Kirk W

Some of them do although you probably won't be able to get a home mortgage like you would on a house, but such lots are often financed. Many of the sales people have access to institutions who do so.

Sorry to hear that. Hope that it was well insured.

With our gas powered motorhome the maintenance cost for the entire RV averaged just over $2000/year for years 8 through year 12 but if you consider only maintenance on chassis and power trail then the average falls to roughly $700/year. I did my own oil changes and lubrication, but not much else on the power train.

It would seem to make a big difference which postal branch you happen to be using. Our local office is very user friendly but they sometimes have had problems in getting the Dallas sorting center that all of their mail passes through to forward some things as directed. On two different occasions we have had medications that were forwarded to Escapee mail service get hung up with the sorting center claiming "no such address" while moving other mail right on through to our Escapee address as directed. Even the employee in our Lindale branch can't figure out why they seem to pick one and not forward it.

I am thinking that you have a more recent and better service manual than the one I referenced. Know where I can download a copy of it? This is a link to the manual which I have been using.

I don't seem to find that switch or thermostat on the schematic. If you can get to the connections to that switch or thermostat with some sort of jumper, it should harm nothing at all to jumper across it, thus insuring that it is electrically closed. I think this may be a good way to see if it is the problem. I wonder if that device might be a part of the safety recall that Dometic had several years back? That might explain the reason it isn't on the schematic we are using. I'll try to see if I can find someone who knows the answer to this. If that is a part of that recall, it could be of grate importance.

Welcome to the Escapee forums! We will do all that we are able to help. The first thing I'd suggest is that if you don't have a copy of the service manual, visit Bryant RV and download a copy of it. I'm not sure what bimetallic switch you are referencing?

Just wanted to welcome you to the forums! Now that you have broken the ice, join in frequently. It might be helpful to you if you consider joining the RV Consumer Group to get the ratings and information which they provide to members.

Interesting choice... Kanopolis State Park (the first Kansas state park) is one that I used to spend time at with my family when I was a boy growing up there. I had forgotten that it was a COE lake.

In the total scheme of things, I believe that the federal agencies are a better choice of land management of our national parks and also of most other federally controlled lands but I do think that some combining of agencies would save money as well as improving the management of those lands and facilities. An example is the federal lakes in the US are managed some by the COE, some by Bureau of Reclamation, others by the TVA, and one or two others. Most all of those lakes have parks on them which are each managed by a different agency and with different regulations. There are many other examples. Part of the issue for the NPS and for most other federal parks is what happens to money taken in at the gates and how that money is to be distributed as well as any additional money from public taxes. In general the larger, more visited parks revenues are used to subsidize the low receipts of smaller, less used parks. So who chooses where this money is to be used and how? The senior pass allows we older citizens to get into parks free and to stay in campgrounds for half price, so can the parks afford that benefit, or is it time for us to contribute? What about increasing user fees, or does that prevent use of parks by poor families unfairly? And what of special rates for kids groups like Boy & Girl Scouts? If we are to have parks, someone has to pay the bills. Another issue is the use of volunteers, like RV folks. Each time that a job is filled by one of us, doesn't that take away a position from the career park employees? Is that really fair, and should volunteers then be taxed on the value of any benefit the park supplies to them? Park budgets are not a simple issue and you can rest assured that anytime that politicians of any level get involved the issue will get even more complicated. That is also part of the problem as Congress also fights to put spending in the more influential member's districts, often ignoring the real needs of the parks and the agency that manages them. A former Yellowstone Park financial officer once told a group meeting that one of the problems that park has is that it is located in an area with so few voters that Congress wants to spend their money in more influential districts. The same would apply to the bureaucrats if you were to try and combine some of the federal agencies that manage our lands & lakes, or to move them from one agency to another. One example of this is that the COE is a part of the US Army and they don't want to give up their lakes because each COE district provides an easy duty station for another Colonel or above. They want to protect the number of senior positions!

Opportunity, perhaps but I'll believe it when some activity on the issue takes place in Washington DC.

I would add a small amount of chlorine bleach to whatever you choose to use in cleaning the awning. While dish soap is a gentle cleaner that will work at least to some degree, I've not had great results on our awnings over the years and have used it many times. What I have found to work best in cleaning our RV and awning is a product called Reliable that I was given a small amount of by an RV dealer, service manager. I'm out of it at the moment so am considering something new if others have a better product.

While your concern is highly improbable due to the way the ATS is designed, I hesitate to say impossible. In your ATS there is one set of movable contacts that has a connection to the output side which supplies the loads inside of the RV. The movable contacts sit connected to the shore power side if there is no power applied to the coil of the solenoid and they contact the generator side when power is applied to that coil because the coil is also connected to the generator's output. If you were to remove the cover it looks similar to this picture, although there are several different versions, this is a simple one. In this type the RV load is connected to the terminals on the left of the picture. Shore power connects to those on the far right which are closed with no power to the solenoid. The second from the right connections are for the generator supply. This is a very simple version but it does show the way things work to disconnect one supply before the other is applied. I have seen an ATS which has two separate sets of contacts for the two supplies with a single solenoid that was mechanically connected to both so that it opens one as it closes the other and there may be other designs as well, but all are intended to operate in the way that this one does.

If you have lost shore power, that means that nothing is now operating or has power. As such, there is no phase relationship involved and it would be the same as no shore power plugged in and since the ATS is wired to prefer the generator, nothing will happen when shore power returns. But if you do not remove shore power before you shut the generator down, then you will have the phase mismatch and cause problems. It is a good thing to shut down any large loads before you start the generator without shore power, & that same thing is true for connecting or disconnecting shore power. That is a good practice, but you should still completely remove one source before you connect the other. There is no delay built into the ATS devices installed into the RVs at this time, but if there were, that delay could easily prevent the phase related surge. All of the power monitors that I am familiar with (Surge Guard, Progressive, etc.) have a time delay built into them for several reasons but no ATS does to my knowledge. Even a small load will experience a surge that is major for it, if you instantly shift between power sources with them out of phase. A piece of equipment that only draws 0.1a that sees a surge of 1a has been exposed to potential problems just as much as would something drawing 10a that was exposed to 100a. True, the lighter load wouldn't harm the contacts of the ATS, but it could damage whatever you had power too. I'm sure that John will be along with his engineer version of all of this, but this is the simple version.

That is a fact. I may not be an engineer, but I do have more than 30 years of experience with RVs and 40 as a tech. I may not have your design education but I do know how the actually work. As you said, I made a statement and there was no question in it.

I don't know what you mean, but every motorhome that I have seen the wiring of which had a generator set and an ATS device, the ATS was connected to select the generator automatically as soon as it came on line. That means that it would not be possible to operate on shore power with the generator running and it also means that if you start the generator while connected to shore power, as soon as the generator comes up to speed and supplies power the ATS will shift to the generator output with no regard for the phase relationship of the two supplies. In nearly every case there will be a miss match and an associated power surge through anything that is operating. Only if the ATS has somehow shorted to both sides of the line at one time is that possible, particularly in a 30a RV which has only one phase of power. While I don't have a lot of experience with RV generators that have an auto start function, those which I have examined the auto start only happened if the battery voltage dropped due to battery discharge. I have not seen one that had an auto start function as a back-up to shore power. If you have, I'd be interested to know who makes it and anything else that you know about it.

Don't be surprised when you eventually have to replace your ATS. Even a small load will cause problems in time and the issue is not the two power sources being connected at the same time, it is the rapid change between power sources that are not in phase. Mike can do whatever he wishes, but as one who spent 40 years in electrical service, rest assured that doing as he does is a very bad practice. I have seen the inside of more than one burned ATS from his practice.

If your RV receives 120v power when the generator is running and also when connected to shore power, that means it is working. As Jim stated, never start the generator with shore power connected as the two sources will be out of phase and you will at the least it will burn the contacts and at worst it could destroy any of several different items in your RV. What is automatic is that the device will shift to the generator as a supply automatically when you start it. EDIT: Reading your post again, I'm wondering what makes you ask the question? A transfer device doesn't "fry" or otherwise harm anything but improper use of one can do so. The #1 cause of failures of an ATS device is the switching of it under load and because they have no ability to do "phase relationship matching" before switching it is possible to do major damage to some types of equipment by switching under load, depending upon what the device is and how much current it draws. The mismatch of phases can cause a surge through anything that is operating when you shift between the two power sources, but if you disconnect the shore power before you start the generator, then no such problem will ever occur. And always turn off all significant loads before you disconnect the cord or start the generator. I suggest that the generator should never be started before disconnecting shore power and shore power should never be connected before the generator has been shut down and all loads should be turned off prior to doing either.

The most we ever paid was in an RV park on the CA coast, just to the north of Santa Cruz. It was quite nice, had a private beach and golf course and was only about an hour south of San Fransisco. The price was $74/night in the week and $78/night for Friday & Saturday nights. This was in the fall of 2011.

If you wish to stretch your budget by cutting expenses as well as adding some very interesting experiences to your RV life, then I suggest getting away from commercial RV parks completely and looking into things like wildlife refuges, historic sites, and even our national parks as a place that you can do some very interesting things and learn many new things, while providing a service that is much needed with agencies that have too little budget to accomplish their missions, and so they rely upon volunteers. We have done and seen many things which we could never have done in any other way. Check our our list of volunteer experiences at this link, and visit the pages with pictures and descriptions of the 20+ volunteer experiences!

We took early retirement which left us with a limited income so needed to supplement things. We discovered that we loved the RV volunteer lifestyle and it turned out to be our favorite lifestyle. We would spend 2 or 3 days per week working in a park or wildlife refuge and in return get our site and utilities free and very often other amenities as well.

State tax costs per tax payer do vary since some states are mineral rich and derive significant income from the mineral severance taxes that are federally collected but shared with the state the minerals come from, even on federal lands. TX benefits from that and it helps to keep things down, but isn't a pot of gold. States like WY that have low population and lots of minerals do very well and AK even pays money back to their residents in place of taking it from them. While tax burdens do have a wide difference at the high and low extremes, those middle states are usually more balanced comparing one to the next. But the thread was about vehicle registration cost, and that includes any and all taxes and fees on RVs and vehicles, but little else.

Both of the class A's that we owned were registered based upon the GVWR but could have been lowered by weighing them, had I wished. But TX does not have a property tax on vehicles, like VA has.

We had a very inexpensive summer in the Black Hills in 2014 by serving as campground hosts at Angostura State Park. We got free RV site and free entrance into nearly all of the attractions in that area. It was great!

How do you spell enema?