The aging RVer

I am sitting here tonight comtemplating that in two days I will “celebrate” my 67th birthday.  On this event I am looking at our current and future RVing situation and wondering what the near future holds for this “aging RVer”?? With today’s modern medical advances, 67 is not really “old”, but for certain, I have noticed a difference in my abilities to live the RV lifestyle.  In particular I have become keenly aware of limitation on my efforts to keep the motorhome clean, and polished.  In the past I would spend hours washing, waxing, and meticulously cleaning the coach, taking pride in removing even small spots.  This year the days have flown by and my RV sits in the driveway with a nice even coating of road dirt.  Believe me this is something that in years past, would not have happened.  Yet I simply cannot find time in my day to get the dirt off like I used to.  My thought is that there used to be 24 hours in a day. Now it seems more like 18 or 19.  Obviously this is a reflection of my diminishing energy level and reduced ability to get everything done that I want to do. My brain still works, at least I think it does, but my physical body just doesn’t get things done as quickly as it used to, nor does it keep going as long as it used to.  This situation is of course, a source of great frustration to me, and something I have to live with every day. So, I not only adjust my daily schedule to accomodate my reduced stamina,... Read more

Upgrade your RV water pump

A couple of years ago I decided to upgrade the water pump in my motorhome.  I did this for a couple of reasons.  First, I wanted to be able to take a nice, hot, shower with lots of water pressure.  Second, I can’t resist tinkering with the RV!  I did some research and decided on the Shurflo Extreme series, 5.7 because at the time, it was the state of the art in RV water pumps.  I was really looking forward to the increased water pressure and flow at my shower head. As with any RV project, this one was not simple.  And as with most RV projects, there wasn’t enough room to do the conversion.  However, with a lot of maneuvering and manipulating I was able to mount the new Shurflo into the same area as my old OEM pump.  One thing I did do was check out and upgrade my electrical supply system for the pump.  My original OEM pump was fused with a 10 amp fuse which was adequate for the OEM pump.  However, the new Shurflo is designed to do more work, and thus pulls more amps than the original one.  For this reason, Shurflo recommends a 15 amp fuse for the 5.7.  Before installing a larger fuse, I checked to verify that the wire feeding the new pump was large enough to carry the additional amps, which it was. The next problem was that the OEM Intellitec water pump controller, P/N 00-00145-100 was rated for a max of 10 amps and Shurflo recommends changing to the larger Part Number:00-00776-200 that is designed to handle 15 amps. After I got the new pump installed and plumbed,... Read more

RVIA Show, New Product Introduction

One subject that will always create a lot of conversation on the various RV forums is when someone asks about running their air conditioner via an invertor, powered by batteries.  The educated consensus is typically that you can probably do it, but the energy storage capacity of a battery bank will not power the A/C unit for any significant amount of time, thus rendering the system practically useless.  I worked a little math on this and, assuming my math is correct, a typical 13000 BTU coleman A/C unit will consume about 3800 watts per hour and a set of Trojan T-105 6 volt batteries, fully charged, has about 5400 watt hours available, or less than 2 hours of operation until the batteries are fully discharged.  Since we don’t want to discharge our batteries more than about 50%, or about 2700 watt hours, or in terms of a cold RV, about 42 minutes of operation.  In other words, not a very practical arrangement. Enter the Topleader Group Limited our of Dongguan China who were showing their line of DC operated roof top A/C units.  The photo below shows their DL-1200 unit. According to their literature, the AC unit operates on 24 volts DC, at 600 watts, and produces from 6200 BTU cooling.  I am going to assume that in the air conditioner has an internal inverter which converts the battery DC voltage to AC in order to run the compressor, either that or it actually operates with a DC motor.  Either of these schemes would be different from the typical US made A/C unit which... Read more

RVIA Expo 2010 Wednesday Dec. 1

Greetings from Louisville, Kentucky! Wednesday, Dec. 1.  Today was a very busy day at the RVIA Expo here as we prowled the aisles of the show for about 8 hours, looking at an amazing array of RVs and RV accessories.  Yesterday I posted some photos of a recent innovation from Monaco using a telescoping slide to provide a wider floorplan on their motorhomes.  Today I took a photo of the outside of the slide which I think, shows the operation of the slide a little more clearly. The slide depth totals 50 inches, consisting of a 32″ main slide and an 18″ second section.  When coupled with an 18″ slide on the curb side, the total slide width measures 68″, which I believe is the widest in the industry. Read more  Read More →

RVIA Expo, Nov. 30, 2010

Greetings from Louisville, Kentucky! Today was the opening day for the annual RVIA trade show here, and our initial impressions are that the industry is very upbeat about the future.  The day started off as usual, with the opening breakfast and industry presentation by the RVIA.  The reports indicated that all segments of the industry, motorhomes, towables, etc, experienced a significant increase in sales compared to 2009.  Of course, 2009 was by all reports, a disaster, so beating that sales level wasn’t too difficult.  Forecasts for future sales do indicate future growth, and hopes are high that will in fact be the case. Read more  Read More →

RVIA Expo. Monday Nov. 29

Greetings to all from Louisville, Kentucky!  Linda and I are parked at the Expo center campground.  (Under the topic of “name dropping”, we are next door to Bob Tiffin’s son’s motorhome)  It is nice to see that at least some of the manufacturers actually “go rv’ing”! Since  the actual show doesn’t start until tomorrow, we went over to the center, registered, and then went on a tour of Louisville, and our main objective was to visit the Louisville Slugger factory and take the factory tour.  If you are in the Louisville Ky area, and if you have ANY interest in baseball (and what good American doesn’t?), this is the place to go.  The factory, museum, and gift store are all located together, downtown, near the Ohio river.  The downtown area is very clean, and parking in this area is plentiful.  We parked right across the street from the museum, and of course took the requisite photo of the world’s largest baseball bat. Read more  Read More →

RVIA EXPO, LOUISVILLE KY

Linda and I are getting the motorhome ready for our annual trip to Kentucky to attend the RVIA show in Louisville to gather information on the general state of the RV industry, and to view new products at the show.  We will be reporting on events as they occur, here on RV.net blog. Read more  Read More →

And taking the Checkered Flag………..

Number One   Several years ago, early in our experience with RVs, we were at the Spartan factory for service on our Coachmen motorhome.  During that visit, we were fortunate to become acquainted with a couple there who were in their seventh year of full time living in their motorhome.  We went to breakfast with these folks and spent a long time listening to their adventures as full timers.  When we returned to the service shop, they were kind enough to give us a tour of their motorhome, explaining various features of the coach that fit into the full time life style.  Their motorhome was a Newmar Dutchstar, and from that day, I have always believed that the Dutchstar was a great coach for full timers, perhaps more so than any other make or model of motorhome.  Therefore, it was interesting to me that, when I conducted my recent survey of diesel motorhomes, that the Newmar Dutchstar finished in first place.  This would not have been my initial prediction, but looking at it with 20-20 hindsight, it all makes sense to me.  First of all, Newmar makes a great motorhome, a fact that will be confirmed by many Newmar owners.  Second, the Dutchstar is a great motorhome, with many fine features, quality construction, and solid factory support.  What I found to be unusual, was that the Dutchstar met so many of my specific requirements, at least enough to finish in the top spot in this list.  Actually, the Dutchstar finished only slightly ahead of the Winnebago Tour in points and... Read more

White Flag lap on the journey to find the Perfect DP

  Number 2 Winnebago Tour BD               When I saw the Winnebago Tour at an RV show in Cleveland last January, I was immediately impressed with the layout, the features and the overall package offered by Winnebago.  We were with some friends and encouraged them to take a “tour” to see for themselves as they were in the market for a new coach.  The Tour BD is a beautiful motorhome with many of the features on our original list including passenger side dinette, queen bed standard with king option, a high quality water manifold system and effective battery charging system.  One area where the Tour really shines is the water tank storage capacities.  The Tour finished at the top of the list in this area with a 90 gallon fresh water tank, 94 gallon gray water tank and 57 gallon black water tank.  These capacities really lend themselves to boon docking with the Tour.  The BD also features a 42” LCD TV mounted in the driver side slideout that can be viewed while the slide is in, and can be watched comfortably from anywhere on the huge “L” shaped couch.  This particular feature merits further comment due to the clever way that Winnebago has built the couch to collapse when the slide is in, or expand when the slide is out.  You almost have to see the couch being “operated” to appreciate this feature.  The Tour features bottom mounted mirrors and wipers along with a large, single piece front windshield.   It is in the area of “negative” features... Read more

Approaching the final lap in our search for the perfect DP

Number 3 Forest River Charleston 410FS       I am as surprised as many of you are that the Charleston finished this high on the list.  I still have misgivings, but I have no place to go, it is my rating system that gave this result.  The fact that the Charleston finished this high is because of an interesting combination of features and options that fit right into the list I prepared before doing the review.  I did make one exception in my list, that is the higher rating for a 5 slide floorplan.  I have been in this motorhome at a couple of shows and really like the 3 zone layout Forest River talks about.  I guess my excuse here is that in this case, more is better.  The “living room” up front makes really good use of the space occupied by the driver and passenger seats which have a good view of the TV in that area.  The kitchen is large, but isolated from the living room.  The dinette is on the passenger side, and there is a TV in the dinette area as well.  Both TVs are viewable even with the slide in.  This is a great arrangement when Linda and I want to watch different shows on TV.  This floorplan also features a side aisle type bathroom.  Some of the other features the netted the Charleston a high rating include 4 point hydraulic leveling, standard queen bed with king option, a very nice water system control panel in the basement, optional basement entertainment center, side hinge basement doors, bottom mounted wipers, and a manual awning.   There are... Read more

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