The Oliver - a Suitable Survival Vehicle!

[jd1923]

I always thought that it we had a blackout or local crisis, God forbid a forest fire (we live in the Prescott NF) that we could get in the Oliver and relatively quickly get to safety! Those of you in hurricane climates should certainly understand the idea! 

We keep ours as many of you do, 95% ready for the next trip. We start the fridge, stock the pantry, pack clothes, fill the TV with grill and lawn chairs, all kept in one area of a shed, and we're ready to go in little time.

So we just got back from a 5-week trip, washed and parked the Oliver Saturday. Were out for the day yesterday and when we returned the house felt hot. Later is was apparent our home A/C was not cooling, thermostat set at 77F was 83F actual. We didn't sleep well last night, opened the windows where at our elevation we got down to 75 hours after the blazing Arizona sun had set!

Called for service and the best they could do is Wednesday afternoon. We plugged in the Ollie this afternoon. We are back to camping the next two nights on the edge of our property! 😂

Edited July 8, 2025 by jd1923

[mountainoliver]

Similar to “moochdocking” but in your own driveway. 

[Ronbrink]

Our Oliver has been an escape pod for two hurricane evacuations and a winter storm retreat when power was out for several days. Times like these is when our COW (Condo-On-Wheels) and the Westinghouse iGen4500DF are put to good use in survival mode!

[Jason Foster]

On 7/7/2025 at 8:52 PM, jd1923 said:

We are back to camping the next two nights on the edge of our property! 😂

Of all the RV designs on the market, I would likely choose the Oliver as a bug-out camper for the same reasons I bought it in the first place.  I have also used it to live in while the power was out in our home.  

[Patriot]

I suppose if we needed to we could move into our Oliver where it’s parked here at home. Our steel “Ollie Hangar” was put to the ultimate test while we were camped in Yellowstone and it survived the brutal rain and hurricane force winds of Helene… a blessing for sure. As for back up power we installed a 24KW LNG whole house generator and never looked back. There is no better feeling than when the power goes out within 8-10 seconds our full home power is restored. Our generator ran for three days while our county and large parts of Western NC was under a complete outage. Neighbors thought I was over the top having a generator installed. After Helene hit and they lost all their frozen food, frigs and freezers, well they thought it was a genius move. 🤔 Several neighbors now have whole house gens🤷‍♂️. Keeping up our preventive service of HVAC and our generator is a high priority for us. But yes, things can and do happen.

As for bugging out in the Oliver, we live pretty rural and in a small lake community. Leaving our home is more than likely not going to happen. 

Where we live we are 911, I will leave it at that. 😉😎 

With 2.5 years in, I highly recommend if you can swing it in your budget consider a whole house generator, preferably one that runs on LNG. This gen set immediately notifies us anywhere in the US via Mobile link with a txt and email when every it exercises or runs due to a power outage or if it needs maintenance.

Stay safe, stay prepped, and stay cool! 😊🇺🇸

 

Edited July 16, 2025 by Patriot

[Ronbrink]

15 minutes ago, Patriot said:

I highly recommend if you can swing it in your budget consider a whole house generator, preferably one that runs on LNG.

I purchased a 22kW last summer, but currently have it in storage at the COW Barn pending our plan to move to a rural location. The tight housing market has caused a delay, but hopefully that will change soon. My goal is to have an enclosed place to keep the Oliver at a home location and forego the rental facility, which are increasingly expensive in our area. 

[jd1923]

3 hours ago, Patriot said:

Keeping up our preventive service of HVAC

Our home finished in 1980 has the original A/C with natural gas furnace, an all-in-one meaning the evaporator is also outside in one housing. As far as maintenance, I open up the panels every few years, remove nests, dead squirrels and such, hose the condenser coils clean and that's about that. Five years ago the condenser fan went out and I replaced it. That's it in 20 years ownership of our Prescott home.

It has lasted 45 years! But the required 6 lbs of system freon was down to 2 from micro leaks on the coil (was repaired with a fix-a-flat kind of sealant). The service tech was amazed at the condition, so rebuilding the system to newer (legal) freon was possible. A $2300 retrofit including all new valves and seals vs. $16,000 for a new system, I was relieved!

It's on our southern exposure where the siding and window mouldings take great abuse, needing frequent painting, from the relentless Arizona sun. Our summer Monsoons and winter storms also come from that direction!

Now you can see why our Oliver, also out in the elements, doesn't have that CGI shine! 🤣

[MAX Burner]

On 7/16/2025 at 5:49 AM, Patriot said:

Where we live we are 911, I will leave it at that. 😉😎 

 

Same here, Patriot!

We installed a 12.5kw LNG unit 4 years ago...  It's kept us high and dry on many occasions. Self-tests weekly and notifies us via the app if activated when we're away. No more thawed/fouled meat surprises after a road trip!

[jd1923]

New twist on this thread..

Over the last two weeks, I’ve undergone major sinus surgery after a year+ of severe sinusitis. Went down to Phoenix to see a top ENT in AZ and he worked his magic for 4 hours, OMG! 

We trailered the Oliver last week to Cave Creek park where the camping is very comfortable, 40 minutes from the outpatient center. Three nights here, two overnights post-surgery, relaxing in the Oliver to recoup!

The Oliver truly is a survival vehicle, in fact it’s a portable intensive care unit. I felt as comfortable as being home with everything I needed at arms reach! 😎

The first night post-op was a bear! Then 6 days of agony… We towed down to Cave Creek again, two consecutive weeks. We could have just been here 10 days, but Chris and I had things to do at home. Post-op appoint yesterday, I couldn’t wait (will spare you the details).

Everything went well! After a saline rinse, I feel GREAT today! We have another 2 hours here, coffee in the Sun, ‘til checkout time, then we tow 4000 ft up the mountain to return home!

We will always have our Oliver for so many life experiences. Our home away from home is a wonderful retreat. I’m sure yours is too! 😎

[routlaw]

Get well soon, and hopefully a quick recovery

[Tom and Doreen]

@jd1923 Wow, what an ordeal!  I'm glad that you're feeling better and have that all behind you now!  It's great that you had all the comforts of home while getting the procedure.  Best wishes for a speedy recovery!  

[Mike and Carol]

Glad to hear all went well!  Our Olivers are definitely a home away from home.  We’ve used ours as temporary lodging for various non-camping/traveling reasons over the years.

Hope you are back to 100% soon!  Mike

[johnwen]

I'm sure glad things went well, JD.

Blessings from us :)

[DanielBoondock]

2 hours ago, jd1923 said:

After a saline rinse

I’m sure you know about that but make sure to only use freshly boiled/disinfected water. It’s not uncommon that somebody picks up a nasty pathogen doing this, because the sinuses are right on the border between inside and outside. I’m talking nice things like that brain eating worm and other such friendlies. Also of course do a serious disinfection of the container after/before every use. 

Anyhow One of the justifications for doing this is for when we have to bugout. We got hit some years ago with back to back wildfires, made the national news. Lightning strike up a valley complex, the fire traveled down the valley gathering steam and then blew out near us and completely wiped out everything in its path. There’s so much heat capacity by that point you can’t fight it, all the first responders can do it get people evacuated. Literally turns the place into a moonscape. Anyhow our house avoided getting hit being right at the edge but the National Guard doesn’t let anybody in or out, so we car camped for a couple weeks. 

My wife’s got PTSD about it so every fire season (late summer) she’s on edge watching the weather - the Santa Ana wind complex is prone to cause these (it goes up to N Ca too). This year if its looking bad we’ll just take a trip and take the stress off. Also yes while we’re still setting up the goal is to always have it fully ready to go literally at a moments notice. 

The main consideration is access to the storage lot. It’s 10 minutes from the house - good - but if you wait too long you might not be able to get to it, or leave. The people running the lot said during the fires they came out after hours and it was a madhouse of people hitching up and leaving. But that only works if they haven’t closed the roads yet. So we plan that if the wind forcast look bad we’ll just pre-emptively go camping. I don’t mind 😅