Kirk W

Savor each experience as the time passes far too quickly. I was fortunate to have been able to retire pretty early and when we hit the road our goal was to stay fulltime for at least 15 years but my wife's health issues forced us back to part-time after 12 years.

If you plan to keep your domicile in NJ you should check with the DMV there to see just what the laws are for driver's license and registration. Here in TX it depends on the total weight of the RV combination. If you have not done so, you should visit an RV show to get a feel for what the RV you want will cost you. You can look at the ads in Escapees RV Market place to get some feel for the cost of used trucks and trailers.

For the just past year that would be a total of $19,720 for two people so 150% was $29,580. Check out Healthcare.Gov to see if it helps.

At Home Depot, 3/4 in. x 4 ft. x 8 ft. PureBond Birch Plywood is $79.68 per sheet. I am wondering how deep the slide is and if you need a full 4X8' sheet? I don't believe that you will be able to find any plywood that is 12' long in any regular lumberyard. If it were me, I would not go to the expense of hardwood use fir plywood. I would still like to see a picture of the underside of the slide as I'd think that a 12' slide would have some sort of support under the flooring. The location of the parts of the frame is important in what you do to correct the problem. Have you measured to see what the dimensions of material you will need? Are you planning to do the work yourself? I have been assuming that you will do so and have been basing my suggestions on that.

In most (if not all) parts of the US the addresses are assigned nowadays by the 911 service and the registered with the USPS. The following comes from the USPS website. The Postal Service neither assigns addresses nor designates an address as Residential or Commercial. Land use and zoning information can be found at your local government office. Street addresses are created by the local government office that has jurisdiction over the area where the streets are located. There is usually an office located in each unit of local government. However, there are instances of combined local government offices such as a joint county - city municipal building. Since it is the federal banking regulators who make those rules, at present it would be acceptable as long as they can send mail to that address and you receive it.

Before you do that, make sure that there is ample support for the added plywood along the edge as any beveling will make the plywood weaker and could cause it to sag in time. The other thing to remember is that a narrow beveled area will still be a tripping hazard but will be harder to see than a lip would be.

In going back through the thread I don't see where the distance that the slide extends out from the side of the RV but if it is 5/8 OSB that is 12' long and perhaps 3' wide with no support other than the edges, I am not surprised that it has begun to sag in the middle. If it is impossible to add any sort of support under the OSB then it will have to be done from above, such as the plywood suggested by Vern above. If doing that I would use something like "Liquid Nail" between the two layers to insure that it is a permanent bond. Be sure to glue all areas and the edges of the plywood. Just to be sure that the OSB is pulled up and not the plywood bowed downward, I would use come blocks and a jack outside, under the slide to push up and remove the sag before I laid the plywood on top. And I would leave that support under the slide for long enough to be sure that the glue had time to bond. Anything that you do on the inside to support the floor from above will add a lip to the slide but that was common with slides when they were first introduced to RV manufacturing. The only alternative that I can think of would be to build a small cabinet that would become a permanent part of the slide whose framework could be attached to the floor to support it from above.

If there is room on the underside to add a angle iron brace across the center to support it and push it back up to the same level. It would depend on the clearances for the slide operation equipment and for things to clear as they go in and out. A picture of the underside of the slide where the sag is located would help to make suggestions.

Lately I have read more magazines with National Geographic and NG History the leading ones. I usually have a biography or historic novel of some sort in progress as well. I rarely read a book the second time but did do that with both Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn after about 50 years.

The Best Reviews Guide lists several but Garmin tops their list. At present the Garmin RV 795 is highest rated and as one who has used Garmin GPS through several generations, I tend to agree. I have one that is a generation older and that I've had for several years now but have really liked it. Since I got my first GPS back in 2000, I have tried several other brands and have always returned to Garmin for the RV. I also have owned a couple of hiker GPS units that were not Garmin.

Very interesting! While it has been 2 years since our last stop there, we have spent a night or two there about every other year, usually in March or April. We too went to the happy hour and when we were there it was well attended and friendly. We have also stayed at Saguaro Co-op in Benson on several occasions but it has now been about 5 years since our last visit there. We have never been to Rover's Roost. If it makes any difference, Dream Catcher is an Escapee owned park while both Saguaro and Rover's Roost are co-op parks.

The link works for me. Thanks! You may want to supply some method of contacting you as well. If you put in your email address, I suggest using (at) rather than @ to avoid the email address harvester apps.

Where is your present RV registered and insured and do you wish to register the one you are buying the same place? Buying from a private party means that you will need to do all of the paperwork yourself so if you won't be registering it in AZ you need to contact the DMV in the state that you wish to register it in.

The picture is of a Lippert slide controller so your slide mechanism is by Lippert. The only way to accurately know what the battery voltage is requires you to lift at least 1 cable from the post (preferably the negative cable) and then use your multimeter to measure between the two battery posts. If the batteries were really down to 4.9V that could have been damaged but hopefully not too much. No question that nothing would operate with voltage that low. I would allow the batteries at least 12 hours to charge before trying again. The Optima yellow top DH7 battery is a absorbed glass-mat (AGM) battery. AGM batteries withstand deep discharges better than flooded cell starter batteries but they are still damaged by really deep discharges. some smart battery chargers will not start charging a fully discharged battery at all - they see it as faulty. The result will depend upon the converter that you have and how bad the batteries have been damaged. No matter what the result of this is, I would be in touch with the management of the shop where you took your RV as that tech clearly doesn't know what he is doing.

What did you find there? Part of the leveling system? is it by HWH?

What make & model is your leveling system? What slide mechanism is it? What about the inverter, dose it now work? Have you checked the electrolyte level in the battery cells? What is the voltage that you measure across the battery terminals? Make & model of the RV might also be helpful. With more information we might be able to find tech manuals for at least some of the problem areas. By this do you mean that someone had unplugged your RV power cord? Are you in a commercial RV park? Public campground? All of the items that you mention as not working use 12V power but if your converter is working it should supply that. Some things might draw more current than is available without a fully charged battery, but the converter should recharge the battery(s) if given enough time. If you measure the voltage across the battery terminals with no shore power and again with shore power the voltage should increase when shore power is applied if the converter is working. Another test would be to monitor the voltage across the battery while someone tries to move the slide or the leveling jacks and see if it drops.

Do you have a multimeter to use to troubleshoot? When checking the circuit breakers, did you open each one and close it again? It is very difficult to tell if a breaker is tripped just by looking at it and it must be opened in order to reset it if tripped. For that reason, when I check a circuit breaker I just open it and close it again.

I am pretty sure that you have a Lippert frame and slide mechanism. You should take a look at this video from Lippert to see if it looks like what you have. Lippert also has a pretty good track record for customer support so you may want to try their Contact Us to see if they can help you.

If you put the pictures into one of the free, online photo storage locations you will then be able to use the "other media" and the "insert image from url" and thus show them on the forum. The other way would be to use a digital photo editor to make them smaller.

Sorry to hear about your latest difficulty! Pam has had a complete right ankle replacement (Inbone), right hip replacement, back surgery, 2 plates for broken right arm, and last Friday her left knee. Since RVing is difficult at best when using a cane or walker, we sold our RV last summer. I'm not 81 (Pam almost 83) and we still plan to do some travel, just not by RV. Letting the RV go was not an easy thing to do since we had owned some type of RV since 1974 but I suppose all things must end one day. I have been pretty fortunate that I have few issues thus far but do find the part of caregiver to be more challenging this time. We are also at an age where we also need to be very aware of our driving skills, even with a car as there is little doubt that such things do diminish with age.

While that sounds high, it would depend on how many hours the work took, what was wrong with the generator, and what they had to do in order to repair it. It would also make a difference where the work was done as labor rates are not the same everywhere. Cummins-Onan has a quote service on their website. The last that I checked, their labor rates ranged between $130 & $190 per hour. Most RV shops are similar to that.

Are we correct to assume that you are testing in Livingston, TX?

It is fine to keep it here as well. The two don't entirely have the same readers.

May I suggest that you also post the position on the Escapee Job Exchange, as there are more members looking for work on that forum.

You need to tell us more about the problem of blinking. What exactly are the existing light assemblies and what sort of LEDs are you using that blinks? Do the lights work fine with the original bulbs and what type of bulbs are they? Have you checked the 12V supply at the sockets?