tbutler

You mention the spark probe, but I don't see a mention of the thermocouple which functions as a flame sensor. If the thermocouple is bad, the circuit board never gets confirmation of a flame and it shuts the gas down. If this is intermittent, the thermocouple may be failing but still working occasionally. There may be a loose connection from the thermocouple to the circuit board. If none of those I would look at a fault in the circuit board, something short of a complete failure of the circuit board.

While I wouldn't expect agreement, it seems the above statements all fall within a range. My own figures varied considerably from year to year. None of the above quotes I looked at are outside the range that I quoted. It would seem that there will be years when it is more expensive and other years when it is less expensive. I bought four new Michelin tires this spring, it will likely be a more expensive year! One year I replaced two of the old CRT TV's with flat screen HD TV's. Another year I replaced our Norcold with a household refrigerator. There have been other years with repairs, modifications, improvements that add to that cost of owning the coach. I didn't figure in the cost of purchase, campground fees or other personal expenditures. Basically what I was tracking is what it costs to keep it running down the road with a fully functioning coach, repairing or replacing broken or outmoded components. I've never tried to figure a per day cost for our travel, that is another project! I have all the numbers, just need to work to put it all together. I would expect larger variation there depending on how often people travel, the type of parks they stay in and if you take meal costs into account, how often they are eating at restaurants. If you can afford the cost and enjoy traveling, I believe that there is no better way to travel. Having your house with you everywhere you go makes it possible to spend time in remote areas that would be very inconvenient if traveling from hotel to hotel.

Here is a link to a previous discussion from 2014 on cost of operation. Down near the bottom of the first page is a detailed analysis that I submitted. I'll leave it to anyone who is interested to go to that discussion and won't try to reproduce the results here. The bottom line was after 10 years, from new to very used coach, we spent $133,689 to travel 118,270 miles for an average cost per mile of $1.13. That is operating cost, not including the purchase cost. The per mile costs ranged from $0.60 and $0.70 the first two years (2004 and 2005) to $1.95 in 2011. The 2013 cost per mile was $1.15 so it isn't a constantly escalating figure. Read the full discussion for all the details.

Since my 2012 post I got my first iPhone. There are a number of apps for the iPhone, I'm sure that android phones have the same. AllStays has a number of apps including Walmart overnight parking and Camp & RV which includes Walmart and tons of campgrounds and stopping places, some free, some for a fee. There are comments from users with many of these including the ONP Walmart which has advice on where they expect you to park. AllStays also has an RV Dumps app. AllStays Camp and RV has the widest variety of location assistance including truck stops, camping and outdoor stores, rest areas, turnouts, RV dealers, and you can filter the campgrounds based on categories like military, national park, public lands, state/provincial parks, KOA, Corps of Engineers, Elk Parking, etc. The cost for the Camp and RV app is about $12, a one time fee and it updates on a regular basis. You can even see where you are on a map and let it lead you to your intended destination. Where we are located right now it shows several dozen sites of various kinds in a 30 mile radius on a map or you can search a list. If you are traveling I-80, there is a nice rest area well off the highway west of Laramie, just past WY Hwy 13. The rest area is on the south side of the highway but accessible from either direction on I-80. There are also frequent truck parking areas along I-80 in Wyoming. They are large, no facilities at all, but we've used them without any problems in the past. We have stayed at rest areas in Nebraska but they are close to I-80 and pretty noisy from passing traffic.

Thanks for the reminder! I noticed yesterday that I hadn't changed the filters in our coach this spring. Lowe's has a cut to fit filter. The WEB Products filter has an electrostatic layer for pollen and dust (MERV 8 rating) and has an activated charcoal layer for odor control. They are very effective without restricting air flow.

I'd have to learn to drive again if I didn't have a smart wheel! Life just keeps getting better. First it was sliced bread and now smart wheels! Next thing you know we'll have smart maps that tell you where to go.

We did this trip in 2006. We were coming from visiting family in California so went through Washington. We spent most of the month of June in British Columbia, traveling slowly and stopping for sites of interest along the way. We've traveled up the eastern side of the Canadian Rockies and that is a beautiful route also. Once you get to Dawson Creek, you pick up the Alaska (AlCan) Highway. At Whitehorse we went north to Dawson City and spent several days there. From there we drove to Inuvik in Northern Territories. It is an Inuit village inside the Arctic Circle so we had that experience. Being near the summer solstice we experienced the midnight sun, stayed for a night and then drove back. The road is 465 miles of gravel road with two river crossings on ferries. We didn't take the motor home on that trip, that was for the toad. From Dawson City the Over the Top Highway takes you into Alaska north of the town of Chicken. It is gravel from Dawson City to Chicken, pretty good gravel in Canada, pretty rough and narrow in the US. From Chicken we went south to Tok which is on the Alaska Highway. From Tok, you can travel a circular route in either direction, we went to Fairbanks and stayed for several weeks. We flew from there to Barrow, AK, a one day round trip flight, Arctic Ocean, Inuit village, native dances, touring, and return. It was a small plane (twin engine) and the flight was at low level (2500 to 5000 feet above ground) so it gave us lots of sightseeing from the air. We celebrated July 4 at the city park with thousands of Fairbanks residents. Then south to Denali NP, Anchorage, a week down the Kenai Peninsula, back to Anchorage and then east along the Athabaska Valley and Athabaska Glacier to Valdez, several stops in Wrangell-St. Elias NP, then back to Tok and on to Whitehorse. This pretty much covered all the main roads in mainland Alaska. From Whitehorse we went south to Skagway and stayed several days, a train ride, museums, and an RV park in the shadow of the cruise ships. Returning to Whitehorse we then went south to Stewart, CA and Hyder, US to see the bears along Bird Creek and the Salmon Glacier. We were not disappointed in either of these attractions. Returning to Canada Hwy 37 we made a side trip to Prince Rupert on the Canadian coast. Then it was back to the Alaska Highway and on south into Washington. I've deviated a little from your initial question to give you an idea of the possibilities for covering almost all of the roads that can be traveled in the trip to/from Alaska. Your best guide to all these places including the various routes to Dawson Creek and the Alaska Highway is as mentioned above, The Milepost. It is updated annually so you will want to get the current edition. It costs about $35 which sounds expensive until you consider what you are going to spend on this trip. The Milepost will be your constant reference on this trip. You can make your decision on exactly where to cross the border based on the information in The Milepost. It has information on road conditions, where to find fuel, attractions all along the route including the various routes to and from the Alaska Highway. It is truly the trip of a lifetime though we met people who make the trip every year. Take your time and explore everything you are interested in along the way.

We've been "on the road" for 16 years now. We have taken some epic trips. Louise has planned some of those and I took the lead on others. She set us on the Lewis and Clark Trail our third year out and it remains one of our all-time favorite trips. I have pushed us to the limits, the have-to trip to Alaska and the Canadian counterpart, Newfoundland and Labrador. I may have exceeded the limit with our four month tour of New Zealand and Australia in a small Class C camper. We both enjoy travel but I believe I'm outlasting her. This year she wants a low and slow trip, just family, so that's what we're doing. Along the way we might do a little exploring but we'll stay pretty close to the grandchildren. I'm still looking forward to exploring far flung places! Viva la difference! Great article, thanks.

I read a post a few years ago from a dedicated do-it-yourself-er! "It's a bad day if I haven't drilled a hole in my motor home!"

Candlestick Park is in San Francisco. The link is for RV Park Reviews. It has been many years since we stayed there. It is on the grounds of Candlestick Park which used to be the home park of the San Francisco Giants baseball team. We found it to be a well cared for park capable of accommodating large motor homes. If you are going to be primarily spending your time in San Francisco, it may be worth your money to be in town rather than driving in from somewhere else. I hate the drive into and out of the city. The park is expensive by any measure, $80 to $90. Public transportation is available or you can take your toad for trips around town. We used both while there. It is the only park in or close to San Francisco. Balance the cost of the park vs. your time and the hassle and cost of driving from 40 or 50 miles away each direction and parking your car, etc.

There are a series of ignition relays in the front electrical panel which is located below the drivers left foot and accessed through the door on the outside of the coach. The starter solenoid is located on the starter itself. I'm not an expert but in reviewing 67 pages of electrical diagrams for the Windsor, I can find no reference to an ignition solenoid.

It isn't the hitch rating that is the problem, it is the strength of the rack. The bouncing that the rack absorbs as you roll down the road is stress on the rack. The heavier the bikes, the greater the stress and the longer the distance from the rear axles, the longer the lever arm (a lever multiplies force) and thus the more extreme the stress on the rack will be. When we carry bikes with us, we use a rack on the rear of the car. That works for us because we'll need that rack as we take our bikes on day trips and ride bike trails and bike paths. So we need the car rack anyway. I'd consider modifying a good solid platform rack to support the bikes on their tires while anchoring them securely to the platform so they can't get away. You might consider having someone build a custom platform rack or modifying one for you. A little welding should be able to take a solid platform and make it suitable for your needs. We know a couple who have trikes (three wheel bicycles). They carried theirs for many years on a platform on the back of their coach. They had a custom built platform and it worked well for them.

I manage our fuel level based on fuel prices. With an 127 gallon tank, at 8 miles per gallon I have a range of over 1000 miles. Now I know you can't use every drop of that fuel but I'll decide when to fuel based on prices, where we are and where we are going. Traveling 800 miles you will pass a wide variety of fuel stops. We frequently run from St. Louis to Sacramento, grandchildren in both places! As we go west, fuel prices climb pretty consistently so I'll fuel in Cheyenne where the prices are usually lower than in Nebraska or Utah. Then at Evanston or Green River, WY I'll stop and top off the tank before heading into Utah unless the Salt Lake City area has lower prices. Crossing Nevada I'll look for the area with the lowest price and fuel there and then make one last stop in the Reno area to top off the tank. If I can get into and out of California without purchasing fuel I've managed my fuel well. I use the Flying J web site to get a general idea of fuel prices across my route of travel. I use Gas Buddy to find the lowest price station in the area that will accommodate a large vehicle and if convenient will use that station. You can't drive many miles out of your way with a coach to save a few cents on fuel but if you can take advantage of the price differences on your way, you can keep the cost to the minimum. On trips in the opposite direction, my usual practice is to run the tank down to the lowest price area we can reach. Lately many of my earlier practices have been modified as fuel prices have become a lot less predictable than they used to be. Missouri used to be the lowest price fuel on our route and one of the lowest in the US but not so much lately. Occasionally fuel in Colorado is below the price in Cheyenne. One never wants to go into Canada with an empty tank and you never leave Canada with a full tank! It's just one of the things I watch to try to make our travel budget stretch as far as it can. As to the cooling of the engine, that is a minor benefit (or just a side effect) of circulating the fuel through the engine. The fuel tank makes a lousy heat sink. The tank warms up but doesn't radiate heat worth a darn. If it was really carrying a lot of heat from the engine to the fuel tank, it would be boiling like the engine coolant would if it weren't pressurized and constantly circulating through the radiator. I've never seen the engine temperature change because the fuel tank is low on fuel. Engine temperature is managed by the coolant system. We run with a quarter tank (32 gallons for us) as the lower limit in hot weather so we have the house air available for cooling while traveling. In cold weather we'll stretch that a bit but at 20 gallons I figure the sloshing of fuel could result in air being drawn into the fuel intake at some point so I never let it get that low. We have a fuel monitoring system on board, the Aladdin system indication of fuel level is within a gallon of the fuel I add when filling the tank most of the time. When the dash fuel gauge indicates a half tank, we are really at a quarter so I never trust it. If we are running the generator on a trip, during the day or overnights, the Aladdin system doesn't account for that so I have to factor that in to be as accurate as possible with the fuel level. I figure 1/2 gallon an hour which includes a fudge factor to make sure I'm not underestimating fuel usage. One other factor to consider. Starting out in the spring with a full tank of six month old fuel in the tank, running the tank to a quarter tank then filling it puts a majority of fresh fuel in your tank right away. If you do that again, the amount of old fuel goes from 1/4 to 1/16 and very quickly becomes a minor amount of the fuel you are burning. If you fill at 1/2 tank each time it goes 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16. You see where I'm going. I want to use as much of the winter fuel as I can when I start my summer travels so I consider using as much as possible from the tank as a way of flushing out the stale fuel as quickly as possible. The fall/winter mix and the fuel stabilizer are out of the tank well before I hit really hot weather.

You need roadside assistance. None are completely satisfactory from the user standpoint but they will get you rolling down the road again. The objective is not to save you money, the objective is to get something on your coach so you can get to a place where you can get the tire(s) you need. It sounds crazy but without roadside service you may be searching for a long time to find someone with the tire size you need to get you rolling again. I've had bizarre fixes like a really old tire (think 11 years old). It got me on the road. Another time it was a tire that was "close" to the right size. In both cases I ended up buying two tires (rear dual) after paying $250 for a tire I'd never use again. Think about it, you are in the middle of nowhere (or on the shoulder of a busy interstate) and you are searching for the perfect fix for your coach. You can negotiate and search for hours or you can get something on that wheel and get back on the road again!

As Kay says, it depends on your use and preferences. We use electric for most everything except water heating and cooking. There are electric options for these that work well but it is nice to have propane on board for our use. Cooking however almost always needs some electric, microwave or coffee pot. We use our generator liberally, charging batteries, watching TV, etc. I know nothing about Aqua Hot, that is a high priced option and from what I read, a high maintenance. Our propane furnace has been relative reliable and gives us the typical "furnace" heat that Louise likes. She can stand in front of the vent by the sink and have nice warm feet! We can get by with the heat pumps and use them for mild cool weather but for cold weather there is nothing like the heat from the furnace (or the warm floors of the Aqua Hot). If your use is casual, I'd include propane and avoid the high cost and high maintenance of all electric. If you are serious about spending lots of time in the coach and the Mrs. likes to be warm, well, she rules! Louise considered roughing it as a night in a Holiday Inn so I did the best I could afford to give her comfort in the motor home and she loves it. I'm happy and she is happy.

I've never heard of a lithium battery application in a motor home. I would find some other way to increase your battery storage capacity if at all possible. Additional conventional batteries are the normal way to increase storage. You could install more batteries or you could try to increase the size of the batteries. Lifeline which makes AGM batteries have a number of sizes which are taller so if there is additional space above your batteries, you might be able to fit larger batteries in the same footprint. Some people have put additional batteries in other storage compartments and AGM batteries would be a good application there as they are sealed and eliminate the usual corrosion associated with lead acid batteries. By the way, I assume your refrigerator is a 19 cubic foot refrigerator as a 19 cu. inch fridge would hardly fit one beer can! We have a 21 cubic foot household refrigerator and it runs just fine with our four 6V AGM battery set-up. We don't do long term boondocking and when we must, we run the generator to recharge. Twice a day, morning and evening, for a couple of hours is all it needs. For overnight, even when running the furnace, our batteries carry us through.

Mike, Cathy and Cali, Welcome to FMCA and the Forum! All FMCA members are welcome to attend the FMCA Family Reunions (aka conventions or rallies) and I would encourage you to do so. They are wonderful events. There should be a registration form on the website in short order. Found it, look here. I'd expect a reply from someone at the office with a more definite answer on that. You can register with or without a site but if possible I would register for a site. That will put you close to the seminars and exhibits, etc. If you don't register for a site, you may find it hard to get a campground anywhere near the rally. It will be dry camping, come with full water and empty waste tanks. Generally there is a waste tank pumper for pumping out tanks available, the cost is about $20 per visit. With some planning you can get through the rally without needing any additional water or waste pumping. At some of these national rallies there are showers available which takes care of the greatest water use and waste water generation. You can get electrical power (usually 30A) and it is at an additional cost. If you want the electric, register for it early, it is sometimes booked up and not available at the last minute. If you don't want to pay for the electric hook-up which comes from rented commercial generators then you can ask to be parked in the generator area and you will be allowed to run your generator during certain hours of the day. Otherwise if you go for general parking, no generators are allowed. All of that will be in the registration information and it may be different from what I have given which is based on our general experience from past national rallies. Registration includes most events. There are a few seminars that have an additional fee. There is a two day safety seminar which is excellent, covering safety information, mostly driving, some maintenance such as tires. It is offered by the RV Safety and Education Foundation (RVSEF). This usually fills up early so if you are interested, sign up for it as soon as offered. Your insurance company may give you a discount for completing the course. You will receive a certificate of completion. There is usually a driving class for ladies, a one day event I believe. Louise found it most helpful. You may find some other special events on the registration form that have a fee. You don't mention if you are new to motor home ownership. If so there will be excellent workshops on engine, chassis, tires, safety, etc. You will want to register as a first time attendee at these meetings as you get a special ribbon for your badge, an introductory workshop to help you decide what to attend and answer your other questions about the event. There have been a few glitches. Our first rally was in Hutchinson, Kansas. We were parked on the athletic fields (grass) at the state fairgrounds. The second day of the rally it started to rain. Our next-door neighbor packed up and left. He said he had been caught in one of these in Perry, GA. When it rained everyone was stuck. Sure enough he was right! We stayed through the whole rally, enjoyed all the workshops. We also waded through flooded streets in the fairgrounds. It rained for the last three days of the rally, heavy rain, thunderstorms! There were coaches that were parked where there was a puddle of water around the entire coach, no way in or out without wading. Once the ground was soaked, you were there until someone pulled you out. A few people tried to move on their own and the rear wheels simply went down deeper into the mud. This was Kansas and farmers came from miles around with the big John Deere and other tractors. At the end of the rally they swarmed the fairgrounds and were pulling people out as fast as they could (for $50). We had a towing service so I called them and believe it or not, I had a regular wrecker pull us from the mud, no charge since we had the towing service. We didn't even have to wait long, I think it was about 30 minutes from the time I called until they showed up to extricate us. You just have to keep your sense of humor about these things, not everything runs smoothly. When you arrive there is a specific set of instructions for parking. Needless to say it can run very smoothly or can be a near complete disaster. Follow the instructions to the letter. You will display your parking information in the front window of the coach before you reach the parking area. The parking crew will direct you onto your assigned parking area and put you right in your spot. If everything goes smoothly, you will drive in almost without stopping. Sometimes that doesn't happen! Just smile! They will get you there as soon as they can. It is truly an amazing event when you think about it. If there are 2000 coaches at the rally, they will come in within a day or two before the rally. In no time at all you have a city of approximately 4000 people, all with their own utilities on board. After a week the entire assembly scatters to the wind! Poof, there is a city, poof, it is gone! Woodstock on wheels! Or am I dating myself? We attend these whenever we have time and like you if we are in the area. I would never pass one up if it were convenient.

I just recently did this with our coach and it was difficult but I managed to wrestle it out to the rear. The other option is as Rich mentions. Most manufacturers provide some kind of removable panel or other kind of access to the top of the engine. In our first coach it was under the bed. Our current coach has removable panels in the closet and in front of the closet. There would have been no way to get the alternator out by going down and out the bottom of the engine compartment without taking out things like the exhaust and several other lines.

Bill, Yes, we've left the Valley! We're a little early this year. Since Lone Star was meeting in Rusk and that is more or less on our way north toward St. Louis, MO, we decided to get to the rally in Rusk. We had a great train ride yesterday on the Texas State Railroad. I'll agree that the vendor support may be lagging, I think that is a sign of the impact of the economy on the RV community in general. Monaco International has rallies linked to the major FMCA conventions. Those are the rallies that we usually attend. Since the vendors are coming to FMCA already, perhaps we get them to come as they are already in the area. We've been to a few of the rallies not associated with FMCA conventions and those draw a significantly smaller number of vendors. Now, I'm using the term vendors to describe those who sell RV related supplies and services, Roadmaster, Blue Ox, Dometic, Camping World, etc. The manufacturers are a whole different category in my book. We're seeing a few key dealers supporting the MI rallies. By the way, if you are reading this and your motor home hasn't had a good trip lately, now is the time! I stopped for fuel on the way to Rusk and was able to put 2/3 tank of fuel in the coach before the $150 credit card cut off shut off the pump! What a change from a few years ago.

A brand specific club can provide information and benefits that are tailored to the specific brand. One of the clubs that we enjoy is Monaco International. It encompasses all of the Monaco produced brands, Holiday Rambler, Safari and Beaver. The national rallies usually have technical personnel from the factory on site, a parts trailer and factory service available. In the good old days, that included two free repair items. As the industry came under increased economic pressure, the free aspect is gone but the support personnel and parts are still there. We've also had executives attend the meetings and address the group which has been especially helpful as the industry and Monaco specifically underwent considerable change in ownership and management. Another benefit is that the company used these meetings to conduct user surveys. There are seminars soliciting user input on the design and functions of coaches that are working and what needs to be improved or changed. The seminars are conducted by the people making decisions. They schedule one for men and another for women.

The best thing we ever did was to purchase our first motor home. We weren't just thinking outside the box, we sold the box and traveled full time for almost ten years before buying a smaller box in a warmer place. We remain in the box only until the weather up north gets warmer and then we're back in our motor home again. This summer we'll take our grandchildren on another series of week long trips, two at a time until all but the 2 year old have had one more motor home trip with grandpa and grandma. We've traveled all over the US and Canada and now were looking into exploring the spots we've missed in past travels. We have a list of places we would have liked to see but so far haven't taken the time to stop there. Now in our second motor home, we're still adding value to our investment!

I suggest that you plan this trip to stay on 101 with the motor home and then use the toad to explore 1. There are stretches of 1 that are doable in the motor home but your opportunities to pull off and enjoy the view will be very limited. There are excellent redwood stops along 101. Many of the old tourist stops exist on old stretches of the highway that have now been bypassed to speed traffic flow. I checked for guides to Hwy 101 on line and most are commercial. National Geographic has a quick article with some links that work and others that are outdated. This site has your drive through tree(s) and seems to have many other good links. One of my favorite stops in the Redwoods is a campground at Redcrest. The link will take you to two parks and I can't remember which it was. We were parked under one big redwood tree. There are stretches of road there that are off the main road and I remember riding my bicycle along a stretch of road early one morning, no traffic around, just silence and me on a bicycle among these huge trees. There are numerous parks near there to be explored. Humbolt Redwood State Park has some great trees. There are great stops in Redwoods National Park also.

It looks like everyone is thinking big tools. I do agree with those who are carrying a credit card. No matter what tools you have on board you are going to need the credit card for some jobs. I have found small tools very useful for repairing indoor items. A short handled screw driver. I've even used a 1/4 inch drive (swivel, not ratchet) to a socket to a screw driver bit to get to some tight spots. A variety of small wrenches are always useful and I carry a selection of mini screw drivers that come in handy. I have a 90 degree screw driver with Phillips heads on both ends that is useful for springing the drawer and cabinet latches in our motor home. The spring closure will occasionally snap shut if the drawer or door isn't closed firmly leaving the latch closed with no easy way to open it. The 90 degree screw driver slips under the latch and lifts it open with just a tug. I have a 90 degree attachment for my power drill for drilling in tight spots. When you get into cabinets and tight spaces, nothing works but a small tool.

Just before you reach Albany I-90 passes north of Cooperstown, NY, site of the Baseball Hall of Fame and a number of other museums. You will be about 20 to 25 miles north of the town, the road trip will be a little longer. If you are a baseball fan, this is a must see stop. We spent a day in the Hall of Fame and didn't begin to see all that Cooperstown has to offer. We found the campgrounds a little hard to find last summer so if you plan a stop here make reservations early. I couldn't recommend any particular park. The one where we stayed was out on a small road, glad we didn't meet any traffic going in or out. There are quite a few parks around, some of them have baseball training camps for kids and there are numerous ball fields also in the area, ball games going day and night so there are plenty of young people. Cooperstown sits at the south end of a fair sized lake so you might also find some of the lake scenery you are looking for.

It is really helpful if people requesting help give us a few clues about what coach they have. There are amazing differences between coaches, so much so that we may make 20 suggestions without hitting the right answer for your coach. That Ray hit the correct solution in the first reply is amazing. Great work Ray! For other readers, notice that many of us have some information about our coach in our signature at the end of each post. If you don't want to do that then please include information about your coach, manufacturer, year, model in your post requesting help. If you are asking questions about specific equipment functions, let us know who manufactured the equipment and what model you have in your coach. This applies to everything from refrigerators and toilets to thermostats and ceiling lights. Without this information we're reduced to guessing!