Battery Died Right Away

[OTRA15]

Glad the trip worked out after the improvements!

Thanks for the update.

Peter

[TravlinMan]

I had a feelin it would work itself out glad the trip went well.

[gypsydad]

Originally Posted by polyester

We just spent a week traveling to and from the Canadian Rockies on and off grid. Adding a battery (and replacing the bad one) seemed to make a huge difference! We spent 3 days off grid and only pulled the solar panels out for one partly sunny day. I think my lowest panel reading was 12.4. It was a warm and stuffy week everywhere we went, so we had kept the fan going quite a bit and didn't drain it this time. Fridge seemed to work better this time too, though the temp fluctuated a lot. It didn't stay very cold at all while driving through eastern WA and OR. Everything was a bit warm by the time we made it home. I guess I'll have to remember to keep packing ice in there. We were still pretty conservative with our power usage, but I feel a bit more confident now heading into more wilderness...at least as far as power concerns go.

We have not had any fridge issues with our AS's, but we have had 25 foot models, and now the 28; bigger units, but still no issues with staying cold at any altitude. Freezer will keep ice froze; guess were lucky? My friend told me his 30' Class A MH fridge and freezer will not stay cold above 6K feet. He is looking into a new unit.
You mention just returning from Canadian Rockies...We canceled our trip to Canada two weeks ago because of smoke/fire issues...is it better now? We still would like to get up to Banff and Radium area this summer. Where did you go?

[TravlinMan]

Originally Posted by gypsydad

We have not had any fridge issues with our AS's, but we have had 25 foot models, and now the 28; bigger units, but still no issues with staying cold at any altitude. Freezer will keep ice froze; guess were lucky? My friend told me his 30' Class A MH fridge and freezer will not stay cold above 6K feet. He is looking into a new unit.
You mention just returning from Canadian Rockies...We canceled our trip to Canada two weeks ago because of smoke/fire issues...is it better now? We still would like to get up to Banff and Radium area this summer. Where did you go?

gypsydad were you running your fridge on electric or in propane above 6k? When I got above 6k my fridge was havin a lotta trouble stayin lit on propane. Bein plugged into shore power doesn't have that problem. Above 8k' it really struggled and above 10k' it was useless. On propane. On electric it was fine. All my other propane appliances worked fine at any elevation.

[DKB_SATX]

Originally Posted by devilsbox

I was dry camping at a music festival in NC last June. There was a feller in a SOB who swore putting a magnet on the solenoid in the back of the fridge would shut off the juice the fridge used while on propane.

I did not do it to my AS. I have no idea how or if it really works.

Larry

I'd say that's fairly likely to be the same sort of snake-oil as the magnets around your fuel line that supposedly make carburetors work better. However, if you could put it in the right place and the valve actuator is magnetic, I don't see how the fridge would know to turn off its solenoid because something else was holding the valve open. It also couldn't close the solenoid if it stopped detecting a flame, which could be dangerous unless it has some sort of mechanical thermal safety.

[OTRA15]

Originally Posted by gypsydad

We have not had any fridge issues with our AS's, but we have had 25 foot models, and now the 28; bigger units, but still no issues with staying cold at any altitude.
. . .

Have your fridges had exhaust flues which went up through a vent in the roof? This is often the dividing line in performance IMO, with many of the smaller and newer Airstreams relying on exhaust fans which vent out the exterior wall louvered doors. Our 2014 FC20 does this, in contrast to the 1988 25' we had which had a flue through the roof.

The new Basecamp is having all kinds of problems with the fridge, mounted in the front of the BC, not maintaining a safe cold temp when running on LP in hot weather.

Hopefully Airstream will revert to roof-vented flues whenever possible even though this means a more constrained interior layout and weather-proofing the cap at the roof.

[NoResults]

gypsydad, I can answer your question about smoke from Canada. It is the worst I have ever seen down here in Salem 50 miles South of Portland. The fires are very bad in Canada.

Dave

[polyester]

Originally Posted by NoResults

gypsydad, I can answer your question about smoke from Canada. It is the worst I have ever seen down here in Salem 50 miles South of Portland. The fires are very bad in Canada.

Dave

I concur. I think we lucked out when we traveled through Alberta and BC. We hit the worst of it in Canmore, where I was being ashed on as I fueled up. We were starting to think about alternate plans, but once we crossed into Banff, the smoke subsided significantly. We had a clear path travelling South from the West side of Banff down Kootenay hwy 95 and it was gorgeous. However, it's been miserable here in Portland ever since we returned. Seems way worse down here than anywhere we traveled in Canada, though I know there's still a lot of activity up there as well. We escaped to Mt Ranier last weekend, but have otherwise been left to suffer through the heat and air pollution week after week. August is always peak time for wildfires, but this season seems especially bad. Be very careful when planning your travels.