Kirk W

l have owned an RV of some type, since 1972 all of which have had a converter of some make & model. Most of those RVs were kept for at least 5 years and several were used but this is the very first converter failure that I have experienced. In trying to figure out what may be different this time, the most apparent thing is that it is the only one from WFCO, if that means anything. Based on my 40 years of earning a living troubleshooting & repairing equipment most of which had internal power supplies, I suspect that the majority of failures are due to excess heat, but they could also just wear out. Heat us a major cause of failure in electronic and electrical devices. Of course, quality of parts and construction are also very significant contributors. WFCO is not a brand that is often mentioned on lists of electrical upgrades or recommended replacement equipment.

I spoke too soon! My WCCO converter has died so now I'm about to replace it. I plan to upgrade to the PD4135.

Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation information....

His domain has expired so the email that I have is not good either. Might be that he is retiring?acmac@macthefireguy.com@macthefireguy.com

If I were buying one of those two, it would be the 2000 watt one but I think that you probably should check the reviews on it before you purchase it as the price is far below that of the major brands like Honda, Yamaha, or Bolly. The recharge rate of your batteries will depend on not only the output of your RV's converter but also that of the generator as it must supply enough power to allow the converter to use it maximum output. Your 160-watt solar panel will put out a maximum of 13a when in direct sun and on a completely clear day. That would leave you very little excess over what your lights & appliances will require. It will only be the excess that is ever seen by your battery. Let me suggest that before you buy anything, you should take the time to read Mark Nemeth's article "The 12V Side of Life" so that you have some understanding of what it is that you are dealing with.

Boo! Hissssssssss!

If you plan to keep your commercial, it exceeds the requirement.

While it has been a couple of years since we were shipping, I liked most Jayco products and some Keystone. Never looked at Springdale and never cared much for Dutchman. We have been happy with our KZ, as has our son been with his. I think you should also take a look at the small trailers now being built by Winnebago. Generally, the ultra lite RVs are intended for seasonal use and so are much less expensive and because of that they are also lower quality in the fit and finish areas to save both weight and money. But if you use the new RV seasonally, do you really need to spend what it takes to buy an all season RV? We chose one in the lower price group after much care and examining of the construction features. It isn't as good as was our fulltime RV, but it also cost far less. Remember that you can't expect to have the same level of workmanship in a $20,000 RV as you would expect when paying several times that much.

You may want to consider being a campground host or some other type of volunteer in a state park, national wildlife refuge or one of the other many places that give volunteers a full hookup RV site.

It's really easy. Just click on the one that your budget fits into.

We had one of the first class A's built on the new V-10 powered F53 chassis and the 275 hp version of that engine. I think that you have the 310 hp version of that engine as it was the second generation. There are two issues to be aware of that I have heard of. We had friends who were loosing a very small amount of coolant and ignored it, costing them an engine because it was a leaking head gasket. This was not common but also not isolated. If you start to lose antifreeze, don't ignore it. The second issue is blowing out a spark plug as the increased horsepower comes from an increase in compression. The spark plugs are rated to 100k miles but when they are replaced the torque they are set with is critical because they only have a few threads in the heads. Given proper care that drive train should serve you well for a long time. I did have an oil analysis done annually when changing the oil, just to know what was happening internally. Coming from the service/repair industry I tend to be very careful about regular maintenance. I used Blackstone Labs for my test lab. I really like that comment. And I like to tell people that living well on your income is more a matter of learning to live well on the money than having than it is having enough money to live well.

It is also great having another sub sailor on the forums. I was an IC1(SS) when I left after 8 years. The fact that I would have had to change to EM in the next year or so to stay nuke and that was part of my decision to get out. I was in from 1960/68. One advantage you do have is not needing to worry about health insurance. It has become the biggest single problem for most people who go fulltime prior to qualifying for Medicare. Of the three states that Escapees have addresses for, FL seems to have the best healthcare options. When we went on the road I had continuing coverage from my employer until Medicare but few companies can afford to provide that today.

It depends on the size and weight of the trailer. I have experience towing both with and without and will respectfully disagree.

Welcome to the Escapee forums! We are happy to have you with us and look forward to your joining the club as well. I would suggest doing that part soon to get mail service started well ahead as it allows you to be sure that all important mail has your new address and things are going there before your house sells. We started to shift our mail over several months before the house changed hands and just put in an order to Escapee Mail to send things to us each week. That also allowed us a very easy change of location when the house sale closed, just sending Escapee Main new instructions.

Yes. I and many others have said that numerous times. Everyone likes to think that the choice they made is best. When you have made a choice that makes you happy and comfortable, in my opinion, you did make the right choice, which is exactly the point I was making. We all find ways to justify that the choice we made was best and as long as we believe it to be true, that is all that matters. As I said early in this discussion, there are good and bad points to every type of RV and the best one is the one that those in it prefer.

While that is true, it also means that every mile that you drive for any purpose will be added to the tow vehicle. That also means that you will buy fuel for a large engine that uses a lot of it. If you should have a problem with the tow truck, it will mean that you are walking. In our case, we towed a CR-V behind our class A. The CR-V got an overall mpg of about 20, while the RV only got 8 mpg. In addition, over the 12 years, we put a combined total of nearly 250k miles on the 2 CR-V's while we put about 80k on the motorhome.

Welcome to the Escapees RV Club and to the Escapee forums! We are very happy that you have joined us! I would consider that to be a bit to the low side if you don't want to do much maintenance. I suggest that if you have not done so, spend some time window shopping just to get a feel for what it can cost. We lived for 12 years in a gasoline-powered motorhome (Ford F53 chassis). Keep in mind that not only do older chassis require more care but so too does the RV side of things. Appliances typically have a lifespan of 10 to 15 years when used constantly so with an older RV of any type you can expect to have much more in maintenance time and cost as the RV ages. We bought our RV new and owned it for 14 years. During that time I replaced both the water heater and the refrigerator due to excessive cost to repair them. No... While we lived in our motorhome we spent much of the time as RV volunteers in parks, national parks, and national wildlife refuges. We usually stopped for from 1 to 4 months at a location and it never caused a single problem. What you do need to do is to add a fuel stabilizer and fill the tank completely just before you park it. Then just leave it sit and do not start it at all until a few days prior to travel again. It is a good idea to exercise the onboard generator if the RV has one. It can be done but as others have said, your spending habits will not likely change much so take a hard look at what you are spending now. Keep in mind that there are different approaches to the lifestyle and no question you could survive on that amount but you really need to manage in order to enjoy life as well. There are many things which can be done to improve the financial health and we found that we loved the RV volunteer lifestyle so much that we still do it now that we have a house again and are back to part-time. Check out some of our experiences that we had while fulltime by visiting this link. We found that we were able to add money to our savings while living on volunteer RV sites.In addition, the best column on RV living expenses is one that you can read here which was published a long time back in Motorhome Magazine.

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For me, yes. I have done my last of that but I'm glad that I did so. I'm pretty sure that I didn't say anything is wrong with tenting. I carried a tent in our RV for many years, although I don't do it now. I gave away my tent about 5 years ago. I have done a lot of tenting over the years and much of that in places we could not take an RV of any kind. I asked because of the remarks about asking tenting questions on an RV forum.

Lots of people still do that, or so it seems. Do you not own an RV yet?

What has happened to the friendly RV community? Vandalism now advocated? We have done that also and in fact, that is where we learned to do this. The same is true in several other locations and it does work. There is really no need for flashing lights and they don't need to be that bright. There are plenty of RV's that keep lights on the awnings or around the RV or even the RV outside lights left on all night. I see in in both RV parks and state park campgrounds and while it may be something that I don't normally do, I sure do not advocate nor support destroying of other people's property. Fortunately, it seems that most RV folks are not of that mind.

The problem with baits is that they only work by bringing them to your RV or if they are already inside. I prefer to use something that keeps the critters from coming to the RV!

Call the Escapees business office and talk with them about this problem. It is one that they have dealt with many times over the years. (936)327-8873

We have used rope lights to keep packrats away at several locations. Might work for mice too. Never heard of using flashing ones.