rev Jul 31, 2010 -- Miscellaneous Items
rev Feb 16, 2010 -- Miscellaneous Items
rev Jan 01, 2010 -- revised Fan-Mate cover for readability
rev Oct 24, 2009 -- added Fan-Mate cover
We divided the "improvements" into two categories, Exterior and Interior. This page has the exterior items. Go here if you want the page with interior items.
Here's the list of exterior home improvements on our rolling home:
The Fan/Mate might be one of the best things we've aded to improve living conditions inside. This cover solves two problems -- keeps Jim from letting the rain in, and allows venting anytime, even in heavy dew or rain conditions. When it rains, our Fantastic fan ® can automatically sense the rain and close the cover, preventing rain from entering. Twice, at least, Jim has over-ridden the fan's automatic sensing/closing function. Guess what happens when it rains? One night we slept on the dry sofa -- the bed only needed a full day to dry after a pretty good drenching from a Florida down-pour.
Heavy dew will activate the rain sensor, too. Some nights the fan cover will close, then open, then close, then open and on and on. It seems to wait until just after midnight, when we're sound asleep, to start this cycling. Too, we almost always want a roof vent open while parked. The catalytic heater requires venting, and we just like fresh air. We had seen these MaxxAir® Fan-Mate® covers on other trailers.
We selected the opaque black Fan/Mate, so we would also get room darkening in the bedroom. Installation was a cinch, the Fan-Mate® looks good, and we have zero problems with the fan cover cycling, or with rain, or with sunlight during naptime. This is a great solution for us, one of the best improvements we've made to the exterior of our RV.
This is an item we saw on a friend's Airstream and we thought it made good sense. Donnie, one of Deb's very wise brothers, did his best to dissuade us from changing our trailer's coupling. He said it was just not worth the trouble, all a coupling does is hold onto a ball. He's probably correct, but we thought differently. This new coupler, a Model 7700 Quickbite, is a great idea and works great.
Our lifestyle involves hitching and unhitching more frequently than anyone except a boat trailer owner. The Quickbite® coupler has made this easier. We have over forty thousand miles on this coupler (May 14, 2008 to current) and we're loving it. When you back the tow vehicle to the hitch, the coupler automatically closes around the ball and latches.
The coupler surrounds the ball completely and grips the ball more securely than your trailer's stock coupler. Okay, what's the big deal about this? You can, usually in one motion and unassisted by a spotter, back into the quickbite coupler. You don't have to be centered as accurately as with your stock coupler -- plus or minus almost two inches seems close enough.
And don't even think about whether you are the right distance back to align the ball under the coupler -- just ease back really slowly until you hear the coupler close around the hitch ball and automatically latch with a loud "clunk". Done! It's really this easy.
This may lead (and seems to have in our case and in some friends RVs as well) to boiled (and thence dead) batteries. Sure, you can add water every few days or week and prevent boiling out your batteries. Or you can manually (or automatically with a heavy-duty timer) switch your charger off for all but one or two hours a day. Or you can stop using a single-stage charger and then you won't be worrying about your batteries' water level and longevity. Oh, and the adverts for Parallax currently brag a whisper-quiet fan. They've changed if it is quiet -- the cooling fan in our Parallax 7355 was anything but quiet.
We installed, in Summer 2009, an Intellipower 9260 converter-charger. Camping World was running an internet special and we ordered the converter to be shipped to the next RV park we planned to visit. Jim spent an afternoon removing the Parallax and installing this new and super-smart Intellipower by Progressive Dynamics. Jim followed great instructions he found through the Best Converter website.
The new Intellipower unit is better than plug and play -- this is plug and forget. If you feel smarter than the computer then you can use the "charge wizard" and change the mode from normal to boost. Sure, Jim did this every day or two for the first couple of days. Not anymore. We don't turn off our charger anymore, we just check water level in the two golf-cart batteries at least monthly. And every couple of months we might add a cup full or two of distilled water, if needed. This is a very intelligent converter charger, we think.
Don Brancato of Don Mar Airstream in Lynchburg, SC first turned us on to this reflective tape as an important safety measure. It is so effective USDOT requires all over-the-road trailers to be equipped with this in certain places. Why would we want any less visibility? Oh sure, our camper has reflectors. I'll take the extra margin of reflective visibility, thank you.
When we travel with friends they invariably catch sight of this reflector strip across the entire width of our bumper. And before long they have added the reflector strips onto their bumper too. Darn, makes it harder to spot our trailer in a shopping center parking lot. And makes their trailers much easier to spot at night -- these reflectors shine back brilliantly to the glow of headlights.
Chocking the trailer's twin-axle wheels securely before unhitching not only keeps the trailer from rolling but also helps increase stability when parked. We found very nice cast aluminum alloy wheel chocks several years ago at Virginia Highland Haven Airstream Park from a fellow Airstreamer, Harold Hull. Jim clear-coated these with Rust-Oleum clear spray and adjusted them to the tightness needed for our wheels.
We adjust the tension now and then as needed. One friend suggested we should beware these, they might release if we're on a hill. But we've noticed (more than once, unfortunately) our otherwise very capable truck cannot pull the trailer unless we release these chocks first. They work well.
Airstream Factory includes a large curbside Zip-Dee awning for the patio area outside our door. We have a dark tinted awning over the large front window. The roadside and rear had no awnings, leaving the windows vulnerable to rain entry. Awnings over the windows allow us to use the windows even during most rainfalls. The rear awning blocks out bright moonlight or even brighter campground security lights. The road side awning helps shade that entire length of trailer against hot midday sun and improves our refrigerator's performance.
These are the same capacity as the original equipment steel ones but are a little bulkier. They have built-in gauges, are lighter weight, and are rust-proof. They are a little crowded in the cylinder enclosure provided on the CCD 25, but reduce the weight on the trailer hitch by 16 pounds and they are lighter to handle.
We followed excellent recommendations and directions of Don Williams KD6UVT. We for two years managed the Airstream's two batteries almost exclusively from the solar panels without any use of the Airstream's insufficient Parallax converter/charger. We have had no shortage of battery power (see 6v batteries, next item) at any time and we were confident our batteries were enjoying a much more appropriate stream of charging current at all times (well, okay, the batteries are not receiving any charge after sunset until sunrise).
We still had 110vac to our air conditioner (which we use very infrequently except to test it periodically), microwave, and to the 110vac receptacles. We simply didn't use the Airstream's single-stage converter/charger to address the 12volt system. The 12 volt system was for almost two years expressly solar powered from the two solar panels through the charge controller to the batteries, because we were concerned the oem single-stage charger was going to fry our batteries (see Intellipower 9260 smart converter/charger). We purchased our solar kit, The Pathmaker System, from Solartron Technologies.
Jim installed the solar panels atop the Airstream's roof with z-brackets and wellnuts. This is a very secure mounting, is waterproof (the rubber wellnuts completely close the roof penetration for each anchor), and the z-brackets elevate the solar panels sufficiently to allow air cooling between the roof and the panels.
Give him a do-over, though, and Jim is ready to re-mount the two solar panels. Basic differences would be hinged mounts for tilting the panels for winter-time use, and #14 pan head sheet metal screws instead of wellnuts. The wellnuts require a large diameter hole in the roof. The sheet metal screws require a small drilled hole into an indented surface, and they provide great holding strength. The tilt-mounts could be very simple and still effect much greater collection in the lower solar path in late Fall through Spring months. We would only tilt up one panel, from our standing position on a ladder against the trailer's wall. Seems simple enough!
Update: July 2010 the solar charge controller failed. Just quit working. Still detected battery voltage, but no longer sensed the solar panels. Called the charge controller manufacturer and he instructed how to test the controller. Yep, the controller seems bad. "Send it to us with $14 and your address and telephone, we'll get it back to you."
Three weeks later we received the controller in the mail. It works! But we are underwhelmed by the company owner's service representation. He is too busy to spend any time on problem calls, said he cannot tell us what his shop found out or did on our controller, and didn't get around to mailing the repaired charge controller until we called him from the Post Office looking for it. But he did make good on the five-year warranty, charging us only $14 shipping and handling.
The BZ Products MPPT250HV has been a great charge controller for us. Three years service under widely varying conditions, repaired via the five-year warranty. The charge controller has been solid until this summer and we're hoping for many years more service.
Our two 125 watt solar panels with optimizing charge controller were able to quickly charge the two 12v group 24 batteries. But the batteries didn't have the really deep discharge characteristics we want to make full use of the panels and our camper in dry-camping mode. We selected instead a pair of Interstate 2200 6 volt batteries. These are golf cart batteries with great discharge characteristics.
These 6v batteries each weigh approximately twenty pounds more than the oem Interstate batteries and are still very manageable at 63 pounds each. Since the new batteries are each 6 volts we wired them in series with one of the short jumper cables from the oem installation to make 12 volts. We removed the plastic box tray from under the batteries to allow the new ones to sit lower in the box. We added 1"X 2" wood at front and back of batteries to stabilize them in the center of the box. We extended the center clamp rod an inch with a 3/8" X 2" threaded coupling. We extended the battery box lid 1 3/4" higher with c-channel of .050" aluminum.
Now the solar panels are pretty well matched with batteries' storage capacity. Summer 2009 we did a lot of dry-camping in US and Canadian national and state parks. Jim was pretty antsy about the batteries dipping close to 12v. What a rookie! Sure, the HF amateur radio doesn't get as much juice when the batteries are below 12.5v, but everything else seems to run fine even below 12v. While dry camping in Idaho we were concerned the very chilly nights might freeze our water piping. (We won't run our unvented catalytic heater while we're asleep.) So we set the furnace to keep the RV interior up to 45 F degrees through several chilly 20F degree nights. And the batteries were still at 12.2 to 12.4 volts the next morning.
UPDATE: Summer 2010 we spent four days and nights each in East Glacier, Montana, and Hope, British Columbia. Both locations had no hook-ups and we had no solar panels (charge controller removed for factory service). So our batteries were our sole source of electrical power for these four days both times. We were able to use everything we needed (water pump, lights, fans) and the batteries never went below 12.1 volts. Good enough!
Flag poles are de rigeur in the Airstream owners association, WBCCI. We proudly display the flags of The USA, NC, and our club. We found the source for our flag poles and bracket in the club magazine, The Blue Beret, and have enjoyed frequent use of them. When not flying, the poles and flags require storage so we installed a flag storage tube under the trailer. Airstream Company installs a sewer hose storage tube under the trailer. We added a similar one, but longer, for the flagpoles. Deb sewed a sock for each flagpole. We collapse the poles' three sections down to shorten the poles for storage. We roll the flag on each pole and slide this into a sock. We store the three flags and poles under the trailer in the storage tube, out of the way, weather-proof, and secure.
These miscellaneous items we associate with our full-timing experience but they just don't seem like enhancements to the camper. They are each one improvements to the tow vehicle or another aspect instead. These have each, so far, been far better than we could have expected. I mean, we did research them before purchasing but sometimes you just don't know if things will work out, you know? (e.g., see failures, below) We thought we might eventually describe these features in some fashion. Until then, they seemed to fit here better than any other place.
Tarheel® Lift and Lay roof-top antenna mount
This is a fantastic product for roof-top screwdriver antennas. We have a twelve-feet vertical ham radio antenna on our Airstream's roof. It is too tall to travel the highways, and we don't want to climb up to the roof to mount/dismount it for every trip. Voila! An electrically powered tilting system for the antenna, completely controllable from within the trailer. Down, the antenna lays in a rooftop cradle over the front of the trailer. Up, we have an antenna with a whip reaching 21 feet above ground into the air. Looks Cool, Works Great!
High Sierra® HS1800Pro® HF Antenna
This High Sierra motorized antenna is a high quality setup for high frequency (3.5 mHz to 30 mHz) radio transmit and receive on amateur radio bands. It tunes well and works very nicely for us. It is mounted on the Tarheel Lift and Lay mount. We've used it in this configuration since November 2008 without problems, and have reached hams in 30 European countries and Hawaii with it.
Yaesu® 857d HF/UHF/VHF transceiver
This is the most compact of the mobile all-band transceiver amateur radios, and happens also to be the least cost for the quality. The more expensive products from Icom are probably a little easier to use and certainly the Icom displays are esier to read. This radio connects me just as well as the more expensive ones, and it sure fits in our rolling home very nicely.
An additional treat is receiving FM broadcast, so we can listen to CBC or NPR over breakfast without getting up and tuning the Airstream's stereo. No biggie, but nice. Even better, we can pick up all ten of the NOAA weather band stations on this radio. We wish it had automatic weather alert but others of our radios do. This 857d has a very small footprint and works great for us.
Kenwood® TM-D710a UHF/VHF transceiver
This APRS (automatic packet radio system, or automatic position reporting system) radio is, through mid-2010, in our truck. It is a great dual band vhf/uhf transceiver for mobile use, and it works much better for mobile use on these bands than the Yaesu 857. The Kenwood's APRS feature transmits our position data so you can look for us on the internet here. You'll see our last reported physical location with lat and long coordinates.
Equalizer® weight-distributing hitch
Many many posts have been written about this easy-to-use trailer towing hitch setup. Do a search in Airforums or on your local internet browser for equal-i-zer and read about it. This hitch provides weight distribution and sway control. It may not do anything more, if even as much, as your favorite hitch. We've used it over forty-thousand miles and have used two others. The Equal-i-zer is the easiest of the three to use each time we hitch up or unhitch, and it has faultlessy managed our truck's and trailer's relationship over four years so far. We like it and would buy the same one again.
We did our Tim Horton's Restaurant trans-Canada Tour in 2009 and suffered a broken Equalizer hanger on the trailer's a-frame. We caused this ourselves through faulty installation. Well, failure to re-install properly after changing the coupler, actually. We happened, in fact, to be parked in front of a Tim Horton's when we realized one of our WD bars was hanging down, no longer connected to the trailer.
Locally we found, 2 km down the road from Tim Horton's, an RV dealer with an Equalizer display model in their showroom. No, they didn't have Equalizer replacement hangers. Yes, they would happily provide us the one from their display model, at no charge. "Those Progressive/Equalizer folks are really good about this, they will make it good to us." We're on the road again, fully whole hitch-wise, in a half-hour. Read this story here
ENKAY® rock guard® mud flaps
Saw these capable-looking mudflaps on other's trucks. Seems a good solution to protect the front of the trailer. We've messed with these five years now and just aren't done yet. They don't seem to be all we thought they would be. We still pepper the trailer's front with slush, sand, mud, and anything else we drive through. Probably not the system's fault -- we just haven't got them tuned yet?
Appears they either aren't wide enough for our truck's tire positions, or they aren't quite high enough at the truck's bumper. We cannot adjust the width outward any further, we can adjust the location of the mudflaps top bars and will be experimenting further.
We leave the mudflaps connected to the hitch's drawbar. Since we almost NEVER leave the hitchhead on the truck when not towing (did you know it is illegal to have a truck extension (greater than 9")in at least two southern Canadian Provinces and in many states?) we are moving the hitchhead back to the truck each towing day. The Enkay rock guard mudflaps make the hitchhead a bit heavier.
Pressure Pro® tire pressure monitoring system, trailer tires only
Nothing is guaranteed, but we like to improve our chances when we can. If we receive notification of a low-pressure tire, we might stave off severe damage to that tire and then to the trailer too. A failed tire, at highway speeds, turns into a rotating flapping demon to wallow out your trailer's wheel wells and destroy whatever systems the flapping tread can reach.
So far, we've had low tire pressure alerts due to a loose sensor on the valve stem, and twice due to a tire puncture with slow leak. You might catch the pressure reductions through conscientious monitoring at rest stops and before every towing day. And you might not. Why take a chance, when a $400 system can watch all four tires continuously and might avert $2,000 or more damage to your trailer?
ARE® hard tonneau cover with exact color match to GM factory color
People often ask if we wouldn't rather have a camper shell instead of a tonneau cover. Considerations: (1) the tonneau cover allows full field of vision across the rear of the truck; (2) the tonneau cover raises well to allow access to things even at the front of the bed; (3) the tonneau cover looks darned sharp on our truck; (4) we don't want any more stuff than we can fit under the tonneau cover.
Garmin® NUVI® 650 GPS, "Lucy", who is correct over 50% of the time, provides us a view of streets so we can see turns ahead. Lucy is a few years old, does not do blue tooth or FM alerts, doesn't know speed limits. Doesn't seem to have much memory capacity. But she helps a lot most of the time and sometimes really goofs up.
And when she goofs, she can really goof us up. Fortunately we've learned the proper amount of skepticism for her recommended routes and we double check her trip plan before we commit. This is a pretty realistic relationship -- we don't expect too much and she rarely surprises.
La Fuma® folding chairs, two pairs, Transatube Deckchairs and Maxi Popup Sling chairs
Yamaha® portable generator, 1kw 110v gas-powered , 27 pounds of power, quiet, and a gas sipper. We wondered if we should haul a larger generator or, like some of our friends two 2,000 watt generators. A 3,000 watt unit would power everything we have. Two 2,000s would also. And we could use only one of the two when we didn't need so much.
We decided we couldn't afford the weight and fuel consumption and cargo space of the larger generators. Why would we need to make our own power for air conditioning? Our house has wheels so we can relocate if we need to. We bought the 1,000 watt (1 kw) generator.
After three plus years, we have found the generator a great sometimes relief and sometimes a convenience. We've repaired tires twice at roadside, using the generator to power the 110vac air compressor. We've loaned it to friends to recharge their trailer's batteries. And we've recharged our batteries a few times when dry-camping. Lately we've realized our batteries probably didn't need the excitement and would have been fine another day or two.
The 1kw generator is small and lightweight, easy for us to handle. We store it in the truck's bed near the tailgate. We'll try to keep it there as much as we can. As a friend stated earlier this summer, we want to be generator snobs, eschewing noisy and smelly generator use for battery conservation and solar charging instead.
Coleman® air compressor, 2 gallon 110vac This air compressor is noisy, doesn't pump truck or trailer tires quickly, but no more often than we need it we are glad to give it the little space it requires. Just pull up a seat and plan to spend five or more minutes to add 15 pounds pressure to a tire.
Chevrolet Silverado 2500 HD
4X4, 8.1L gas, Allison 1000 transmission, 3.73 diff, extended cab, short bed, 45 gallon tank (thanks to Transfer Flow tank change.) This is our Cowboy Cadillac, a great ride and capable tow vehicle. We are asked very frequently if we wouldn't rather a diesel. We consciously and carefully selected a gas-powered truck. The numbers just didn't add up for the diesel's higher first cost and fuel and maintenance. Four years and 62,000 miles have, so far, proven us correct.
Please email us if you're interested in source or experiences information on any of these "undescribed" features.
