tbutler

So Carl, how much do you weigh? Not you, your coach! Our license this year and we have the specialty plates (Texas Parks and Wildlife) with personalized plates (VGER1 - think Star Trek), $433.00. I didn't think we were lightweights but I guess I'll have to reconsider. Our empty weight is just under 30,000 pounds. It must be a sliding scale of some kind. Your coach couldn't be twice our weight could it? And we pay more than in our lifetime home state (Missouri) for sales tax and electric rates. On the positive side, that all is more than offset by the fact that I don't have to file those miserable Missouri State Income Tax forms. The forms were onerous, requiring computing taxes for each individual separately before combining the income and figuring the tax bill. Now I just have one tax document to prepare and file. Taxes are the investment we make in this wonderful country of ours. Consider it like the civilian version of serving in the military. And yes, the military do pay taxes also. That is why we are so grateful for their willingness to step forward and put their lives on the line for the rest of us. Having traveled extensively in other "second world" and "third world" countries I can tell you that despite what you hear, we are heads and shoulders above the rest of the world. Better roads, even in their current condition, better utilities, better water, better electric services, better communication, you name it, we have what the rest of the world would love to have. That is why so many people want to come here. That is why over the history since Columbus brought back word of this land to Europe, there has been a continual flood of immigrants to this country. At this point I'll stop before I step over "the line" if I already haven't done so. Have a Happy New Year!

Enjoy the adventure! Hope you are in a warm place this winter!

Our 2004 Windsor has the capability to charge the house batteries from the alternator. I'd be surprised if the Endeavor didn't have the same feature. We have a 160A alternator. If your alternator will support the additional load to keep the house batteries charged your solution should work fine.

I would head south out of LA to San Diego and spend a couple of weeks there. We enjoyed the downtown and surrounding parks. A stop along the way south in the Hemet area (still near LA) might be a good idea to give you a chance to give you a few days to become fully acquainted with your new purchase before leaving the dealer. If not a dealer purchase, you would still be close to the former owner if you needed some help with getting things working properly. From San Diego, take I-8 east to Yuma which is a major wintering area for RV'ers from the west coast. You can find numerous large parks there that cater to retirees who are escaping cold weather up north. These parks have full social schedules for most any interest. If you haven't experienced this kind of park before it would be worth a stop. Along the way on I-8 you will find a number of places where the ATV and dune buggy crowd boondocks and plays in the sand dunes. From Yuma, I-8 takes you northward toward Casa Grande, south of Phoenix. You can pick up I-10 there. If you want an interesting side trip take US 95 north in western Arizona toward Quartzite. This is mecca for RV'ers. It might be hard to find a campground without reservations but if you call around you may be able to find a spot somewhere. There are flea markets, social events and plenty of other RV'ers in the area. Some people park in the desert with no hookups for the winter! It has to be seen to be believed and there is no better way to see it than in an RV. Phoenix has some interesting parks also catering to the winter RV crowd as does Tucson. In Arizona you will find a number of National Parks and National Monuments. Along I-10 you will find Saguaro NP, Ironwood Forest National Monument, and Sonoran Desert NM. Organ Pipe Cactus NM (featured in the January Family Motor Coaching magazine) lies along the southern border, Hwy 85 south from I-8 will take you to this interesting park. If you've never explored the desert environment, winter is the perfect time. If this is a special interest of yours, the southern California areas near Death Valley NP, Joshua Tree NP, Mojave National Preserve and others are excellent in winter also. They are further north but the desert climate during days draws many RV'ers for the winter as well. Continuing on east, Brett mentioned US 90 from Van Horn south toward Del Rio. This is an interesting drive through western Texas. It also takes you near Big Bend National Park, one of the least visited parks in the US. It has a mountain and desert environment. There is an RV park in the National Park, reservations are recommended. There is also a Big Bend Texas State Park with RV camping available. Both are worth a stop. From Del Rio you can go east into San Antonio and pick up I-10 again or you can continue on south along the border toward Laredo where US 83 will take you to the Rio Grande Valley, McAllen, Mission, Brownsville and South Padre Island. From there driving the Texas Gulf Coast has a number of wildlife areas and interesting cities, Corpus Christi, Galveston to name just two of the larger ones. There are numerous RV parks in the area from Mission to Brownsville. This area is rich in migrating birds and also has many tropical birds that frequent the area. If you enjoy birds, you will see birds here that are not seen anywhere else in the US. In Louisiana, US 90 south out of Lafayette will take you down through the bayou country and on into New Orleans. The Gulf Coast of Mississippi, Alabama and Florida have many parks along the Gulf of Mexico. We enjoy visiting the occasional WWII warship. In Corpus Christi the USS Lexington (aircraft carrier) is worth a stop. I tried looking up others on the internet but there doesn't seem to be a good link to a general list. As far as campgrounds, I haven't included any specific recommendations. We like campgrounds which are convenient to the places we want to visit. We don't spend a lot of time in the campground so we are interested most in a reasonably level spot with good hook-ups. We tried the KOA Campgrounds when we started but gave that up pretty quickly. Today they are our last choice if we can't find anything else. We use RV Park Reviews and the Allstays Camp and RV app for our iPad. You will find listings for all kinds of campgrounds with both these resources and then you can make your choice from the listings and reviews.

Furnace on, yes - and dash heat as well! We've never had a problem with using the furnace while on the road. At the temperatures you cite, teens and low 20's I would travel without water in the lines and tanks until you get to warmer weather. Many people travel this way on the journey south this time of year. Carry the needed drinking water with you in jugs. When the temperature goes below the mid 20's I worry about frozen pipes. Pipes against outside walls are especially vulnerable and the lines from your water tank and water pump are in unheated space below the living area which will leave them vulnerable to freezing. Our coach has special winterizing, insulated tanks, a built-in heater for the waste tanks and I still worry. The financial costs of damage from broken pipes can be really high as the pipes are difficult to access in many places in an RV. With cool temperatures, you can minimize the need for bathing. Heat water on the stove and bathe in the sink or a dishpan. Heading west from Memphis you will still encounter some cold temperatures so you may want to continue your travel without water on-board until you get out of the mountains near Phoenix. It is 14 degrees in Flagstaff this morning! Phoenix is 40 and sunny! Our temperature this morning is 78 degrees with sun and a 20 MPH wind from the south. Monday we'll be in the 40's in the morning!

I'd recommend Cummins Southern Plains, 6226 Pan Am Expressway North in San Antonio. It is on the NE side of the city just off I-35. Phone 210-655-5420 When we head north in the spring we'll call ahead and make an appointment for engine service when needed. They should be able to find your problem if no one else can. They service many RV's there and we've always received good service. There are two Cummins Coach Care facilities in Texas, one in El Paso and another in Houston. I've never been to either of these but have always found Coach Care facilities to be very accommodating of motor home customers.

Just catching up here. We've run the refrigerator on full time when traveling. The alternator is the original, (Leece-Neville, 160 Amp standard) now twelve years in service and five years traveling with the residential refrigerator. We only run the generator when driving while we are using the roof air conditioners. We do keep the generator on the auto-start setting normally so if our house battery charge level drops the generator would kick in. We've never had the generator auto-start while driving. It will auto start during the night if the furnace is running quite a bit, even before we had the residential refrigerator. So I went to our users manual to review the information and make certain my information is correctly stated. "The alternator also maintains a charge to the house batteries. The function of the alternator is an electrical system voltage maintainer, not a battery charger. When traveling the alternator maintains electrical system voltage relative to any loads, such as headlights,and windshield wipers. When a heavy load is placed on the alternator, such as trying to charge dead batteries, the operating temperature of the alternator for extended periods of operation can lead to premature failure of the alternator. If the house batteries are in a low state of charge, or dead, before traveling it is recommended to charge the house batteries with the inverter/charger or an auxiliary battery charger." There is a note: "Excessive loads applied to the inverter can actually drain both the chassis and house batteries during operation." The only cautions are about charging batteries while driving. Charging batteries is a long term continuous load which can overheat the alternator when added to its normal functions operating the engine and chassis accessories. As a battery maintainer the alternator is sensing the voltage of the house batteries and adding charge as needed to maintain their voltage. The refrigerator is operating intermittently, the compressor runs for a few minutes and then is off. House battery voltage may drop slightly during this operation and the alternator may briefly add a charge to offset this voltage drop but it also is intermittent. This should not cause overheating as it is not a continuous large load. We run with our inverter on 24/7 when we are traveling. I can't imagine that the ordinary loads of charging phones would be a problem. My iPhone charger indicates .5 amps, the iPad charger draws 2.1 amps. The cautions about charging batteries is directed at the house and starting batteries. The information on our battery maintainer states that it provides up to 15 amp charge to the chassis batteries. A continuous 15 amp load is way different than a phone charger, even three iPads would be just over 1/3 of 15 amps. I'll sometimes have my laptop plugged in and charging when we travel, we have a GPS plugged in to the 12V outlet. We have two clock radios, sometimes the furnace, water pump, etc. I've never seen a problem. We can't operate the microwave without the battery voltage dropping and then the generator kicks in to provide power for the microwave. One final aha! that may be a difference. Our coach came with a single solar panel which is capable of delivering up to 5A charge per hour during the mid-day hours (5 hours centered on noon solar time) and lesser amounts the rest of the day. These are our usual driving hours so this added help is assisting the alternator input to charge the batteries. This could be enough to make a significant difference. There are no doubt different electrical system operating processes on different coaches. The above is what is specified for our coach.

I carry a four step all steel household ladder that I purchased at Home Depot in 2001 when we started full-timing. It is a very sturdy, stable ladder. It folds flat, about an inch and a half in thickness. The steps are 8 inches deep and the top step is 42 inches off the ground. It is 66 inches tall with the frame extending well above the top step. This provides a surface to brace your legs against to steady your position on the top step. Here is a link to the Skinny-mini ladder at Home Depot. This looks very similar to mine except I don't have the top tray for paint cans! I hadn't seen it in stores lately and see on the web site that it isn't available in stores. At $45, it is a reasonable price for an excellent and compact ladder. I store it on its side next to the slide out tray in my forward storage compartment. It is easy to access and light enough to handle without strain. I can get to all the windows including the entire windshield but can't get to the top of the coach. I also use this ladder to get me onto the roof ladder at the rear of the coach as the first step is really a stretch for me.

I keep returning to this posting as others consider changing over to a residential unit. We couldn't be happier with our refrigerator. We gave it the acid test for rough roads this summer, Newfoundland and Labardor, almost all the major roads in Labrador including over 400 kilometers of gravel roads (read motor home abuse - guilty). It's still running great. I'd never go back! We are still using the 4x6V battery set-up, now with AGM batteries for the last two summers, all is well with that set-up. For us, the boondocking is always supplemented with generator so we recharge the batteries on a regular basis but they will go through the night without a problem. On the coldest nights the generator auto start will kick in to recharge batteries shortly before sunrise but otherwise things are good until DW starts the coffee pot!!!

Here is a link to my posting here on the FMCA Forum from several years ago (May 2011). We replaced our Norcold 1200 (aka No Cold) and have been extremely happy with the results. We don't boondock extensively. When traveling we'll go several days at a time without plugging in, generator and driving only. We have the original 4x6V battery set-up and have never had a problem. The household unit functions just as I would expect with a home unit, no problems with power usage. We did install a 3000W sine wave inverter prior to the installation of the refrigerator in anticipation of replacing the refrigerator. The unit we installed was for sine wave only. The Samsung is frequently cited as one that can run on a modified sine wave inverter. You may get by with a modified sine wave inverter but I think a sine wave inverter will still give the refrigerator a longer life even if it will function with a modified sine wave inverter. We do use a small bungee on the handles to keep the doors closed as there is no built-in lock as in the Norcold. We have a much larger unit in almost the same space and much better service, cold ice cream, no worries about fire, etc. Our driving experience with the refrigerator has been no problems in what I would describe as extreme driving conditions for a motor home. Read my blog for our experience in Newfoundland and Labrador this past summer here on the FMCA Blogs! Some would accuse me of motor home abuse! We've traveled 56,000 miles since the refrigerator was installed! With the exception of the holidays when the refrigerator functions as a second freezer, the unit sits unused through the winter.

Holy Mackerel Bat Man that is way cool! It looks like you could drive that to the space station! The view from the cab is amazing. Wonder if we can get Peterbilt working on new motor home designs?? I assume you meant RV, not TV!

That is a good point. If/when I go with an internal surge protector I'll have to get the tester. It looks great. jleamont: Have you ever encountered a box where you couldn't plug in because the tester is too wide or boxy to fit into the outlet?

You will find that many of the campgrounds in the eastern US and also in eastern Canada are filled with local campers who have an annual contract on a site and park their trailer there on a more or less permanent basis. This becomes their weekend and vacation spot. These are the summer equivalent of the winter campgrounds in the southern US where the snow birds roost from December through March. They have lots of spaces, the listing in the camping guides may show a hundred spaces but there will only be a handful of transient spaces available and those are often booked around times when there are special events, holidays, summer vacation times. It can mean that if you want to see the area you have to plan ahead and sometimes take what you can get. We've had good and bad experiences at these campgrounds. They cater to their "permanent" clientele and tolerate the transients. Given what I've said, let me say that we still make a pass through the northeastern US and Canada on a regular schedule and wouldn't miss the great scenery, history, parks, recreation opportunities and seafood that the NE US has to offer. Just be prepared to take what you get and live with it. Note also that if you are traveling in the fall their camping season ends at Labor Day for many campgrounds. Once their regular campers are gone they close up the doors and head south!

A 2000 watt Honda inverter that runs on gas must actually be a generator. Gremlinbangles indicates that they have a generator in their coach.

We winter in south Texas and spring break in South Padre Island is definitely a college thing. My daughter and her husband took their children to the Pensacola, FL beaches and they enjoyed it. Their children were similar in age so that would be my suggestion. I've seen the beach in that area and it is certainly beautiful but I have no first hand experience or RV park recommendations to offer.

Winter driving is a concern almost anywhere in the US. As jleamont indicated, check your weather before you hit the road each morning. The weather channel is good for an overview of what lies ahead though you might have to watch for a while to get the weather for the specific part of the road you are going to be driving. I use Weather Bug on my iPad or iPhone. You can get radar live (10 to 15 minute delay) and it shows where you are located so you know right away where you are in relation to any storm. Zoom in or out to get more or less detail, all quite easy. Watch the sky, if you see clouds on the eastern horizon, check the weather again! You will be running along or near the southern border of the US so the chances of really bad weather are much lower than say I-20 or I-40. At worst you might have to stop in a campground for a day or two before continuing on your way. Traveling from west to east, you are traveling in the same direction as storms will be traveling. If you are ahead of a storm, drive a little longer each day and you might be able to stay ahead of it. If you are coming up behind a storm, delay for a few days to allow it to get well ahead of you. If I know a storm is approaching, I'll get up early in the morning to check the radar. Coming out of Denver one December we stopped in Colorado Springs. We did a storm drill (slides in, wheels turning in 15 or 20 minutes) at 4 in the morning to get away before being hit by the snow or freezing precipitation. It was all worth it as we were passed by truckers with snow loads on top of their trailers for hours. Glad to get out in front of that one!

As far as the climb is concerned you should have no problems. Your coach is equipped to handle the climb and your toad isn't super heavy so that should be no problem. That time of year any problems with overheating should be no concern. Even a warm day in January in the LA area is cool by comparison to the summer temperatures you coach should be able to handle. We've driven the grapevine and mountain roads that are much more extreme. Take your time and you'll be fine. Remember your aren't in a race. Get in the truck lane and hang with the big boys! Flashers on if you drop below 45 MPH is pretty standard to indicate to any approaching traffic that you are a slow vehicle. You'll probably find yourself passing a few of the really heavily loaded trucks that are creeping along at 15 or 20 miles per hour in low-low gear. There are alternatives to that route. We've taken US 58 out of Bakersfield toward Mojave, Connect to I-15/I-40 at Barstow and stay on I-40 to the California/Arizona border. Then you have a choice of US 95S on either side of the border. It's smaller highway and I think the California side is an easier drive but it is US highway and last time we drove it, in reasonably good condition. You will then pick I-10 at Blythe or Quartzite depending on which route you chose. If you haven't driven I-10, there are long stretches of open highway. Major cities to be avoided at rush hour include Phoenix, Tucson, El Paso, San Antonio, and Houston. Of these, Tucson is the least problem but I would try to navigate through all of them in early morning, mid-day or late evening. Each has a bypass of some kind and you could avoid the intense city traffic taking the bypass. I prefer real early morning for these city transits if at all possible. A good GPS is helpful in cities. It will advise you of coming lane changes and exits to help with your planning while driving. If you are using a new GPS, try to get some time with it in the car to learn its use and how it provides directions. The last thing you need in heavy city traffic is the distraction of trying to figure out what the GPS wants you to do! Have a good trip! If you want a few days of rest along the way there are nice parks in Boerne, TX, just north of San Antonio, right on I-10. San Antonio is a great city to explore. The River Walk will be drained that time of year but there are great restaurants along the River Walk and it is a pretty area even without the water. There are artsy shops and stores in La Villa along the River Walk. Once you see San Antonio you'll have to stop again on your return trip in the spring! On the north side of Houston, the city of Spring, Texas has many artsy shops and stores. South of Houston is Galveston and further south the Texas Gulf Coast has many pretty stopping spots. Enjoy Florida.

Having a surge protector helps with parks that don't have a breaker at the post. Yes there are parks we've stayed at with no breaker at the post. With a surge guard there is a delay from the time you plug in the surge guard until full power is switched on to the coach. During this time, there is only a very tiny draw of electric to power the surge guard (no matter which end of the coach power cord the surge guard is located on, at the post or internal). This way, everything is fully inserted into the outlet of the post before the full draw of the coach is switched on. I've had an external surge protector for a while and am noticing signs of wear and the weather seal is starting to break down. I'm thinking of going with an installed internal unit to get it out of the weather. Glad to see some suggestions for different models in the previous discusson. I'll take a look at all of them and pick the one that seems to best meet my needs at an affordable cost. Just seeing a coach with no surge protection at the post doesn't mean that they don't have one.

The toad isn't really a problem to tow. With a large coach you seldom even know it is there behind you. That is why they have put a camera on the back of the coach - so you can check once in a while to see if it is still there. Towing a car does require a great deal of planning and caution to avoid problems caused by your sudden inability to back up. Once you attach the toad, you can not back up. Not even a little bit. If you back up the front wheels of the toad will turn to one side or the other and then the tow bar is damaged and it goes downhill fast from there. If you get into a parking lot or a dead end street where there is no room to turn around without backing up, your only way out is to disconnect the toad, maneuver the coach to a position so you can exit and then reattach the toad. Sometimes a wrong turn can result in a long drive until you find a place you can turn around or streets that will allow you to go around the block (without getting into low trees and narrow streets with difficult corners to navigate). You learn to become very skeptical about taking narrow roads that have an uncertain outlet. Even the most experienced of us have found ourselves in this situation and each time it is a learning experience! Once you understand the limitations the toad brings you can anticipate problems and learn to avoid them. We've towed for about 180,000 miles over 14 years on the road and only found ourselves in a bind a handful of times. The convenience of having a small vehicle for the trips to town, going exploring in parks, visiting friends and relatives, etc. easily offsets the extra concerns. Park the coach, it becomes base camp and then take the toad and explore your surroundings!

Are you staying in your coach now in Florida? If you are, close up your grey water tank and give it a test run. See how long you can go before you have to dump the tanks. Do several runs like that trying different water saving techniques and you will have a good idea of your use and need for dumping tanks. The black water tank typically will go much longer than the grey water tank so as mentioned, washing dishes in a pan and dumping in the toilet will extend your grey water tank. We're not big on extending the water and we usually schedule a waste tank pump-out after about 3 days. If we work at it we can extend it to 4 days but we don't go to extremes. Showers are available, we've used them at some rallies. The showers may be provided in portable shower units or there may be in the case of state fairgrounds fixed facilities with showers. As you might guess, they will be in high demand. At other rallies it just wasn't convenient so we showered in the coach. You could alternate shower days with wash cloth and sink days, a variety of the military helmet wash. If the weather is cool, that may help. Regarding the electric, we usually pay for the electrical supply. You have to sign up early as the number of electrical connections are limited. If boondocking, you can run a generator for several hours in the morning and completely charge the batteries for the day. If needed, you can do the same in the evening. We usually watch a little TV in the evening while the generator is charging the batteries. If the furnace runs during the night it may deplete the battery charge and this plus a pot of coffee call for the generator in the morning. Using the generator for an hour or two each morning and evening will amount to about 10 to 15 gallons of fuel in the course of the rally. The generator will use somewhere between a quarter to half a gallon of fuel an hour depending on the size of your generator and the load on the generator. If you can use your generator now, you might give this a test run as well. Disconnect and see how the power works out for several days off line. Doing this before the rally will allow you to go to the rally with some strategies already tested. Over time as you live and travel in your coach, you will perfect this and become quite comfortable with a variety of living, weather conditions and variations in utilities supplied at any given site. The motor home is quite a marvelous piece of equipment that provides comfortable living almost anywhere but it does take careful management at times to make everything work.

One of the problems with inertial braking systems used on diesel motor homes is that the brakes are activated by any retarding of the motion of the vehicle combination. When you use your engine brake down a long hill or mountain slope, the inertial brakes on the toad can be activated will remain on during the whole time the engine brake is on. This can cause serious burning of the brakes as they may be doing more than just assisting in slowing the toad. The brakes on the toad could be slowing the motor home! I don't know if you can adjust the brakes to be insensitive enough to prevent this and still get braking action from them when the service brakes are used.

Regarding the air conditioners, in our coach the air conditioners feed a common duct system so air from the front air conditioner also feeds to the rear of the coach though not as vigorously as to the front of the coach. At night we set the front AC to a lower temperature so we don't have to listen to the rear AC running. Sometimes when the front AC kicks on, it will dispel warm air from the ducts in the rear which will cause the rear AC to come on briefly then it will go off once the air coming from the rear ducts is cool again. If one AC is cycling quickly, try changing the settings of the other AC units. Let the one that is cycling quickly handle more of the work for a while and see how it behaves. Like Blake, when we park after driving in hot weather I raise the engine cover to allow maximum air circulation and cool the engine quicker. I'll close it up before we turn in for the night but it helps the air conditioners cool the coach much quicker. In our first coach the engine was under the bed. That was really nice in cold weather but we definitely had to raise the cover on the engine compartment in hot weather! We only use our generator while driving when we need heavy air conditioning while on the road. Our inverter is on full time in the coach. We've never had batteries go dead while driving no matter how long we are on the road. With the inverter on it is powering our residential refrigerator. We never have to reset clocks! The only time we've had problems with batteries is when they have reached the end of their useful life and are no longer taking a charge. Glad to hear that you made it in Thursday. I was looking at the weather this morning and hoping that you weren't on the road somewhere along the SE Texas coast! Cooler today, warming tomorrow. Enjoy south Texas weather! If you are looking for a fun experience, there is the Causeway Walk/Run from Port Isabel to South Padre Island on Saturday, January 9. They close one lane on the causeway bridge and several thousand people race or walk across from Port Isabel to South Padre Island. Buses return you after you complete the walk or run. We've been doing this for a number of years, great fun if the weather is good. Every year is different. Registration information is available at this website for the Port Isabel Chamber of Commerce. You have to register to get the wrist band to be able to walk across the causeway bridge. If you walk they have buses at the South Padre Island end of the causeway but you can also walk north to the end point of the race at Louie's Back Yard which hosts the medal awards and HEB grocery stores sponsors hot dogs, chips and drinks for all participants, walk or run! That adds about a mile to the distance you would walk and there are buses there for all participants as well.

The original posting was made in February 2012 so any questions dowdyl had have been settled by now. Regarding the original question, there are strategies that can help with any loan of this type. Dowdyl was working at the time and had five more years of anticipated employment before retirement. Since the early years of a loan the payments are mostly interest with little principal paid, it is possible to cut the loan period down by making additional payments. On a 20 year loan at today's 4% rate, almost 60% of the initial payments will be interest so it only takes an additional 40% of the monthly payment amount to, in essence, make two payments while at the same time reducing the amount of interest paid on the loan. Doing this for the 5 years he was working would leave him with just ten years of payments at age 65. If you size the loan (select a rig you can afford) so that you can do this while working, you leave yourself able to drop back with the payments upon retirement and still have just ten years left to pay off the loan. When taking a loan you should always consider the rate your savings and investments are paying. If you had money in a savings account today at an interest rate of a fraction of 1%, you would be better off putting that money down on the purchase. It would be like getting 4% interest on your money because you would be saving 4% on that amount in the loan. If your investments are paying you 5% or more and you are certain they will continue at or near that rate then take the loan. A 4% loan would leave you with a net 1% difference in your favor on 5% investment returns. One other factor always involved with financial decisions that I haven't seen mentioned is the sleep factor. Everyone has their own comfort level with savings, investments and loans. If taking out a large loan for an extended period of time puts you out of your comfort level, you may worry about it constantly. If issues like this wake you up or keep you up at night, you should reconsider the decision. Part of enjoying the benefits of owning a motor home include being able to sleep soundly at night! One additional note. Upon retirement, we sold the house and bought the motor home. The proceeds of the sale of the house were the down payment on the motor home. We eliminated the costs of maintaining a home in addition to reducing the cost of buying and owning a motor home. This significantly changes the financial picture when making a purchase at or near retirement. Not everyone is able to part with the sticks and bricks home but if you can make the break and still sleep at night, it can be very beneficial from a financial standpoint. When we lived on the road, we experienced a freedom that is hard to explain to those who have a house. Suddenly, time becomes a tiny fraction of decision making when traveling.

Here is a link to a list of RV salvage yards. You'd have a hard time visiting all of them, there may not even be one near you. Many if not most are willing to work with you over the phone. Many also ship parts to you. Get on the phone if you can't visit one in your area.

You will find that the quality of electrical supply can vary in RV parks. Many older parks were wired for 30A electric and haven't been properly re-wired. We occasionally find parks where the wire size is not adequate for 50A service. There may be a 50A plug on the post but if the wire to the post is not #6 or #4 for longer runs, the voltage will drop from 120 to 110 to 100 or even 90 or below. Our coach has a built in monitor that shows the voltage of the supply line and our amperage draw. Using this monitor I can see what voltage is reaching our coach. Anything between 120V and 110V is fine. If the voltage drops below 110V your appliances, lights, air conditioners/heat pumps draw more amps which can push you over the limit for the breaker. It can also damage your appliances to run on low voltage for an extended period of time. We also have a power monitoring system that will shut down appliances if we are approaching the amperage limit of the breaker on the post. It automatically senses 30A or 50A current (30A is 110/120V and 50A is 220/240V). In your coach the two hot leads of a 50A line are split into two separate circuits, each supplying 50A electric at 110/120V. At 50A we should be able to run everything in the coach at one time including the washer/dryer. At 30A, we have to use appliances in rotation, not all at one time. If we err, the system will shut off the appliances that would put us over the limit. This monitoring system can even be set for 20A supply so we can plug into a normal household breaker for a 20A line with an outdoor extension cord and use that electric source without tripping the breaker providing the 20A extension cord is of sufficient size to supply a full 20A to the coach. If there is an external 20A outlet, I have an adapter that will allow me to plug my 50A cord into a 20A outlet directly. Then there is no problem with voltage drop due to wire size! We also use a plug in surge protector at the post which will trip if the voltage drops too low. It has saved us several times. I usually check to see what the line voltage is right away when we plug in and turn on the air conditioners but when we don't need the air conditioners immediately I sometimes forget. Checking voltage when there is no load on the system will not tell you if the supply line is sufficient. To check proper line voltage the line should be under heavy load. If wired properly, the line should still provide the 110/120V at full load (the breaker limit). Since we are heavily dependent on the electrical supply in our coaches, it is wise to learn as much as possible about electricity. Moving around and plugging in at different locations constantly means it is even more important to understand what is going on when you plug in. One bad electric supply source can destroy a whole bunch of expensive electrical devices. Here is a web site that I recommend to help you understand campground and RV Electric,