It works great and this way the Reflectix can be opened also without having to take it out to let the sunshine in :) I was brainstorming this morning and wow! It fits perfectly behind the shade and when cut to size to fit behind the shade and inside the rail, the shade holds it in place and allows the Reflectix to become a slider on its own :) The window shade still slides up and down perfectly over the top of the Reflectix, making the whole cold weather package even better :) Reed
  9. The Reflectix makes a huge difference inside, we have it in right now and run the max fan all day to keep the humidity down with all of the rain. It really helps with condensation but... It does keep it dark inside also :)
  10. Writing at the same time again John :) Being we just paid $2.72 for gas here and diesel is $3.50+ with the $.96 cent a gallon diesel tax here, you can do the math... Our Chevy has an 11,000lb tow rating and does not compare to the diesels but it it works fine for what we bought it to do. The Mercedes diesel we had was a whole different ball game and there is no comparrison but with the taxes here and the environazi attacks on diesel, Mercedes quit selling diesels to us stupid Amerikans... So we downgraded to Chevy but in the long run it will save us a lot of money. We have the top of the line Chevy but still, I will post a separate topic on the comparrison because as always, you get what you pay for and stepping down from a $100,000.00+ vehicle to a $52,000.00 vehicle, you expect there to be a big difference when you make that choice. Reed
  11. +1 on the above but... It will work and as long as you know its limitations beforehand, you can plan ahead. You said your axle ratios are "3.42 and 3.73 Axle ratio", but which one? If you don't know then I would sell it because running the wrong ratio will make it impossible to back up hills when needed. You're running too close to the edge for me but... It would work if your in a pinch. Reed
  12. We have the King bed and Karen's CPAP sits in her back corner on top of a small set of drawers. We had outlet sets put in on both sides by the rear speakers in the back corners a/c - d/c - USB along with reading lights but... We have found that the Zamp Solar doesn't have enough power to recharge the batteries each day, so we end up using the generator every 3 days at least to keep enough charge in them to run the CPAP. You should check the low voltage cut out on your bi-pap and see where it's cut off is because we have found that low cut off, along with power consumption, varies greatly between different brands. Then if you camp where you get more clouds then full sun, plan accordingly and get an aftermarket 500watt MPPT Solar System installed elsewhere or just take a generator. We run an induction cook top now also since the solar can't do its job anyway and just run the generator every day or 2 to charge up. Most of the time we are on the coast or in the mountains under the clouds and these days we don't plan on ever counting on the solar to help much with boondocking. The gas for the generator is cheap and it is a needed accessory unless you are somewhere in the south, stuck in the desert where the solar has a chance. Reed
  13. Today, once again I had the dead jack problem, so it's still in the diagnoses phase but the bad ground is the culprit I'm sure like Steve said, because though I had no power to the switch even after rocking it a few times, once I plugged the trailer into the running truck, it started working again. But it was still kicking in and out a couple times. But hey, once again the jack worked fine after plugging into the TV... So I'm thinking that the switch is maybe needing grounding? I don't think so, it could be a bad switch also being that it had no problem lowering the jack. But when I went to raise the jack, it kicked out a couple times and after rocking it twice, it worked fine. I haven't added the ground wire to the jack yet because I wanted to see if plugging it in would fix the problem, and it worked... sorta... Lol. This was the first time that the trailer was wet when the jack died, so that throws another rag into the diagnoses, but hey, at least it is raining in California right?... Another thing that we noticed today is that because the back window is at a slant, with the trailer level, it was funneling all of the water from the outside into the weap hole... and running into the trailer, so I bent the gutter down just enough to keep the water running out of that window... but that's another story :) Reed
  14. We've used the Honda 2000i generator for years in the winter, when the power is out here in California. PG&E, Pacific gas and electric has excuses all day long for not getting power back on here. When we go down hard in a big storm, it's usually 3 weeks to a month before they can get out to find the problem, so being able to run the house without power is unfortunately... normal for us. They don't have any problem raising our rates, so I switched over to propane years ago now and just use electricity for the lights, TV and fridge. So I can run all of those with the 2000i easily when our power goes out.
  15. I lost my "G".... Wow John, great explanation :) I will be calling them myself just to talk about moving the antenna if needed. I'm not having a problem with it working, once again I was at Zero bars and the small x telling me I have no " g"... lol, then I turn it on and bam 4 bars and 4G, so that's the good news. In fact all I have is good news on this I guess. I was thinking that the booster was limiting the distance that the phone had to be away from it, but that's not the case... It's the same with all of their boosters, they work better if your inside antenna is right against the phone. So, what I've done to get the best signal back by the rear window is, I emptied the cabinet, pulled the weboost cord and inside antenna off the wall, put some Velcro on the back cover of my tablet, and now I'm sitting here hotspotting Karen with the full signal. Since it works best mounted to the tablet, I'm going to drill holes thru the pantry and run the wire thru it and then notch the rear side cabinet door so the wire can be brought down and the antenna attached to my tablet. Then at night or in the morning when we blog, I can turn on the booster and kick back in bed with full power, when we are in a place with no signal. Karen can make or find a pouch for the antenna and the cord, and we can just roll it up and put it away in the rear cabinet when we're not using it. It's a 12vdc booster so I will eventually move everything including the switch to back above the bed, but for today, this solution really works well and being able to connect the booster directly to the tablet really gives you the maximum signal. Reed
  16. Thanks Dave :) I think... I finally just burned up Karen's Blow Dryer and it's not even Thanksgiving yet.. You really want me to buy Her a new one already? It hasn't even been a week yet... Haha :) I will look at the butyl tape and I like doing things once, so I will be sealing the entire light, screws and all. If the butyl tape looks good enough, I should be able to make all new gaskets out of it :) Thanks again :)
  17. Tonight, I went to move the weboost and looked at the lights for the first time... The top 2 are green and the bottom 2 are blinking red which means according to the manual, that the antennas are to close and that it is reducing the gain... So I pulled the wire and ran it forward more and got the 4 green lights for a short time but everywhere else toward the back gives me the 2 blinking reds on the bottom. I haven't looked at everything yet, so I don't have the answers but... Do you guys have 4 green lights on your booster, which is located inside the cupboard on the forward pantry wall? My signal here in the bush tonight was zero and now for the first time, I've moved the inside antenna and I'm laying in bed with the antenna tucked into my tablet and I have 4bars with really slow 4g. I found out months ago that you really had to be close, but I had never bothered looking to see what the lights meant until tonight. And of course now, I'm right under the outside antenna, so is this part of my problem? Heck, it's working but I really want it working properly with all 4 green lights... Reed
  18. Thanks everyone :) I just looked at it today because I don't want to pull apart the light until I have the proper sealant, so if I can't get Capt Tully's come Tuesday when they open, I'll get it off of Amazon along with either the 3m 4000 or the Marine grade that's mentioned earlier. Marc, they changed to the bar style outside lights in 2016 and unfortunately now, there are known seal problems. Being that they are above the windows, I'm going to start at the top first and then work my way down as needed and pull the windows only if the leaks continue. Once again! Thanks Everyone for giving out all of the info needed for me to work this thru :) Reed
  19. I had VoIP but thru DSL so we needed the phone line anyway, but it was free and it worked fine as long as I had a good connection and wasn't downloading anything... If the connection was clear... sometimes the call would be clear, but usually there was a "can you hear me now?" moment in every call, but this is out in the woods anyway. In the end I got rid of it just because I didn't need a second phone line. Reed
  20. If I wanted the wife to be able to track me, I would have a cell phone for those, "Yes Dear" moments... But I prefer the old "Silence is Golden" times that I have out in the woods alone. It seems like I can't go anywhere these days without my cars knowing exactly where I am anyway... :) Reed
  21. I was reading about Capt Tully's again today and unfortunately the store is closed Sunday & Monday... But I may try it on the window frame also depending on how well it works on the lights. It looks like good stuff, just finding but on the road today isn't going to work. http://www.captaintolley.com/product-info/
  22. Exactly :) Once again, the bathroom door was a fluke... We hit that washboard paved road, 4th street in Albuquerque and that must have cracked an edge, who knows... Then a few weeks later we slowly go over a few big speed bumps in the kids apartment complex and boom, it cracks all over... Oliver sent me a new solid door and a few minutes later, it was installed by me, a simple easy fix, and that's after traveling from the Atlantic Ocean and down that coastline from North Carolina, all the way back to the Pacific Ocean here in California around 7000 miles later. Bumpy roads and extreme rainstorms will always bring out the problems, then we fix them :) Being Sunday, I hope West Marine is open because my plan is to seal the lights today because there's a lot of rain coming in the forecast here for next week. But either way, I can easily tarp it again if need be, but now that we are South and in a city, the rain here will be normal, not huge thumbnail sized drops :) Reed
  23. Have we really had that many problems? Most of it seems normal or no big deal. The first thing tomorrow now that we are South and out of the weather at my sister's is, I'm going to pull the light off over my window and check for moisture because if it's there, then it's the same seal problem all of the 2016ers had that we were talking about last year. We've had this trailer for 9 months and we've been in it most if the time with beautiful weather; with only a few days here and there between trips until we moved into the new house after it was finished. We picked it up in February in the rain and we were in it full time until the end of July, when we got moved in to the new house. Everyone says that it takes a few months for the bad seals to start leaking, and being that we didn't have a problem until now, looks like a no brainier to me now after seeing the responses... At least it gives me a good place to start... Others here this year, have had so many problems that they have parked their trailers and walked away. The major problem was the water tank and every single Oliver trailer ever built had that problem before ours and that equals - 200 trailers and then some... We just lead the way to the fix with the videos on how to do it. Then the new drawer slides that allowed the drawers to slide out and fall on the floor. We were the first to post about it here on the forum but there were 4 trailers with that known problem before us and then many trailers after. The reason that you are hearing about all of our problems, is because I post about them. Like this one, the water leaking in the tops of the windows... Once again, I was the first to post about it but now, look how many have chimed in with the same problem and this isn't counting everyone on the black streaks thread... Same with the bad ground issue, it was a quick easy fix... Ummm... that I haven't heard back from Jason on for the permanent fix yet, but we're talking. I wasn't the first to post on it, but look at how many trailers had or have that problem going back to 2015. We find the problems because we use our trailer and you hear about these problems because I talk too much :) Basically I love to share what I'm doing, I love making videos of the important stuff, and we've been using our trailer pretty much every day since we picked it up February 13th, so weve been in it about 260+ days so far this year. But we didn't buy it, to leave it sit in storage somewhere, we bought it to travel. So when you look at the amount of time that we've been in it, compared to so many other trailers that are just sitting unused and empty somewhere in storage,,, you get the picture. The problems were already out there, we are just bringing them to light and then fixing them for all to see. Oliver's a good company that has been hit hard with their self induced growing pains, everyone of the owners and workers that we have met are flat out good people. A lot of people take their trailers to Howenwald and things get fixed before people even knew that there was a problem in the first place, then many others take theirs in to a repair shop. Goldilocks is still under warranty, most all of our parts have been paid for by Oliver, I would just rather fix the problems myself. I love this trailer, bottom line... especially now that I can pull the water level down to zero without having to tilt it at all :) Reed
  24. Well we ran out of propane last night, no big deal right? The fridge is on AC, the water heater is off and we're leaving today... Go figure, haha. We found out today that if there is a fault showing no propane in the system, that the Dometic Thermostat that we have will not continuously run the heat pump... It flashes back and forth to the heater and keeps trying to turn the heater on by default... So you need to keep shutting it off, switch it back to heat pump and let it come on for a few minutes before it shuts itself off and tries starting the faulted heater again with no propane... I hooked up a spare 5gallon propane tank and got everything running again and once again the thermostat was happy. So if you plan on being able to use the electric Dometic Heat Pump as a back up, it runs fine as long as there is propane... ??? What??? I know, if it's going to happen, it's going to happen to me... :) It's just another part of the unwritten learning curve in our new 2017 Ollie's. There's more to the thermostat but I'm going to make a movie on it explaining everything that I've learned on it, including the stuff in the manual. Reed Notice the card above the thermostats :) I really do like the thermostat in case anyone is wondering :)
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