FlyFishn

I just found a buddy of mine's TT is a Rockwood - 2104s. Do you have any more info on the "rot issues" you have noticed? IE - is the rot in certain areas? His is a 2019 and is in good shape so far but it would be good to know where to pay attention to for any potential issues.

Ah. Thanks for the suggestion. That was the brand I was trying to remember from when I looked at 5th wheels. At the time (maybe 8 years ago now) they had an arctic package that was said to be pretty nice in the realm of RV's for cold weather, comparatively. I am not sure that would stack up to a DRV on insulation, even still, but I'm sure it is a large leg up on a conventionally constructed RV.

I just went back over the Flagstaffs and Rockwoods. They all have slides - that was why I skipped over them - no suitable floor plans as we're looking for no slides. Though, they seem to be nicely appointed.

Are there any Travel Trailers (bumper pull, not 5th wheel) that are in a similar class to, say DRV Suites, but aren't quite the "tin can" of Airstream? I'm thinking like a conventional Travel Trailer design just more "solid" and residential plumbing, non-plastic counters, & quality fridge/appliances, not "cheap". Another factor is insulation - and that gets right back to DRV's - their insulation ability is on another level in the realm of RV's. I've been browsing a lot of them to get some ideas. Some brands/companies/manufacturers listed below: - Forest River (ALL brands) - Jayco - KZ - Keystone - Grand Design There are some floor plans that we'd like to check out, the KZ Sportsmen SE 270bhse is one. Just looking at the pictures I can tell how "cheap" it is - the bathroom sink, tub, and faucets look like kid toy plastic.

This is a scary thought... See red box: If they are making this suggestion then the stability is certainly a concern. As @Lou Schneider pointed out with the balance of having the weight centered ahead of the axle - that is a large part of it, for sure, but that may not be all of it.

To go along with the previous post of mine - regarding the freedom hauler behind the travel trailer - When I was researching 5th wheels back a few years ago one thing I was considering was a trailer hitch on the 5th wheel that was capable for towing trailers. What I found was VERY FEW 5th wheels have receiver hitches that are rated for towing, and at that they are very low weight - like 2-3k. There are a lot of 5th wheels that have receiver hitches on them, however you will find that the vast majority of them are only rated for accessory use (bike rack) - they are not rated for towing a trailer of any kind. Jayco has several models I looked at that had such said light towing rated hitches. It was explained to me then that the reason they don't rate the receivers on most 5th wheels for "towing" is because you run out of legal length real fast. That made sense when the guy explained it because when I looked in to it - only the shorter model 5th wheels had such towing rated hitches (like low 30ft range). Once you got over a certain size you did not find towing rated hitches. Just to inspect further I did look at the framing of the receivers when I was looking at some at a dealership and there was no difference between a towing rated hitch and an accessory-only rated hitch on comparable models. Obviously if you cross manufacturers (read that as manufacturing facilities - if you take the slew of manufacturers in Elkhart, IN for example - a bazillion "brands" all come out of the same factory and use the same Lippert frames so they likely share a lot of hard materials like hitches between said brands) then they likely have their own parts, unless they are purchasing, say, universal Lippert frames and building their own RV on a "standard" base.

Thanks for the idea. If the rear trailer/freedom hauler in the below linked picture was a box trailer that would be the exact scenario that would solve my issue - box trailer behind RV. But that looks too close to me like "double towing" and regardless of registration and insurance allowing it (if they do) I can see it being a red flag and highway patrol/DOT enforcement magnet if for nothing more than curiosity, at most inspection and hassle. https://www.freedomhauler.com/photo-gallery-1?lightbox=dataItem-k6z9qla610

I was looking online on some used listings a couple weeks ago and saw something like this - only it was all enclosed. The front 15-20' or so was built in to living quarters with a complete bathroom and bed - it was all in one "room" though. It gave me some ideas. For a "weekend race trailer" it might be one thing, but I suspect the better half would be a lot more comfortable in a nicer laid out/appointed set up. I have winches and use one of them all the time - its a life saver and a back saver. That is how I get non-self-propelled wheeled equipment in and out of the truck and hoist heavier stuff (I do have a lift that uses the same winch for the fiberglass cap on the truck, but I have not used it in about 4-5 years now). Wireless remote control is a blessing, also. I've had the brushes in the small winch lodge sideways before, but after opening the motor up and figuring out how the brushes track I know what to do if I need to do it in the field. Other than burning out the motor windings or shearing gears I don't think there is anything I can't field repair with it. I'm not worried on the brushes wearing down for a few more years.

You're only hitting on one aspect of what I said. You are missing the point about keeping the slide out joints insulated. On the points of the insulation - I was looking in to 5th wheels a few years ago and found a lot of the slide outs I inspected if you pulled up the carpet "flap" you could see daylight through the joint, in some cases you could clearly see the asphalt underneath the trailers. In the heat of the summer and the biting cold of the winter (more so cold) - that gap in the sealing of the components would be a large energy loss. The idea is to keep things "tight" so as to be able to more easily keep the temperature under control inside. The other aspect of winter use is how to insulate the underside/basement/utilities. I'll cross that bridge when I get there, but I did study that quite a bit when I was looking in to 5th wheels - best idea is to block in the underside of the trailer (seal it against the ground) with skirting, hay bales, or the like. That would be a rare use-case so I'm not overly concerned with thinking through the logistics there, but is something I am aware of. Speaking of cold weather - I know there are some winter packages you can get on some models that tend to increase the ability of the plumbing, specifically, to withstand "cold weather" (around freezing/slightly below, I don't know that there are any non-custom manufactured "RV's" that are capable, even with cold weather packages, to get down much below about 25deg for long - and I don't consider that "cold"). We had the water line to a shower trailer freeze with temps in the upper 20's one night, so that is a real concern - and if it gets that cold, or colder, there would have to be some other considerations - IE - disconnecting water supply and going to stored water inside (sponge bath instead of a shower). As to the complexity of disassembling/assembling trailer sections - the supposed trailer sections are external to the enclosed environment of the living quarters. If a slide-out gets stuck out and you risk damage to the trailer sides and mechanisms getting things back in place so you can go down the road that is what I am talking about. An example of one aspect of the modularity of my design - look at the sliding tandems on a box semi trailer. If you didn't know already - the vast majority of box semi trailers have "sliding tandems". The reason for this is exactly the same reason of what I was getting at with my initial design (in the drawing) - and what I got the idea from. You "slide" the axle position fore/aft to change the weight balance of the trailer. In the commercial world (and non-commercial, but non-commercial you don't hit weigh stations and chances are you aren't going to get a road-side porta-scale stop, but possible) you have axle weights and something called the "bridge law" to adhere to. With a box trailer you have some leeway to shift the weight between the truck tandems (drives) and the trailer tandems by moving the trailer tandems fore/aft. The catch to it is there are some states (I believe California is one of them) that have a DOT reg that says the wheelbase between the truck axles and trailer axles can't be longer than a certain number. On the trailers at the company I drove for we had marks on the trailers that were specific to those states - if we were routed through we would have to keep the axles ahead of the marks to stay legal. That was a two-fold problem - both the wheel base legality and the weight legality. So if the trailer wasn't able to be balanced for legal axles under the wheel base restriction then the trailer had to go back to the shipper to get the contents reloaded, or some removed, so both the weight and the wheel base were legal. I ran mostly spread axle flatbeds and curtainsides (10ft spread). Those were allowed 40k on the spread axles and 34k on the truck, whereas a traditional tandem trailer axle (box trailer) was 34k - 6k more on the spread axles. The easy weight balance was to load about 18" behind center - that would keep more weight on the spread axles and less on the truck. That way I always was OK on balance, but if I was much over 80k I'd have to get some weight removed from the shipper to be legal. I got in to arguments with some shippers starting the bracing behind where they were used to - but the reason was the weight distribution and I had way more room on the back than the truck so thats how I did it and never had a problem. Another example of trailers that "come apart" - look at RGN's - Removable Goosenecks. These are the low boy trailers that you see hauling machines like large excavators, combines, tractors. The gooseneck portion of the trailer literally disconnects. There are hydraulics that drop the front of the trailer to the ground and allow the gooseneck hitch (semi truck here - so king pin, not a ball) to remove entirely leaving the trailer deck and a couple stubby ramps on the ground to load the equipment. A couple other examples of some types of sliding, disconnecting, and segmented trailers - look at those used to haul telephone poles, some container dollies, windmill blade haulers, and concrete bridge girder dollies. The point is - there are tons of trailers out there that have sliding and removable parts and go down the road every day. The boat trailer we have at the lake is telescoping - it came with our 18ft boat but was a bit too short. I made it adjust to fit both it and our 16ft. Its rigid and handles great on the road. I've only used it long with the 18ft to go much distance. Generally speaking, the boats are pretty light comparatively though.

Thanks for the thoughts. We did think about truck campers. I didn't take the thought very far for exactly what you hit on - the length which gets right to the heart of the "living space" question. Although, your idea of the "truck camper on the front of a gooseneck trailer" is intriguing. That is a good visualization for what I was thinking with a conventional travel trailer if we went that route - that and the flatbed trailer. The idea would be to have it sit on stands just like your truck camper idea, just bigger. I've done a fair amount of fabrication (I have a few welders, band saw, drill press, and numerous power hand tools - grinders, saws, etc) so the idea of fabricating a large trailer frame doesn't bother me - its entirely in the realm of possibilities. However, the catch is the ability to register a home made trailer. I imagine it is possible. People build their own cars and airplanes so I don't see why making a trailer would be any less able to register/license. Several years ago I made a sectional trailer dolly (variable lengths out to around 20 feet) for shallow water trailer launching boats - the idea was so I didn't have to drive my truck in the lake to get trailers far enough to float boats in shallow waters. Yea it was a lot of work to make, but the end result works awesome. That isn't a trailer to go down the road, though, so I don't have to worry about registration and licensing on it.

Truck needs to be maneuverable and able to go off-road. Thinking of the suggestion - a box truck like a smaller u-haul is what comes to mind. I don't particularly want to do cross-country trips in a regular cab box truck. That also limits our people capacity. With the crew cab truck and proper set up (IE - can get the back seat clear instead of being cluttered with gear/trip stuff) we can get 5 people in there if need-be. Another vehicle also brings in to another registration and another round of insurance. The upside of the box truck idea is in normal conditions (if you can call it that?) - meaning regular streets - it would be more maneuverable than my truck and supposed "equipment trailer". At that point - that gets back to what I said about taking the truck by itself from home base if maneuverability is a concern - I would have the gear able to be stored at home base then load up what I need for what ever tasks. In that scenario - everything is still "there" accessible in the trailer, and not across the country back home. Last trip I was out I thought we were doing clean up and tree work and ended up doing construction for almost half the trip, for example. Those are two different categories of tasks that had I not had tools for all I would have not been prepared = need it all along all the time if for no other reason than "just in case". And that's exactly why I need space and organized stuff - so I am not digging under what I thought I would most likely need to get to the stuff I buried not thinking I would likely use it.

Here is an idea sketch I've been working on - no where near complete, just something to give some visualization. The original dimension I started with was 35ft combined length, 8.5ft wide, and 12.5ft total height (ground to top of roof). Edit - allowing 5ft of hitch equipment/framing and 43ft available for the space behind the truck (bumper pull style) that allows 43-5 = 39ft. So based off those numbers I can add 4ft to the below "living quarters" section (hard to read on the scale of the drawing, but I allocated 3ft for the back-weep angle of the V nose and 18ft for the bulk of the living quarters length - so with 4 more feet that is 22ft, or with the point included that is 25ft). If I built something from the ground up so I could utilize the space around and between the frame (plumbing, tanks, what have you) - the rear "equipment" section is what would get the axles once the "living quarters" section is parked. For some quick idea numbers - transitioning that idea to my "down the road" idea utilizing an existing travel trailer - have a flatbed that is long enough to park the travel trailer and an equipment trailer on it. Using the 65ft combined length - 22ft for truck that leaves 43ft. Balance and mechanically speaking - it would be easier to get the weight distribution percentages to OK numbers with a bed-mounted hitch (IE 5th wheel) - those numbers being roughly ~10% bumper pull/ ~20% 5th. With an estimated 3k available on the rear axle that's 15k gross @20% with a 5th. If I had the same gross on a bumper pull platform that would be 1500lb tongue weight @10%. Though, hitch is a class V and I believe 1700lb tongue/17k gross. That tongue weight is well under the axle rating. I am not sure if the scale of the image is going to come thru, but maybe at least the dark lines are visually descriptive enough.

I'm taking a wild swing, perhaps a swing and a miss, that the "travel trailer" area might be a good start to this one. So we'll see how this goes and where it ends up! We're looking at a way to combine comfortable living quarters with a smaller, able-to-be-separated equipment trailer. Ultimately what I need is a "trailer" that does both purposes that rolls down the road as "one" trailer. This way we can get away from pulling 2 trailers. Ironically, I do have a Class A CDL with doubles/triples endorsement. License isn't the issue on pulling doubles - its equipment and state regulations. I won't be in states that allow 2 trailers behind a pickup truck. So that is about it for the "regulatory" background for where the idea stems from. The application for what I am after is a way to travel with the one combination trailer for "living quarters" and "equipment". I need to be able to travel across the country, park the "living quarters" at a "home base", then tote the "equipment trailer" around separately. If I could combine purposes and haul the whole kit and kabootle then a "toy hauler" would work. However, this will not work for 2 reasons: 1. Hook ups. I don't want to have to connect/disconnect hook ups (what ever they are, what ever form they are) every time I leave and come back to home base. 2. Length. I am very apprehensive of even having a "short" equipment trailer. I've run in to several scenarios where I need to back up closed roads and turning around in those scenarios, with any trailer, is a PITA. Having a long toy hauler to try to maneuver in those conditions is a no-go. Most of the time I'll probably need the truck as a sole truck (no trailer) because of #2 above - easier to maneuver the bare truck. However, the "equipment trailer" will allow me to organize gear where in the truck (Leer 180 cap with windows - enclosed) doesn't have the space to get everything in and "organize it" to where things are easy to access - the trailer would give the space to do that. But if I can't take the "equipment trailer" at least having it at home base where things are organized will be a lot better than unorganized gear piled in the truck. One thought I have is to get a long flatbed trailer and park a suitable travel trailer on it and have a smaller box trailer on the back. However, that would get me 2 registrations - one for the flatbed and one for the box trailer. The travel trailer wouldn't even need axles (trimming as much weight as I can) - just have it on stands to drive out from under it, or leave it on the flatbed, and run around with the smaller trailer. The drawback to this is height and weight. A suitable flatbed would be a long heavy trailer and the deck height would be wasted height. If I had a sectional trailer frame and the "living quarters" portion was built up on said frame then the depth of the frame rails is usable depth for things like plumbing and tanks. When putting everything on top of an existing deck everything under and including the deck height is all wasted space. On edit - a point I do want to make is I am very aware of weights, balance, and axle positions. In a "split-able design" part of that would be movable axles to be able to shift axle/tongue weights. Obviously, if you take 70% of the trailer off and are left with 30% (or what ever the numbers end up being) the axle position for the 100% won't work for the 30%. Another thought is to go to a 5th platform - that would help with tongue/pin weight, but would make using the bed as-is very difficult - that is a down-the-road decision/bridge-to-cross. If I could go 5th and cart the truck's cap on the combination trailer somehow then converting the truck adding the cap isn't entirely out of the question, but would be more equipment and thought to set things up to be able to do that efficiently out away. An idea she came up with was a separate RV. On the surface it is an idea, but both of us don't like it because the travel time should be together time and to do that we need to ride together. What ever road we end up down, I'm thinking a starting point would be a travel trailer for living quarters for now - getting our own portable comfortable place (well - comfortable for her - if she's not happy no one's happy). Then at least we're a leg up on that end of it, with my truck still as the gear hauler (and we could have more, however small, but at least more space in the RV - stocked kitchen, propane appliances, generator power + accessories that aren't in the truck). The 5 requirements we have for the RV/living quarters are: 1. Full size queen bed 2. Roomy shower + bathroom (not a combination bathroom with a toilet in the "shower stall" and shower drain in the middle of the floor - a split shower/bathroom that is comfortable) 3. Functional kitchen - not super tight and compact. We don't want/need an entertainment/living area - just a place to sit and eat and would rather have the space allocation to entertainment/living be redistributed to the bathroom and kitchen space. 4. No slides. I don't want to deal with the mechanics of them (can be problematic) and I don't want the joints that are problematic for insulating and sealing. Uses will span summer heat to cold winters. 5. Length - 30ft or under for RV. I am trying to get the combination numbers to work out under 65ft. I want 14ft usable for the proposed "equipment" portion (but that is usable, not total which would include framing/hitch - and I don't have any drawings that numerically describe that yet, so I am not sure what the extra space requirement would be). The truck is about 22ft (f350 cclb). That leaves 36ft for the RV portion, framing, hitches - if set up as a bumper pull. So if I allocate a conservative 6ft to play with on framing/hitches that leaves 30ft for the RV portion - I think that is pretty reasonable, if not shorter. And again - the starting point is just the RV, but I need to lay out the numbers to think ahead as there is more to the overall idea down the road. If I don't have "down the road" in mind now I can easily shoot myself in the foot. If what ever supposed "starting point" ends up not working as a base to make the combination out of later, I can cross that bridge then. Right now I'm not there and if I don't set the numbers ahead of time as if it will work then I will start on the wrong foot in not making things work from the start - not what I want to do. I am not sure if even the above 5 are attainable - namely the lack of slides because that typically means things automatically get more compact (think Airstream, though quality they are pretty tight). Are there any RV's that come to mind that you think come close to checking most of the above boxes? Another idea is to start with an older unit and remodel it. However, depending on the extent of remodeling I would be tempted to build one from the ground up instead - then instead of trying to make something existing "work" I could have free range of all the design/build parameters. That would be a lot of time and work, though - hence trying to find something as a starting point that would work as-is. Other than "You're nuts" or "You're crazy" (I do tend to be "outside the box" on a lot of ideas) - does anyone have any thoughts that might help me in working through ideas etc? One large stumbling block I am finding is the RV industry caters to "what sells" and that means designing for the market en mass, unless you go full custom which is extraordinarily expensive and takes a long time. What I am after is more of a specialty. So how can I find existing "starting point" units that might be less "specialty" but suit our purposes?

I have been watching the market for a small generator that has switchable 120 only or 120/240 split phase. I haven't come across anything that checks all the boxes: Electric start Switchable 120 only or 120/240 split phase ~4000w (close to that or over running, 4500-5k starting) Inverter Dual fuel or tri-fuel (gas/propane at least, if not Natural Gas ready) Out of curiosity - do you need 220/240v for running a device on that voltage? Or are you wanting 2 legs of 120v which you get off a traditional 240v split phase alternator on a rotary generator (same as house power)? If you need 240v - for what? I have been curious about that because the only devices I have that run 240v are mostly too large to run off a "small" generator - electric dryer, whole house AC, and welding machines. I don't know of anything that an RV would have that would need 240v - hence my curiosity.

Thanks for the reply. Voltage under load with the AC running was 123 volts. The kicker to that measurement - the voltage was measured AT the air conditioner (meter was between the power cord on the AC and the power distribution box) and the main cable run from the generators was around 140 feet (the large gray cable in the picture is all 6 gauge SER). We had generators set well out of camp deeper in the woods to keep the noise down. In other words, the voltage was fine - regardless of the length we didn't have significant voltage drop. The other unit is a 15kw rotary with a GX690 engine. Interesting to note - with the AC running the line voltage was the same 123v on the big kahuna also. The pressure switch is associated with the compressor, it doesn't have anything to do with electrical current draw or temperature - there is a small copper feeder tube that connects to the compressor circuit somehow and that pressure sense line is what the switch functions/trips off of. One of the theories I have is the vent hose perhaps causing too much back-pressure. However, that back-pressure would affect the fan that is blowing out/venting the hot air. If the pressure in the vent hose goes up then the load on the blower fan goes up = it draws more current. That current is NOT what is tripping the "pressure switch" - it can't. Electrical amperage and pressure are apples and oranges. So where is the connection between the air pressure in the vent hose causing the load on the fan motor to go up and the "pressure" that the AC compressor sees going up? Is there a temperature component to this - in that the ambient temperature being above a certain number causing the "pressure" that the pressure switch sees to be above it's trigger point? Or is the higher pressure in the vent hose causing inadequate cooling (from the venting of the hot air being lower) which is raising the temperature of something that is raising the pressure above the trigger point of the pressure switch? And if so - the purpose of the AC, from the get-go, is to drop the ambient temperature. So that temperature theory seems like an oxymoron - it makes the AC akin to a giant paperweight.

Have generators. The AC unit I have will run on the EU2200i with eco mode off. It starts hard, yes, but will and will run (kinda one of those if it starts it will run deals - running load is significantly less than starting). The operational issue with it is a pressure switch keeps tripping - I've bee trying to troubleshoot that, and am thinking about bypassing the pressure switch, but if I have to go that far with it and risk blowing up the compressor then what else is on the market that might better suit the environment than what I am trying to "make work"? As far as troubleshooting - the unit runs daily in a house with no issues (its running as I type this - been reliable for years). Just something about the unit out of the house changes and it doesn't run well.

The stand-alone room form factor is the most versatile. I can use it anywhere I can route a vent hose - cabins and tents too. A window-mount unit is hard-mounted and not versatile, same for roof top.

Do any of you have experience with any in-room air conditioners that are worthy of looking in to? What I am curious about are units that are already set up with soft start for running on generator power and that are good quality - IE actually cool, dont trip "breakers" or "resets", and will last. I have a Honeywell 9k BTU unit that has served well at home but taking along camping it doesn't do well. It is bigger and heavier than I want to tote along also, so something smaller and more convenient is desired. Although, I want to watch the BTU's - I don't want to skimp on the cooling capacity so if I need to size up for that reason I probably would.

I got the specs off my truck's stickers today. Its a cummins 320hp engine (CNG) mated to an Allison 3000 RDS trans (freightliner 114SD, 39k gvw). I have not played with the different trans modes but I do know I can run it in simulated manual. I have never messed with it, though, so I am not sure if it will allow skipping. I will say the only nuance of note is the brake pedal has to be pressed for it to shift between f, n, r. I do a lot of forward/backward cycles and sometimes that doesn't sync well (operator error/ergonomics, not the transmission). I doubt that would ever be a concern in any other service though. The truck is pretty slow. I'm not sure if being CNG is why it is as sluggish as it is, or if its the HP, so that was what prompted the thread - to get some input from others. It is interesting to get some experience with different trucks/equipment and have that to lean on later. Some in the thread mention the feathering ability when hooking up. I can see where that would be an important point. Though I had to bump a lot of semi kingpins hard at times to get the hook to latch in some other trucks. I wouldn't want to hit a lighter trailer like that, though - purposefully or not. I have to maneuver my current truck in tight spots most of the time I'm running it and have 0 problems with precise forward/backward positioning. Another nice thing I've come to enjoy about the rig. I did some poking around our fleet and we have some newer trucks with M2 Business Class on the side. I assume they are 112's, I can check the spec stickers. I believe they are CNG also. While digging in to pulling rigs before one of the usual comments with the M2-106, and I thought the M2-112 also, was how "small" they were inside. I did have to run out a couple weeks ago in an older International (2000-2005 vintage) that was definitely a smaller cab (don't know what model or gvw, but it was a heavier medium duty - class 5 or 6 maybe) for a few hours and it was definitely tighter in there - fine for what I was doing and the time I was in it, but that was a good reality check. My 114SD and over-the-road truck (2018 International LT), speaking of the front of the cab (114SD is a day cab, LT was a mid-height sleeper) they are pretty much the same size. If I am correct - registration and vehicle class go off of the axle weights, which in turn adds up to the gvw (like my work truck is 16k front/23k rear = 39k combined). So from an ownership perspective (reg, ins) it wouldn't matter what size the cab was or how long the wheelbase was - just the weights are what count.

I assume most here would prefer automatic transmissions. What do some of you prefer for transmissions and hp/engine? My current work truck is a single axle freightliner 114SD, auto (39k gvw). I haven't spent much time in an auto until now and have honestly not ever given them much thought. The ones I drove a few years ago (freightliners also, cascadias from 2012-2015 MY's) drove me up a wall so I went manual and stayed there for my over-the-road truck. The auto truck I run now actually works. Its under-powered but for local use it gets the job done. I am not sure what trans is in it off the top of my head but it is a cummins engine - CNG. If the truck was diesel and had more power it would be an excellent hauler. I have 0 complaints on the transmission shifting. What I do have trouble with is getting up to speed = need more power, especially under load. I'm just curious what some of you are running and are happy with on trans/engine/hp combos. I know a lot of the HDT RV crew runs converted used/retired over-the-road semi tractors. The older (say, pre-2017 or so) generation autos never seemed to work very well from what I experienced before. The guys in the fleet I was over-the-road with that had autos always had problems backing and maneuvering at slow-speed (why I never ran one and stuck to manuals). The contrast in the truck I'm in now (auto) is the root of my question - if it were a semi tractor with more power to run at highway speeds with as good of shifting it would be a pleasure to run. I've just never had that pleasure... Hence why I'm asking 😄

Thanks for the info. The Platinum Cat heaters look interesting. Lots of good info and ideas in the rest of the thread. As to discussing heating in June - yep. Planning. That's all. We don't need AC much at all, have it if we need it, but haven't used it in a few years. The idea of getting heat is to stretch seasons. So, on the subject of alternative energy (mentioned in the first post) - planning must include how to deal with all energy and heating, all of it at the moment being electric, is something that can be moved over to gas - if all things considered say it is a logical idea. As soon as a heat source is deemed to run on electricity then the challenges of providing that go up significantly. My idea is to combine solar and wind power. Hot water is the biggest challenge (hot water heater). The other sources (clothes dryer and room heating) aren't as big of a concern, but still will need to be thought through. Cooking is going to all propane regardless (range/oven upgrade, grills and burners have always been propane). So again - if the logistics of propane heat (the subject of the thread) make it make sense (and the emissions are part of that - looks like the way to go is a vented design - both for the emissions aspect as well as the humidity aspect) then that would be the direction to go. Everything right now is in the planning phase - looking at options, researching, gaining ideas, thoughts, input, and hearing others' experiences are all part of that. So thanks for the info thus far!

I have been researching heating options. Long story short, I am trying to go away from electric - at least moving to 100% off-grid. With that having been said, electric heating (all sources - water, cooking, clothes dryer, and climate) is where the bulk of energy is used. So by getting another source of energy for the heating sources - propane in this case - the electrical usage will significantly be reduced. Enter propane heaters. There seem to be a lot of negative thoughts surrounding ventless designs due to low-levels (and even difficult to measure low levels) of CO or CO2 (both being byproducts of the combustion process). One of the advantages of a ventless design is the burning efficiency. My understanding is inefficiency in the burning process is what leads to CO and CO2 production. Note that CO and CO2 production is not the same as oxygen consumption (another issue, but a totally different subject). I've read and watched youtube videos. The ventless designs have been implemented in countless RV's and homes. It appears those markets are the target markets for such heaters. What are peoples' thoughts on them here? If you are using propane for your main heat (as opposed to supplemental heat) - what does your system look like? What type of source, how many? What climate are you staying in that requires the heat? How much propane do you go through in a week or month?