Oliver insulation

[Steph and Dud B]

Here's some data that I found interesting. Our Oliver is mostly stock, with only a little extra Reflectix insulation added to the external basement door. I have a remote thermometer in the Oliver belly, near the fresh and city water inlet lines, and another thermometer hanging inside the garage near the Oliver.

I collected data from a week from both thermometers. The was no heat running in the Oliver. You can see that the average temperatures were only different by 1.1 degrees. There was a difference of 38.1 degrees from the highest temperature to the lowest temperature recorded in the garage:

and only a 16.3 degree difference recorded in the belly of the trailer:

I couldn't tell you if that's any better or worse than any other RV would perform, but those are the numbers from an unheated Oliver sitting in an unheated garage.

[Snackchaser]

Interesting data!  I ran the numbers through AI trying to get an R value, but there's not enough information.  However, it determined the swing insulating value was 57%, which is about right for Olivers claimed R-18 value.  Most RV's are lower than R-10, 20 to 30%.  

Good stuff!  

[jd1923]

Regardless of the R-value of insulation, interior and exterior temps will become equal over time. Also, when temps are in the 50s it's not the same test as when ambient temps are in the 20s, the teens or worse.

What matters most is when we add furnace heat, will the temp rear of basement by the water lines be kept above freezing? Say it's consistently below freezing outside, what should interior temp be set at to keep the rear basement above freezing?

We also keep a Ruuvi sensor in the same rear basement location (and 5 other locations), including one outdoors. Rear basement temps will not drop below freezing while camping, with our thermostat set to 63F. The rear basement temps is always above freezing a good +10 over outdoor temps.

Generally we do not store and winterize, since we "winter" camp often (but no real winter down here). Winter overnights are often down to low-mid 20s by dawn, but then it will always warm up to 50F +/- in the sunny afternoons. If it's cold just a night or two, I do not worry. If we are to have multiple consecutive cold nights, I'll set the furnace to 50F if I had not blown the water lines clear.

The Oliver could have better insulation, but it is certainly sufficient for our use. I like how it's thin so that we have room in the basement for mods. I would add more if we lived north. I did the battery bay door already. Good reminder to add some to our basement access door. 😂

[Snackchaser]

30 minutes ago, jd1923 said:

Regardless of the R-value of insulation, interior and exterior temps will become equal over time. Also, when temps are in the 50s it's not the same test as when ambient temps are in the 20s, the teens or worse.

That’s exactly what I used to think!.  However, equalization requires a constant outdoor temperature, but that never occurs in a natural day/night cycle. The 57% swing shows that the insulation is effective enough that the interior can't track outdoor changes fast enough to equalize.  

You're right, it could be better, but it's way better than some drafty old trailers that I used to own.  

[jd1923]

Yep, that’s why I wrote “over time.” To me that interesting data is that outside the temp swing/range was 38 degrees, while indoor the temp range was only 16. This shows the difference in the insulated space. The averages should be close over daily cycles.

Thank you@Steph and Dud B, many of us love seeing some performance data of our Olivers!

Edited Sunday at 06:49 PM by jd1923

[HDRider]

I sure like that core heating system that was described on here.  I can't recall his name.  That should be offered by Oliver.  

[DanielBoondock]

Looks to me like what you’d expect, just a temporal lag and smoothing. I think you don’t see the same minima/maxima because of the time lag - outside is already turned around before the inside reaches the min/max. 

fwiw tl/dr

I spent a lot of stupid time (meaning I could have been doing something more useful 😅) thinking about the insulation on this thing. It’s really interesting, it’s basically all reflective/infrared. But for the most part air gapped everywhere except the belly band, which is what you need for that to be effective.

• Fiberglass bat This primarily slows down the rate of heat transfer. If the trailer had that we’d see a larger delta in the charts above. So it doesn’t stop the heat transfer, just slows it
• Reflective with air gap (Protex) This primarily works by actually reflecting the infrared heat, not the thermal brownian heat in the air its in contact with. So it does stop heat transfer - look at the moon landers with gold foil, or the James Web infrared telescope with its many laters of foil. Both effectively eliminate heat transfer from the sun 

Bits and pieces 

• Rule of thumb I heard from an engineer in this field; reflective works better the greater the differential (outside to inside).
• Fiberglass shells are horrible insulators
• However, we have a double hull. Air gaps of 1/2” or under is as good as insulation bats (not a big enough space for convection currents. Note that seems to be about as much of the gap as we have. 
• So the double hulls act as a buffering system, both giving the Protex the air gap it needs to work, and that enclosed air gap acting generally as dead air space.  

Putting it all together, in extreme conditions (hot or cold) the trailer should perform great due to the large delta between outside and in and the dual insulation, which is what I hear from owners. But due to the .5-1” air gaps you won’t see a large time lag in an idle trailer. 

[Steph and Dud B]

I should also note that I was measuring the temperature between the hulls, in the belly by the water intakes. I wish I had placed a third recording thermometer inside the main cabin to see what the difference was between the cabin and the belly.

[routlaw]

Here is my unscientific take on the insulation of the Oliver.

Over the last few days I've been doing some mods to our EII, new ceramic toilet install, new bath faucet and shower head etc. With the rather coolish to cold weather we have been having through the month of April I hooked up to house/shore power to run an oil filled portable heater running at 900 watts continually for the last several days. Early morning temps outside this morning were at 32º (according to the Weather Channel) with frost on the roofs in the hood. Temp inside the trailer was 47º. The actual temp according to our exterior house thermometer was 37º indicating a max difference of only 10º from trailer interior to outside air. If taking the WC temps as the gospel then there would be a difference of 15º, neither one being very impressive. 

That same heater installed in any one of our basement rooms  (insulated with 1.5 inches of sprayed foam) of our house would have turned the room into a sauna or near about. 

Conclusion: the Oliver is not a 4 season camper. It might be along the southern perimeter, ie FL, TX, AZ, SOCAL etc but not further north. This isn't to say you can't camp in some cold weather as most of us have at one time or the other. Keeping even a moderate temp in freezing winter weather will tax the system seriously requiring huge amounts of propane to keep the furnace running nearly non stop. 

In summary at best I would describe the Oliver as an extended season camper but certainly not four season. The notion that the Oliver has an R value of 18 is pure bullocks. Oliver is not alone in this regard as there are many manufacturers stating four season camping specs but fall far short. Recently I was at a local RV dealer that sells Emperial Outdoors RV which truly are four season ready. The salesman I talked with related a previous winter day when the temps were bitter cold (-22º) and the Emperial Outdoors RV setting in the sun was measuring about 40º inside without a furnace running. Even if the story was wildly exaggerated which I doubt that is a massive amount of difference between an Oliver and a true four season camper. In our EII the bottom half of the inner shell was never insulated with the Propex material making the insulation issue potentially worse. 

In summary the Oliver is an excellent travel trailer (not without some issues) but the company should not be promoting it a a 4 Season camper which is really is not. Not even close IMHO. 

 

[FloraFauna]

21 hours ago, routlaw said:

In summary at best I would describe the Oliver as an extended season camper but certainly not four season.

Living and camping in Wisconsin and Michigan, I completely agree with your post.  See my recent post concerning that big hole in pre-2024 Olivers for the refrigerator venting.  I also agree with your comments concerning the Imperial Outdoors' trailers.  That said, I decided I am too old to want to camp out in 10 degree and below weather 99.99% of the time - might have been ok when I was 30 years old.  The logistics of winterizing and dewinterizing make winter camping less desirable for me.  Running and heated water is important to us.  And we just don't want to be sitting around the outdoor campsite at 20 degrees nor cooped up in the trailer for any extended time.  Even my dogs agree.  So, the Oliver works for us and probably most folks, even though it is not a true 4-season camper in my part of the world.

[routlaw]

All good points @FloraFauna couldn't agree more. 

[jd1923]

If you live south, and have the Dometic Penguin II A/C installed, the Oliver is also merely a 3- season camper! Any season is good when the A/C is OFF! 🤣

First real trial of our Furrion Chill Cube, camping in the Phoenix Valley this week. We turned it on yesterday at 3 PM, been running since.

In start-up it pulled 50A on 12VDC. Was down to pulling only 16A, 40 min later. Overnight it was whisper quiet using very low amps. I estimate <25A per hour daily average.

Like our friend @FloraFauna, we’re not going on any winter survival trips! This 3-day trip, we ran the A/C, our Suburban HWH (largest power draw -120A) and the Dometic fridge ALL on battery! Still have 50% SOC as we’re breaking camp today. 😎

Yesterday the Victron shunt read 67% SOC. I looked at Chris asking, “you know what that means?” 67% of 900 Ah is equal to 100% SOC when we had our 600 Ah battery bank!

Those of you who recently upgraded 300 Ah Battleborn to 600 Ah Epoch, next time you read 50% SOC on the shunt, just smile knowing that was your 100% in years past! So cool…

 

[Mike and Carol]

1 hour ago, jd1923 said:

First real trial of our Furrion Chill Cube, camping in the Phoenix Valley this week. We turned it on yesterday at 3 PM, been running since.

In start-up it pulled 50A on 12VDC. Was down to pulling only 16A, 40 min later. Overnight it was whisper quiet using very low amps. I estimate <25A per hour daily average.

That’s good to know.  Quiet and cool!