Please welcome our new Oliver to the family!

[herm]

I'm finally getting around to posting a couple photos of our new Oliver. The exterior photo was shot at Henderson State Park (Destin, FL) last week, and the interior photo was taken in our driveway yesterday after cleaning things out. We are very pleased with our fabric and flooring selections, and feel that it gives a warm touch to an otherwise sterile white/black environment.

 

Ain't she a beauty?

 

Pictures unavailable. Please re-upload.

[SeaDawg]

Love the graphics, Herm. I haven't seen anyone else with this design. Looks great! The warm beige cushions are very nice with the flooring you chose, too.

 

Congrats on your new Oliver!

Sherry

 

PS If you and your wife travel to Florida again, please let us know. There are several Oliver owners here.... and we'd just love to do a mini-rally!

[dougi]

It looks great Herm. I really like the looks of the floor and the upholstery.

 

You have done a lot of driving between Florida and Minnesota.

[herm]

Thanks, Sherry. I basically took their "standard graphics" and tweaked it a little to make my own.

 

We certainly would have loved to see more of Florida and other Oliver owners...maybe next time. Yes, we will definitely be back! Too bad it's such a long drive for us to get down there.

 

Herm

[herm]

It looks great Herm. I really like the looks of the floor and the upholstery.

 

You have done a lot of driving between Florida and Minnesota.

 

You aren't kidding. We logged a total of 3,000 miles roundtrip, two-thirds of that was pulling the Oliver. My overall fuel economy was only 13 mpg, but I could have done a little better if I would have taken it a bit slower.

[SeaDawg]

Have to agree. Most of the drive from here to Minnesota is pleasant and fairly scenic, but it's a long haul.... I'm originally from southern Minnesota, and have a lot of family in Mower, Steele, and Crow Wing counties.

Sherry

[herm]

Sherry, next time your up visiting family, you'll have to swing by and say 'hello'. We even have a nice (but narrow) parking pad with 30 amp hookup if you need a place to overnight.

 

We hope to move to lower latitudes as well some day...

 

Herm

[SeaDawg]

We sure will let you know when we're visiting Minnesota again. This year's trip to Grand Marais was postponed due to ugly weather in the Boundary Waters in early June. Next year, we'll try again... My brother and his family love that area (they live in Crow Wing county), as do I, and we'll try to meet up there again at Grand Marais municipal campground. Minnesota offers so many wonderful camping opportunities in the more temperate months... it's hard to choose.

 

Next year, we're thinking about a trip up through North Carolina, Tennesse, Kentucky, Missouri, a brief stop in Iowa where I went to school ,and Minnesota... then on, possibly to Canada and Alaska. Just don't know how the time will work out... we'll see. One of the reasons we bought the Oliver was to see Alaska by rv again, this time in our own trailer instead of a rental. The Oliver construction is so superior to what we rented four years ago in Anchorage. I think I spent as much time cleaning out dust from the rental as I did enjoying the campsites and surroundings. I don't think I'll have that kind of problem with our own Oliver.

 

Sherry

[SeaDawg]

Oh, and if you're thinking of moving to Florida someday, please come and visit us in your travels. Pinellas County has a lot to offer... great beaches, the Gulf of Mexico, and great healthcare and family neighborhoods. We've been very happy here all these years. I miss Minnesota, the people, and the change of seasons (and especially my family).... but I never have to shovel the heat out of my driveway....

Sherry

[astrocaster]

Herm,

 

Thanks for posting the pictures of your Oliver. It looks sharp and clean.

 

I have an observation that might interest you from viewing of the picture of the exterior of your Oliver. This is in connection to your comment in one of your posts in the "First Impressions" thread. There you say that you were not sure that you had the Polar Cub A/C, since the unit reads "Duo-Therm" on it. We have the Polar Cub, and the unit on the top of your trailer does not look like our unit. It does look more like the Duo-Therm unit. You might want to check into this further, if it is important to you.

 

Steve

[phil underwood]

that looks excellent !!

[earthdancer]

Hi Herm, Welcome to the Oliver family! Your Oliver looks great! I just hope you enjoy your Oliver as much as Chuck and I enjoy ours. Right now we are in CA at Oceano Dunes RV Park enjoying miles and miles of beautiful sand dunes, the biggest I have ever seen!

 

Chuck and I live in Apalachicola, FL ( Florida panhandle area) a beautiful fishing village.

We are often called "The Forgotten Coast" because even though we have some of Florida's most beautiful beaches we are very rural. No large condo's, only one traffic light in the whole county, wonderful mom and pop local businesses and the best restaurants compared anywhere else in FL..... especially seafood restaurants! So if you end up in this part of Florida, please contact us! And no! I don't work for the Chamber of Commerce! I just truly love where I live! Just a mention, if you are a Walmart fan, or a McDonalds lover.......... you will have to drive 60 miles to the nearest Walmart, we don't have either one of those either!

 

We often meet with Sherry and Paul in central FL, so let us know when you are headed south!

 

http://phunnyfarm.blogspot.com/

[herm]

Thanks for all the compliments, everyone! We hope to get some good use out it next year, as I'm getting ready to winterize it soon. Hopefully we'll make it as far south as FL again, but it all comes down to where our vacation time balance sits...seems like there's never enough. We usually burn up 10 days every winter on a sailing trip, so that doesn't leave much for camping unfortunately.

 

BTW, I did confirm that I have the larger Dometic AC unit; however, Robert has generously offered to swap it out for me. I'm still trying to decide whether it's worth the hassle and expense, considering we usually camp at campgrounds with hookups. I just thought it would be nice to have the freedom to camp anywhere with the aid of a small generator. What do you people think...should I let them replace it? The other thing that's making this decision difficult is that I currently have a rather nice digital Dometic thermostat, and based on some photos I've seen the Coleman thermostat looks pretty basic.

 

Herm

[phil underwood]

id, keep the one you have...

[ScubaRx]

I would keep the bigger unit, you usually can't get too cool and if you do, you can always turn it down. If you are camping during warmer weather, it will prove to be a blessing, especially since you say you are usually where there are hookups.

 

I know you will love your Oliver, we certainly do. Now if we (like you) could just find more time to use it....

 

 

Steve and Tali

[SeaDawg]

We really like our Dometic... and I suspect both Coleman and Dometic generate about the same amount of noise. (On the few occasions we've used it, we actually welcomed the "white noise". At a rally we went to, we tried to sleep the first night without A/C, as we're accustomed to sleeping with the windows open and fresh air, but the highway noise kept me awake most of the night. The next two nights, we used the A/C, and I slept much better. Ditto at a couple state parks with hookups on Saturday nights... where a few young people were having too much fun to notice quiet hours...)

 

Personally, I think the Dometic has a more aerodynamic, sleeker looking cowl. We have a more basic model, I guess.... just high, medium, low... If you like the digital thermostat, and usually have hookups, I'd probably keep the Dometic.

 

We've never run our Dometic on the generator. We have two, a Honda 1000i we usually carry, which is definitely too small, and a Yamaha 3000i that sits in the garage because it's so heavy to lug around, but is good backup for Florida storms. Our Dometic will run on the household circuit from the garage, which has a 20 amp breaker.

 

Sherry

[dougi]

Our Coleman Polar Cub has only 2 speeds. If there is a lot of noise going on outside, the Coleman and the trailer walls will drown it out with no problem. Explosions may be another matter. The ac bothers my wife more than me and she wears two hearing aids when she's not trying to sleep.

 

A couple of Tylenol PM's right before bed helps some.

 

However, we do like our Oliver none the less.

[astrocaster]

Our Polar Cub actually doesn't make so much noise, considering that the entire unit is just a couple of feet from our heads, if we are standing in the rear of the Oliver. We got this A/C rather than the more electrically hungry Duo-Therm unit, so that we could run it with our Honda EU2000i generator. We have done so on several occasions with no problem, when shore power was not available.

 

Steve

[tumbleweed]

Hi Herm!

Congratulations. Hope ya'll love your Oliver as much as we do. Love your floor!

Our home base is over on the Florida panhandle and , like Seadawg, ya'll are welcome at anytime you're in our area! Mini rallies are fun!!!!! I was raised in La Crosse, WI thus FL winters!

Chuck n Geri n the critters

[bugeyedriver]

Herm,

 

Welcome to the family! Your trailer and graphics look great.

 

I've got the Polar Cub 9200 matched with a 46lb Honda 2000 watt generator. They work great together. I've been camping in south Texas during the summer at 104 degrees outside and had to turn up the temp so I wouldn't freeze Oscar.

 

With the wall mounted thermostat, I can place the A/C on cool, heat or fan only and place the fan on low / high ON or low / high AUTO. Haven't figured out how to make it walk the dog yet, but I'm still reading the manual.

 

Congrats on your trailer - have you named it yet?

[dougi]

Have any of you used the heating element in your Coleman Polar Cub? We tried it on a very cool morning near Hohenwald it and it quickly stopped working.

 

Oliver put a new heating element in our AC and the same thing happened. They called Coleman and were told that the heating element would get too hot and automatically trip the safety switch so as not to catch on fire. They said the unit would not push enough air volume across the hot coils to keep them from overheating, and that nothing could be done to stop this.

 

The Oliver technician and I concluded that if the heating elements were not functional in the Polar Cub, they should not be put in them to begin with. I don't know if Oliver is starting to leave them out now or not. If they get too hot and trip the safety switch, I think they should. Mine is now setting in my AC with a tripped switch.

 

Winter is coming. Maybe when the outside air is a lot colder, this won't happen.

[herm]

No Pete, I haven't even considered naming the Oliver. Heck, we haven't even named our boat yet and it's 6 years old! I suppose that's bad luck?

 

I'm still trying to determine what it would take to run my 13.5 kbtu Dometic with a generator. The owner's manual which I downloaded states 3.5kW minimum, but that seems to be overly conservative based on what I've been reading...and there's no way I'm hauling around a big monster like that. Most people recommend a 3000 watt unit (also not small), but some get away with a Yamaha 2400. If anyone has every tried the combination of a Yamaha 2400 and the 13.5 Dometic A/C, I'd like to know how (or if) that worked. The Yamaha 2400 (70 lbs.) is probably the largest unit I would consider.

 

If that doesn't pan out, I may have to consider getting the smaller A/C after all, though I'd hate to lose the digital thermostat. And based on what Doug's reporting, it sounds like I'd also lose the heatstrip feature (or reliable use of it anyway). Though I must admit I always fire up the propane heater, forgetting that the heatstrip is even there.

 

Herm

[bugeyedriver]

Herm,

 

I'm sure when you come up with a name it'll be perfect! I've only used my heat strips three times. No problems noted yet. When I'm connected to shore power, I usually use a very small ceramic style heater that sits on the floor. It works great. I only use the furnace when I'm away from shore power like tonight in the Redwood Forest.