Kirk W

The main issue as long as you are a responsible owner who controls and picks up after his pet is that many commercial RV parks do have restrictions on some breeds that at times might include yours and the more common issue is the size restriction. It isn't all parks so it can be done but you may want to make the park aware of your pet just to be sure that they do not object. Most RV parks do welcome pets that are leashed, quiet, and that have good behavior. We were fulltime with first a mini schnauzer and then with a 40# corgi mix. It has never been a serious problem and we have experienced very few issues with pets of other RV folks. Our pet peeve is the owners who do not pick up after their pets.

Are you a member of Escapees or just of the forums? If a member of Escapees, have you registered on the site?

Those of us who participate in any of the forms of work-camping can do a lot to make this new service get more useful quickly by sharing this information with the agencies which we have worked for/with. Many potential employers or volunteer coordinators are looking for better ways to recruit good help and free services which reach good people are not all that available. Lets all help to promote this by sending a link to it to those we believe to be good places to work-camp!

So I gather that no resolution is yet available?

Are you sure that your problem is that valve? In most RVs the fresh water pump also acts as a check valve to prevent the city water from back-flowing through it to the tank. If the pump needs rebuilt it can cause the same problem. A quick way to test that is to turn on the pump with water in the tank and city water off or disconnected. If the pump then runs every few minutes or more it means that pressure/water is leaking back through the pump & into the tank.

Is this what you have?

Assuming that the vehicle's tow package didn't include a transmission cooler, as some do.

You are certainly entitled to your opinion. I learned many years ago to monitor all fluids in vehicles on a frequent basis and so continue to do this. I have also used an oil analysis service for both engine and transmission for most of my RVing experience. If it will make you feel better, the transmission was just serviced 3 days ago & early by service mileage charts, as a prep to our coming month of travel. Fluid was at normal level and only slightly discolored, as reported by the servicing dealer and Blackstone Labs just give the sample a positive analysis report. Edit: I should have mentioned that the manual calls for transmission service every 36,000 miles. It has been serviced at 30K since I purchased it.

As stated, that was for the total trip from Texas to Goshen, IN and then to Hot Springs, SD then to Cheyenne, WY and then back to Texas by way of Kansas, from April 29 through September 28, 2014. There was wind on occasion but nothing notable and clearly not for the entire summer. We did drive up some hills but we also came back down and we were never towing in major mountains. I tow at speeds of 55 to 65 mph depending upon conditions, probably averaging 60 mph over all when out on the highways. There is a huge difference in towing a popup with very little frontal area and most of that below the tow vehicle's roof line and towing a travel trailer of full size, even if there is no difference in weight. We have some friends who tow a travel trailer that weighs about 1400# more than ours with the same vehicle except that theirs has a V-8 and they actually get about 4 mpg less than we do when not towing and they get about 2 mpg more than we do when towing. A larger engine is less effected by the added weight & wind drag than a smaller one, but you must buy the fuel to feed it even when you don't need the extra power. Our tow vehicle is rated to tow up to 5000# and our trailer has a GVWR of 3600#. I have considered trading for a stronger tow vehicle and at some point we likely will do so, but you must remember that most tow vehicles spend no more then 20% of their time actually towing something and many are far less than that. Last year we drove our tow vehicle a total of 18,000 miles and of that somewhat less than 4000 miles was towing. It might be a good decision to get a stouter tow vehicle if it was used only to tow, but since we own only one vehicle it must be balanced between performance when towing and performance when not. I find our current tow vehicle to be a pretty reasonable choice for our use.

Last summer we towed our 20' travel trailer, weighing only 3600# for more than 6K miles with our V-6 SUV and we got an over all average of 11.8 mpg. Most of that was in fairly level country.

I have a concern with what you seem to be saying here........ You can't change your domicile for education without changing it for everything. As several of those articles point out, you may only have one legal domicile for any/all purposes. If you want to educate your family under Texas laws, you need to move your domicile here with is what the booklet How to Become a Real Texan explains. But you must move all of your domicile and legal address to Texas in order to do this. On the education side of things, I suggest that you drop a private message to Kinsa and discuss the TX education issue with here and home schooling here as she does it and also spent a year on the road doing so. Better to get advice about Texas from Texans who have done what you are looking into.

If you do not have any home address, you will then need some address somewhere in order to register and insure vehicles and to hold a driving license, along with a number of other issues. You will also need some way to get mail and to pay your taxes and a host of other things. You must have an address in order to have health care insurance and any other type of insurance as well. Insurance premiums are based upon where your home, or domicile is. I suggest that you read this article from Escapee's magazine about choosing one as a good place to start. I also suggest that you download a copy of How To Become A Real Texan from the Escapees website. In addition, there are currently two threads active on the forums which address some related questions. One is on Driver's License & Registration and the other is about Question of Domicile and I believe that you may find them all to be helpful. After that feel free to come back and post any questions that you still have.

Engineers are usually who does structural designs. I don't know that they still have any but I met an engineer from Newmar RV at the Dallas RV show and I have also met one from Tiffin. Both were more than 10 years ago but in both cases they at least claimed to be engineers. Even if you buy a chassis there is still a lot more to design before you put it on the chassis. If there are no engineers in those RV companies, who does do the structural design?

You have brought up a manufacturer that I am not at all familiar with? I did a Google search and found nothing so thought that perhaps you might share a link to their website if they have one...

A valid question. Our first RV was a very mature pop-up that we bought from a good friend for $250 back in 1972. I would say that for the market it was in, it was a pretty good quality product, but it had also been well tested when we got it when it was about 10 years old or more and we were at least the third owners. At the time I knew almost nothing about RVs and had always been a tent camper. Of course, that RV was little more than a tent with wheels and storage. It had no appliances, tanks, plumbing or anything else other than a table, seats and one double bed. But it was a step up from the tent. We only kept it for 2 seasons and then bought a new pop-up. This time we knew a little bit, but not nearly as much as I probably thought that I did. Over the years since we have never had a really bad RV, but probably in most cases more by luck that knowledge. Fairly early in our RV experience I became friends with an RV tech and he taught me a great deal. I don't know that I really did as much research as I should have until we went shopping for our motorhome that we used for a fulltime home. With that one I had learned a great deal, did a lot of research and spent more than two years shopping and studying various RVs in different price ranges. That and our present RV were the only two that I consider I got more based upon knowledge of RVs and less on dumb luck. I do not equate price with quality as there are different levels of quality in most ever price range. I do believe that with good research and education you can choose the best quality product for the budget that you have. We did learn enough to know that the very lowest price group of RVs were probably not up to the demands of constant use for many years and so we adjusted our budget to reflect that, but our budget was limited enough that we could not just buy whatever we felt was the best quality. One of the reasons that I support the RV Consumer Group is the fact that they do their best to group RVs into price/market groups and so to compare and rate similar RVs against each other, rather than one ranking for all. You simply can't compare an entry level RV to the highest priced luxury RV. There is a legitimate market for the vacation use RV even though it may not be capable of permanent use as a fulltime home. The RV which we own today would not serve well in fulltime use, but we didn't pay enough for it to have any expectation of it. We did get a high quality RV if you compare it to the market group in which it falls and I expect that it will fulfill our expectations for our present lifestyle. I very much agree with you, but do not consider that to be the wisest approach. Do you shop for a car with the knowledge that you won't get the luxury of a Cadillac when you buy the cheapest Chevy? People usually learn to shop cars based upon more than just how they look, yet spend several times as much to buy an RV based mostly upon price and appearance. It seems to me that it would make a lot of sense to spend more effort in learning how to find a quality RV than for a typical automobile? The information is available, but you must dig to find it.

Are you saying no frame engineers, or no engineers of any kind? While I can't prove they do have, I just find it hard to believe. Can you support this or give a source for the information? I would have thought that engineers would be involved in design of the RV that rides on the chassis or trailer frame even if they don't design the frame/chassis?? I agree with this, but not just on the subject of frames. Customers buy based upon price and then complain that the cheap RV doesn't have the quality of those passed over because of cost. There is a long history in the RV industry of high quality RV manufacturers that have failed and disappeared into history because they could not sell their products in large enough numbers to continue in business. Each time the economy goes into the dumper we loose a few manufacturers and usually the higher quality, thus more expensive RV builders are some of the first to go. A few manage to hang on but most of us could make up a pretty long list of quality RV companies that failed and went away, if we have been watching them for very many years. It is sad, but true. Educating the potential buyer is the only way that this will ever change, if then.

As I read the DMV website on the subject, you will renew using the receipt from your current inspection and it will then last for an additional 12 months.

It will require that you remove the refrigerator from the RV. Once that is done it will then involve removing the entire cooling unit, which is the largest part of the refrigerator, including the boiler, condenser, evaporator, all coils and associated plumbing. It will mean removal of the propane burner & electric heater, as well as a number of other connections. An experienced RV tech can usually do the job in a couple of hours. Of course, once completed you will then need to put it back into the RV and connect 12V, power and propane again.

Most of them are good but check to see what sort of warranty the company gives you. Will you be installing it yourself? If not you also need to get an estimate of that cost before you make your choice.

Cooling units can be replaced but there is no proof yet that yours is the problem. There are also several circuit boards in the refrigerator which could cause the problem, but since the heat sources are operating but it isn't cooling would lead us to believe that it is the cooling unit. Have you done any trouble shooting as yet? Is it cooing at all? Do you have any fault codes? I don't know that I would agree that most of us are using household refrigerators, but there certainly is a growing trend in that direction. With the improvement in inverter & battery technology it will likely continue to move that way, but I really think that you should do some trouble shooting before we conclude that you need a new refrigerator.

The RV refrigerator has only a very small propane flame and no pilot. What you are seeing is the flame for heating. Is there any odor of ammonia either inside the refrigerator or in the rear access panel? What about any hint of a yellow powder or mud in the rear of the cooling unit? Either of these would be an indication that the refrigerant has leaked out of the cooling unit. To give anything more would require some additional information. If you see the flame that tells me that the 12V-dc power is available and the fuse is not blown. Have you checked the display for any sort of error codes? Are there any panel lights showing? Is there any cooling at all in either the freezer or the chill box? Does the interior light come on when you open the door? You can find a copy of the service manual for this refrigerator on the website of Bryant RV.

I agree with Roger that the major change will be wind drag from the frontal area of the travel trailer. Based upon my experience towing our tt I think that your anticipated 12 mpg is probably in the right general area. Our V-6 powered SUV got about that over this past summer's travels of roughly 5,000 miles. While we have a smaller tow vehicle we also tow a lighter weight RV. From all that I've read I doubt that your frontal deflector will make a very big difference, but the combination you are planning is one that I've never seen used so hesitate to guess. I see truckers beginning to use them so there must be some improvement. I'll be very interested to hear how this works for you.

Keep in mind that you must leave CA in order to change your domicile. While you don't have to sell the house before you go, you can not just do things to claim TX or SD and continue to live in CA until the house sells. One of the key issues will be CA taxes and most find that it is good to submit a partial year income tax report to the state in order to notify the state revenue department of that change. Of course that will also mean that you won't be able to be employed in CA when you do this. I did make some other suggestions in the other thread that you have on this subject. Welcome!

Having lived as a permanent resident in 9 different states and as a temporary one in 19 others I find that all political systems move rather slowly and tend to make more mistakes when they hurry, but TX has moved much more quickly on this problem than is typical of most states. It seems to me that the Escapee staff, other interested parties, and the political delegation representing the RV community and truckers who have sought action have been very responsive. It is true that they still bear watching but then our system only works properly when under scrutiny by those served. There is no solution that will be immune to criticism by those who are determined, and you just can't make everyone happy, no matter how hard you may try. I am sure that they will continue to monitor the results. To Jim and those who worked on the problem, well done!

Some people just prefer to find fault. Why not see what the details are before you start to criticize them?