RE: Do tires have to be changed at a certain age?
As my signature says, it is a 2004 Everest we bought new! Since this is 2013, my guess is the tires are more than 5 to 7 years old!
Might have to revive and modify the old saying I used about boating!
An RV is a fibreglass whole on the highway into which you shovel money !
Do tires have to be changed at a certain age?
We took our 5er to the local RV dealer because a branch fell over the winter and cracked a vent cover. Currently fixed with duct tape!
He said he is an inspection station and will have to check the tires and read the sidewalls to see if they are too old and have to be replaced! Is this real or is he trying to rip me off! We live in Maryland and the tires look fine, plenty of tread and the sidewalls are in no way cracked.
RE: Walmart, Internet on the Go
Do you have a smartphone? If so you can use it for a "free" hotspot with Foxfi
If not you can buy an older model Mifi on ebay and turn it on and off with no contract. I bought an older Verizon 760 for $10. before switching to a smartphone.
This option looks interesting. My contract runs out with Verizon in 9 days. I was already planning to get a new phone, Now I can take the list of supported phones with me to their store and get a phone supported by this ap.
From the looks of it, it will be even less expensive than the Walmart option. I’m fairly certain that when you have one of their phones the Internet service can be pay as you use it, even at higher rates, this will be cheaper than paying every month for something I rarely use.
BTW, I currently have a dumb phone, but this might prompt be me to move up to maybe 5th grade, not ready for college level smart yet!
Walmart, Internet on the Go
Internet to go
Is anyone using this service for sporadic Internet access when you only camp a few weekends a year?
If so, how pleased are you with the service? I definitely don’t want to get into something that requires a monthly fee so I can use it 5 or 6 times a year!
RE: Internet while traveling
Amazing! Someone asked the exact question that I want to know about!
I am interested in information about "pay as you go" internet access. I am not interested in paying a monthly fee since we would only use the service intermittently. I presently use Virgin Mobile but am not satisfied with their coverage areas. My wife has an iphone but I think we would have to pay a monthly fee to use it for our laptop. Any suggestions?
Internet on the road where you don’t have to pay a monthly fee, just pay for what you use!
If I counted right there have been 14 answers so far and only one of those who replied actually read the original question.
There is only one actual pay for what you use plan that I have heard of and thats Internet to go through walmart. It uses sprint towers and its just 3G speed.
All others charge by the month i think.
I followed your link rvjames and the plan looks perfect. Thanks for reading the question and answering what Dennis asked.
Does anyone else have an answer to the original question?
I just checked out T-mobile, and of course they said they do have those kinds of plans, but the link they sent me to all said good for 1 month, 7 days, 30-days, etc.
The Walmart plan is a bit spotty in some parts of the country, but looks good in the MD, WV, PA, DE area where we do almost all of our camping!
RE: Generator to power house
A lot of running a few things, like the frig and freezer, on regular power cords depends on how much you want to run. In our case, we are not on city water so we would like to run the well pump so we can do things like flush the toilets. That just can’t be done with an extension cord.
You have to power the main panel with 240 volts and there are only two ways to do this. You can spend $5,000 to $20,000 for a dedicated whole house system that is hard wired into a system that senses the normal power outage and auto converts to backup then switches back when the normal power returns.
The other option is to run your panel, including well pump, from a portable generator for about $1,000. This does require what people are calling the suicide cord. Most people plug this cord into their dryer outlet which is 240 volts and can power both sides of their panel box.
That isn't true. Your pump is probably hardwired. You can install the correct receptacle near the pump with the matching plug on the cord. When power goes out you unplug the pump from the receptacle and plug it into the generator via an extension. Very easy to do, is inexpensive and safe.
Literally a true answer, but not practical, at least not in our case. The pump and panel are at the far end of the house from the garage/ outside freezer / kitchen frig.
If we run the generator outside the garage, we would need a 30amp 240volt extension cord over 50 feet long at a minimum, very expensive to get one with little or no voltage drop.
Second option would be to run the generator in the basement near the water pressure tank, but that is worse than the “suicide cord”! We would merely take the guesswork out of wether we die during the power outage!
RE: Generator to power house
I'm trying to figure out what's wrong with some drop cords routed along the walls for a few days??
I don't have a generator but I'm just trying to understand.
I'd probably just spend the coin to do it right. Can't be terribly expensive.
Kind of like RV'ing. You don't need a HD truck until you "REALLY" need a HD truck.... Then it's too late.
I have images on my sons trying to hook up the RV to the generator in the future and one of them grabbing the suicide cord. Next thing I know I have 1 dead son, another who lives with the fact that he started the generator and me knowing that my cheapskateness killed my boy.
Murphy's law follows me and I can't afford to give it an opportunity like this.
To each his own, YMMV, just be safe.
A lot of running a few things, like the frig and freezer, on regular power cords depends on how much you want to run. In our case, we are not on city water so we would like to run the well pump so we can do things like flush the toilets. That just can’t be done with an extension cord.
You have to power the main panel with 240 volts and there are only two ways to do this. You can spend $5,000 to $20,000 for a dedicated whole house system that is hard wired into a system that senses the normal power outage and auto converts to backup then switches back when the normal power returns.
The other option is to run your panel, including well pump, from a portable generator for about $1,000. This does require what people are calling the suicide cord. Most people plug this cord into their dryer outlet which is 240 volts and can power both sides of their panel box.
RE: Generator to power house
I live in an area where we lose power often, it has been much better the last few years, but we would lose it for several days at a time.
What I do, and many of my neighbors, is to make up a cord that one end plugs into the 240v of the generator, and put a dryer plug on the other end that matches your electric dryer outlet.
Turn off the main breaker (of course), plug the one end into the dryer outlet (after you unplug the electric dryer, of course). Fire up the generator, then plug into it. You now have power to all outlets.
Ken,
What you posted is exactly what everyone else in my neighborhood who has a generator does. Run the output of the generator into the dryer outlet. And that requires basically the same double male wire that we are talking about. One male end fits into the generator, the other male end fits in to the dryer outlet.
Unless you want to spend thousands to have the system hard wired into your home, this is the way most people do it. And, if you are hard wired, the generator is only usable to feed “your” home; you can’t do what a number of people in our neighborhood do. They, and I will also, unplug their home for a few hours each day of an outage, place their generator in the back of their truck, and drive around to their neighbors to let them plug in their fridge and freezer for a couple hours each day. It’s called being a neighbor!
All we are going to do is use the RV outlet instead of the dryer outlet.
RE: Generator to power house
Now that the heat has died down, let me tell you what we plan to do.
First, we realize that there are two highly dangerous points that we have to address.
1. We must disconnect from the main before we turn on any generator.
2. We have to be extremely careful of the double male end extension cord we use.
Step to turning on power:
1. Turn off main at breaker box
2. Turn off electric furnace at breaker box
3. Unplug RV from 50-amp 240 volt outlet.
4. Plug 30-amp male to 50-amp male plug into both generator and RV outlet.
5. Then and only then, turn on generator.
Yes, the double male wire is dangerous. But the system that can run the entire house / less heat and A/C was about $1,000. Hard wired systems usually cost about $5,000, and you can’t use the generator for anything else. To avoid the double male wire, it has to be hard wired!
Generator to power house
If you park your RV in the driveway with a dedicated electrical outlet, has anyone ever used the outside 30 or 50 amp outlet for your RV to back-power your house with a generator during a power outage?
Truck Bed Holding Tank
Not sure what to call what we are looking for!
We are headed to a state park with water and no sewage. The blue totes are nice, but we will need to make a lot of trips pulling the tote behind the truck. Looking for some type of system where we can pump the sewage up to a larger holding tank in the bed of the truck, drive to the dump station with everything in one trip and unload from the bed of the truck.
Is there such a system available?
RE: Which Generator?
We’ve ordered the generator. The noise level does not make much of a difference to us. It will be used away from the home (near our RV) during power outages. Rarely while camping if ever.
We chose this generator due to the convenience and clean burning of propane vs gas.
Looks like the auto-changeover is not possible for feeding a 10 – 15 PSI supply to their regulator. We plan to connect their high pressure regulator to a T which will have two ball socket turnoffs leading to two tanks. 40lbs will last about 16 hours. We can feed the system from both tanks, then change both out every 12 hours. If we have 6 tanks on hand we can get propane every 24 hours as needed.
RE: Auto changeover LPG generator?
If you're using the gen for backup power, then getting the propane tanks filled could be a problem. The filling station probably doesn't have any power either. A larger propane tank would be the solution. Another option is to reduce home power usage when operating the gen.
What about natural gas? Is it plumbed to the house?
We are in the "sticks!", no NG. Yes, you are correct if we are talking about another Sandy storm, But our problem is mainly that the electric goes out once or twice a year, and generally for less than 24 hours.
Sandy was a 36 hour outage in our part of MD.
Looks like, if the manual change valve will not allow for both tanks at once, then we can just take the two 30 lb tanks out of the RV and switch back and forth twice a day. Leave a 20 lb tank in line daily while we take the 2 30's to get refilled.
RE: Auto changeover LPG generator?
The big problem with having just a single tank on line is that it runs out of fuel about every 6 to 8 hours of use. Having two tanks on line at once would give us 12 to 16 hours so we could change the tanks just twice a day. But as stated, if the valve only allowed one tank at a time, going out every 6 hours would not be the end of the world. As stated, switching to the full tank would not require a shut down of the engine.
Yes, checking the oil during a shut down is a good idea, and we would probably do that once a day, but at a planned time when we could first turn off everything in the home. Don't want to have things turn off without warning a couple times a day.
RE: Auto changeover LPG generator?
First of all we just ordered the generator with the single tank high pressure hose.
Option 1: Just use one tank at a time and let the house go dark about every 8 hours. This is want we are trying to avoid!
Option 2: Looks like high pressure changeovers are available, but they are commercial grade and very expensive.
Option 3: Check into connecting the low pressure output of a standard RV style changeover system to the NG inlet. I would have to check this out completely with the manufacturer because I don’t want to do anything the wrong way. This option does not seem possible.
Option 4: And this looks like the best option so far; if I can find the parts:
Try to find a Manual throw over manifold:
http://www.protanksupply.com/images/productimages/3ball.gif
where the throwover lever works in 3 position; tank a, both tanks, tank b.
Hook up two 20 lb tanks giving us 16 hours of power, then twice a day, switch to tank a, replace tank b, switch to tank b, replace tank a, switch to center position to use propane from both full tanks at the same time and take the first two tanks up to get them topped off. If we keep 6 tanks on hand, we can go for refills once a day.
Again, we will have to find specs to show that the manifold works properly in a “both tanks” position.
Auto changeover LPG generator?
I’m winging this question, so my “facts” might not be totally accurate.
We are looking at the Power Land PD3G8500E generator for our home in case of power outages and also to take boon docking. The propane supply line includes a high pressure regulator, 10 to 15 lbs:
http://static.zoovy.com/img/wildcollections/W200-H150-Bffffff/P/pd_hose.jpg
Which connects to the generator’s regulator:
http://static.zoovy.com/img/wildcollections/-/P/pd3g8500e_4x.jpg
A single 20lb propane tank lasts up to 8 hours which would mean the generator would have to be shut down at least 3 times a day to change propane bottles.
We’d like to hook this baby up with a pair of propane tanks with auto changers like our RV system.
As we understand it, the output of the dual tank regulator is 11 inches, (low pressure), not 10 to 15 lbs (high pressure).
Also, the Generator’s regulator has two connections, one for LPG and the other for NG. It is our understanding that the NG comes in as low pressure. Could we just use the autochangeover and connect it directly to the NG port?
RE: Propane changeover switch
I think I've discovered the real answer. Should have read everything before making my post! It looks simple and I've contacted power land to see if it can be done. This is the regulator on the generator:
http://static.zoovy.com/img/wildcollections/-/P/pd3g8500e_4x.jpg
The specs say:
Special carburetor and secondary gas regulator allows the engine to operate on the most convenient fuel-gasoline, LP gas or natural gas.
LPG inlet pressure: between 10-15 psi.
NG inlet pressure: between 0.5-1 psi.
LPG & NG end fitting: 3/8" Flare/S.A.E
If I read this correctly, the LPG inlet requires 10-15 PSI which, from all the calls I've made, is not readily available in an auto changeover dual tank setup. All the dual tank setups for RV and non-RVs have a two stage regulator which first reduces the pressure to 10-15 PSI, then reduces that to 11 inches for direct feed into the various RV/other systems.
11 inches is about 0.5 PSI, so it looks like I can just connect the output of the dual tank regulator directly to the NG inlet and rotate the yellow handle to the NG position!
RE: Propane changeover switch
Just got off the phone with the tech at Power Land. Their supply line requires a 10 to 15 PSI regulator. This si the one they sell with the unit:
http://static.zoovy.com/img/wildcollections/W200-H150-Bffffff/P/pd_hose.jpg
I'm looking on line for auto changeover regulators, but can't find the PSI rating on any of them. Any idea which ones are 10 to 15 PSI?
