This topic is for all of you who started out with the best equipment, and found out maybe, could have ,or should have bought another product, or not at all.

Items such as sewer hoses (what brand),water hoses, wheel chocks , GPS systems, internet connection devices, storage containers , boats, satellite services,metal detectors,patio mats,slow cookers,BBQ pits,satellite radio's,windshield screens,patio furniture,etc........

Just about everything in and on the RV that pertains to fulltiming or part timing.So that some of us dont make the same mistake, and let the ones who follow in your foosteps, avoid spending their extra cash on what can become useless items.

Example; I found out after spending a considerable amount of money on RV friendly toilet paper, chemicals etc .. , that I did not need any of the RV specific items, regular household toilet paper (certains brands) was much more cost effective and broke down better, and not to use the chemical treatments in my black water tank because they prevented the natural bacteria from doing their job.

Ken and Cindy,

Just curious, what do you use to control the odor in your black water holding tank?  Since they are considered "holding tanks", I didn't think that any natural bacteria action took place like in a septic tank.  Am I wrong about that?

I use a non-formaldehyde chemical treatment in both the gray and black water tanks.  I don't use very much, just add a few ounces after dumping and then add some water also to prevent any left over solids from drying out.

wmalefyt

Essentially the whole system is closed (except for the roof vent), so no odor problems, and if you are using the correct procedure, then your black tank should always have some liquid left in it, even after dumping, the solids will break down quite rapidly without chemicals added.

Haven't used chems for the last four years and no odors.  

I would like to extend this topic a bit further. In reading all the postings there are quite a few of us who are still researching for either a MH or 5ver. I would like to know from the fulltimers what unit you have, what you like about it, what you would have added to it and didn't, what you don't like about it and the brand. Would you buy another unit from the same manufacturer or would you go to a different one? I know there is a lot of commercial items for sale etc. but I believe the best person to give me a straight answer is someone who already owns a unit.

If all goes well Sarah and I will begin part timing next year and within 3 years go full timing. I very much enjoy reading these posts.

Thanking you all in advance for whatever information you are willing to post.

khoenig

Ok , from only my experience.

Our first RV was a 30' travel trailer made by Fleetwood, loved camping in it but, towing it was a white knuckle affair, we sold it 8 months later and bought a 33' Georgetown class A gas rig, there's a ton of great memories in this one.Size, price ,and comfort was our driving force, would have liked more than one slide ,but in '99 that was about all they put on them. Never had any real problems with the coach, little things I fixed myself, bigger things were taken care of by the dealer/manufacture, mostly these items were only cosmetic. 

Would we buy another Georgetown again ? Yes we would, my dear wife loves it and at the time it fit our budget, now that our budget and our long term goal has changed from part time to fulltime, we want something a little more upscale.

Our next coach will be a diesel pusher, thats been determined, we entertained the path of a fifth wheel but decided for us, the motorcoach fits our wants and needs better. Our children and grandchildren are a big part of our decision, we like dragging them around and that means seating capacity is a must. In the past when pulling the travel trailer we would all pack into our ford expedition like sardines and head out on vacation, needless to say it was very uncomfortable.

Now, I know I could build a nice HDT with seating capacity but I just dont want to own another big rig that I feel later on will be challenging to enter and exit every time we stop and get out for potty breaks and such, my knees are not what they used to be.

We have narrowed down our search to either a Newmar or a Monoco product, they seem to have a great following and manufacture support. Forest River who makes the Georgetown doesn't have a coach that meets our wants, or we would add it to our short list. Tiffin makes a great product but they are just north of our budget and dont add anything more to justify the extra $$ in my opinion.

Hopefully you will get more responses from others who have other brands .

First, we would have bought a longer MH. Ours is 32' because we thought we could fit into more state/national parks that way AND we didn't have fulltiming in mind so soon. But generally 36' would have been fine and would have given us just enough more space.

Second, we could do without the solar panels which were pretty pricey. Boondocking, no electric, just isn't in the cards for us. I think we have too many techie things so that we really need to be plugged in. We're fine with "half boondocking"...no sewer/water for 6-7 days. In 3.5 years we have not depended on the solar panels for power.

I'm sure it depends on your lifestyle preferences so it's great to try things out before you fulltime. We have 3 computers (one has just electronic books), 275 DVD movies, 5000 songs on Musicmatch on the computer, a Bose sound system and a Sony Bravia 32" flat panel TV that sits on the dash and sleeps on the bed when we travel. Now those are necessities to us :)

We bought our first RV, a 34' Bounder (gas), with only a little research and were very lucky.  We'd thought a 30 or 32 ft. would be plenty but went the extra two feet with one slide and it was well worth it.  We were weekenders for two years and went once or twice a month to Bounder club  or FMCA weekend rallies...the best education we could have gotten since we had never done any camping.   That's where we got ideas of which gadgets, products, services, procedures would be good for us-and why.  After two years, we hit the road full-time and were quite comfortable in our rig.  After three more years we had putt-putted up the Rocky Mountains to visit our son in Breckenridge, CO several times, and had acquired enough "stuff" to reach our CCC limit so even though we were quite comfortable with our living space, we upgraded to a 40' Newmar Dutch Star Diesel Pusher.  It has "pass through" storage so we can fit our golf clubs and pull-carts.  We only got two slides because we didn't want access to the storage to be difficult. It also has the automatic levelers.  If there is a "next time" the satellite dish will be automatic.  We do like the automatic awning.  We couldn't live without our GPS..the simple DeLorme one works great for us...and we have two laptops (we don't share well).  We're "cheap"...don't have the "fancy" models of most things and seem to do well.  We do use our 2000 Watt inverter and the generator as we often "boondock" at Wal-Mart or rest areas while travelling.

Mary...'04 Dutch Star 4015, '02 Olds Alero

Lovglass mentioned that he wished he had gotten the portable datastorm instead of the automatic so he could be tucked under the trees.  I have had the same thought but have one question:  If you have a  portable unit do you have to put it away if you're leaving your site for the day to go site seeing or do you just leave them outside? 

Thanks,

Dianne

On portable internet dishes: We leave our internet dish setup as we go sightseeing.  It is easy for us since we leave the motorhome and take the car.  Those who take their RV to sightsee also leave their dish setup, just like they leave their TV dishes out.  I have heard of no one ever getting a dish stolen.

Once we came back and the dish was not pointed properly.  I asked our neighbor and someone was looking closely at the dish earlier and probably bumped it. 

One of the reasons we do not have a Datastorm is we camped a lot in a campground that has limited sites a Datastorm will work, but many more a tripod works.  In the last couple weeks we would have been much happier with a Datastorm since we were getting warranty repairs and could not leave the dish setup.

On generators and solar: We have about 140 hours on our generator after 2-1/2 years, so we use it.  We also have solar.  The generator gets used to supplement the solar when dry camping since we need to run medical equipment at night and the solar won't provide enough charging power in winter or with any clouds.  Also if it is hot we run the air conditioning off the generator, something we did for two days at the Spring Escapade in Chico, CA last April.  We recently spent two dry camping nights at a repair shop in cold and cloudy weather, so we ran the generator about 3 hours total to keep the batteries up after the furnace fan took its toll. 

What we should have gotten earlier: An indoor safe propane radiant heater, either ceramic or catalytic.  We bought a Mr Heater Buddy ($75 for 9000BTUs at Menards, about $80 right now at Camping World) and gave it a try using 1lb cylinders, it is a ceramic heater.  Now we are going to get a quick connect propane line put in so we can use it off our main propane tank (134 lbs).  It saves on batteries, is more efficient with propane, and is a lot quieter than the furnace.

Joan On The Road wrote:

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Second, we could do without the solar panels which were pretty pricey. Boondocking, no electric, just isn't in the cards for us. I think we have too many techie things so that we really need to be plugged in. We're fine with "half boondocking"...no sewer/water for 6-7 days. In 3.5 years we have not depended on the solar panels for power.

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There are a lot of things to consider when buying an RV but I would say that the very first thing to think about is weight.  When we were choosing our fifth wheel the manufacturers literature stated that the unit was 10,800 pounds dry with a 14,000 pound GVWR leaving us 3,200 pounds to play with (barely enough).  We had our rig custom built and when it showed up the sticker listed the dry weight at 11,475 with a 13,870 GVWR, all of a sudden we only have 2,395 pounds for additional options and personal "stuff".  You absolutely need 3,000 to 4,000 pounds for fulltiming.  Right now we are looking to put our RV on a diet as she is about 500 pounds overweight - anyone know of a good spa?  Fortunately the extra weight is in the hitch and the axel weights are within limits.  The extra hitch weight puts us at the max for the bed weight for the truck.

As far as options are concerned, that becomes a personal thing depending on what your lifestyle will be.  Once you decide that you want an option, do your homework - research that option.

Further, there are a lot of different rigs out there.  We choose Cedar Creek because it was lighter and could be pulled by a 2500HD GMC Sierra with Duramax Diesel.  We did not want a dually so our choices were Sunnybrook and Cedar Creek.  The Sunnybrook has multiple levels in the bath/bedroom area which we didn't want, so Cedar Creek it was.  We loved the Mobile Suites and the Travel Supreme Classic but they were just too heavy for our truck.

Hi Donna,

We do have a generator and have to remind ourselves to run it for maintenance :) It does get a workout when we are driving through extremely hot weather...we run one AC unit to help keep comfy.  Also have had a couple of occasions when the RV park power went out and we needed to recharge batteries, run microwave or hair dryer.  Also use it on occasion to cook hotdogs at a rest area.  Ours is pretty noisy so check it out and look for a quiet one.

Cheers!...Joan

To TMCblane...

Jim was all ready to take off the panels and sell them when we reach Hemet, CA but we're at the Datastorm rally and he just found a new "controller" that he thinks will work better so now we are tossing the coin again...sell or not? 

I am glad someone finally brought up the Titanium. My husband and I have a 28/33 ft Titanium and we think it is perfect too. We are not following our dream yet because we have to wait until 2011 for the "right time" But we are practicing for retirement in the mean time. My dh looked and looked for the perfect 5th wheel (according to his opinion) every time we went to a campground. If I could not find him, I knew he was in someone's fifth wheel checking out the units and asking the owners a million questions. When we were in Watkins Glen NY someone came in with a small Titanium. The design of the unit caught his attention as soon as they pulled into the campground. The couple was happy to show us around. They mentioned that they bought it in Daytona FL. It just so happened that we were on our way to Daytona when we left NY. So, we stopped in the dealership and checked out the Titaniums. Before the summer was over we were coming home with our new Titanium. We live in NW Fl and I was worried about having to take the unit back to Daytona for service (our past experience with RV dealers left us with the knowledge that the need for service was a given) To our pleasant surprise, we have had our Titanium for 3 years and have not had to take it in for service of any kind!!! That in itself is a testimonial for the quality of the product. (or that we finally lucked out and didn't buy a lemon for a change The size has been perfectly fine for the three of us (the two of us and our dog, Gizmo) My husband designed and built a carrier for the back that holds two Honda generators and various other necessities. (grills, bikes etc.) this adds a few more feet to the length. We removed our table and chairs and replaced it with a computer desk since most of the time we eat outside or (when it rains) with tv trays. When "R" (retirement) day arrives we will probably buy another unit as we plan to have this one worn out by then. I hope I can talk him into adding another foot or two to the next Titanium since we plan to spend more time following our dream. Paul likes the light weight of the Titanium and that he can pull it with his 250 Ford Diesel. He doesn't want to go much larger because of the type of camping we like to do.

Bonnie & Paul

The first thing all of us must remember is that these are opinions and every one has one.  We all have our likes and dislikes so we have to make the decisions that fit us best.

Over the past 35 years we have owned 2 pull trailers, 2 5th wheels and are in our third motorcoach.  We have been full-timers for more than 2 years now and this is what we have settled on.

Our present rig is a 40ft Diesel pusher built by American Coach.  It is a mid range dp as dp's go but is the bottom of the line for American Coach, a Fleetwood company.  We settled on the dp for a couple of reasons.  First and foremost was the power.  The 330 hp cummins engine produces just under 1000 lb-ft of torque.   You cannot get that in any pick up truck on the market.  You can get it in a heavy duty truck but then what have you got to drive around when not towing?  Second, the engine and transmission are a million mile unit meaning that it should run a million miles under normal operating conditions, meaning that you will not wear it out.  It is expensive but I haven't seen any armored cars in any funeral processions yet!  The second reason is basically 2 fold.  The storage space is massive under the rig.  We have only 2 slides so the storage is very accessible.  The Spartan Mountain Master chassis provides and excellent weight to load ratio, meaning we can load in a lot of stuff.  Very nice for full-timing.

The solar panels are a waste for us.  This is the case because to get any real battery charging capability from solar panels, they have to be big.  Most of the solar units today may maintain a battery if it is fully charged, but it would take forever to charge up one that is depleted.  Especially if you use more than a single battery set up.  Also they are expensive.  The state of the art in solar is just not sufficient at this time to do the job an RVer would need if that were the only source of charging used for your batteries and if you park in RV parks that provide electricity the majority of the time, the solar set up is a waste.

The power awning is a debateable issue.  Ours has been almost completely trouble free for 6 years and I don't have to go outside to deploy it or retract it.  Very nice if it is nasty outside and/or late at night.  Most now utilize a wind velocity sensor to automatically retract the awning when winds reach a pre-determined velocity.  Very nice to have if you leave the thing out when you are out sightseeing.

We utilize our generator a lot.  It is a 7.5 Kw Onan diesel unit.  We use it when traveling in hot weather to help cool the rig.  A dash unit just isn't enough when it gets hot. It is a water cooled unit and runs very quitely.  We also have  a 2000 watt inverter which will power most of the appliances in the unit for a short period of time.  This is a very nice thing to have.  We can cook using the microwave oven without running the generator if necessary.  If we leave it on we can ride through short term power outages at the RV park.  We also have an auto start system for the generator which will start the genset automatically when the inverter drops the battery voltage to a pre-determined voltage.  Also since we have a dog, when we leave the coach to go sight seeing and it is hot outside, we can leave the ac on and the system will automatically start the generator to run the ac if shore power is lost.  When camping without electircity we use the genset to charge the batteries (4 Trojan T-105's).

We traded out our CRT TV for a LVD TV.  The LCD is 100 lbs lighter and requires about 1/10 the power of the tube  type TV.  I think most RV manufacturers are providing LVD TV's from the factory now.  Typically an LCD TV will last 10 times longer than a tube TV too.

We installed a water filtration system.  We found a considerable spread in water quality across the country.  Most all systems are safe to drink but taste and hardness levels vary greatly.  The system is a single filter unit and was easily mounted in the coach.  Filters are readily availble from Home Depot, Lowe's and Wal-Mart.

I think a must is a tire pressure monitoring system.  There are several available on the market.  I think it is essential for numerous reasons but the biggest for me is to help prevent a tire from blowing out.  A blowout on a trailer, 5er or motorcoach can do significant damage to the unit in addition to the loss of the tire.  One primary reason for a blow out is running a tire with low air pressure causing significant heat build-up.  These systems will alert you when one or more of your tires drop pressure below a preset level, greatly reducing the probability of a blowout.

The satellite dish on our unit is an automatic alignment unit but not a domed in-motion unit.  Our children are grown with children of their own so we don't have a need for an in-motion system.  We have found that the wind can play havoc with the reception so a domed unit would be a good addition.  I personally like the flat gated array antenna but it is really pricey.  It has no moving parts and stands only 4 or 5 inches tall which would greatly reduce wind resistance when driving.  It would fit nicely where our useless solar panel is.   I haven't talked the wife into that one yet, but standby I haven't finished yet.

We don't have a GPS.  Not having one works out well for us because my lovely wife is a very capable driver allowing me to do the navigating.  That way I get to tell her where to go and get away with it.   If that were not the case and your spouse isn't a good navigator then the GPS would be a must have in my opinion.

 In closing.  Remember the above works for us.  You have to decide what works for you.  Having said that it is good to get a lot of input before you make a decision.  Research is the key but knowing what is right for you takes some time.  What is good for us may not be good for someone else.

deleted duplicate post...:)