Dometic, Norcold, or..?

[brad barton]

Ryan,

Not every LXi is all electric. We have a propane four-door Norcold and an exterior propane outlet for a grill. We had one problem with the Norcold. On one leg of a trip between Bryan and DFW, the box went from 40 to 73 degrees. That's the only problem we ever had and we never figured out what caused it. It's worked perfectly ever since. I think that's the frustrating part diagnosing whether it's the gas, the flame, the flue, the electric heating element, the control board or some other problem.Even with everything else electric or AquaHot, we still have 9 batteries in the rear and 1 for the generator. I guess you need another couplebatteries or maybe solar panels to handle the extra charge load of a homerefrigerator. When you're ready for my LXi, I'll buy youthe new refrigerator if you'll pay to have it installed.

Brad Barton 00LXiDFW bbartonwx@...

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To: WanderlodgeForum@yahoogroups.com
From: ryanpwright@...
Date: Thu, 25 Dec 2008 19:32:51 -0800
Subject: Re: [WanderlodgeForum] Dometic, Norcold, or..?

Brad,

Yup! You really did nail my personality dead center and I take no
offense. My old Travco pushed me right into a Wanderlodge for the same
reason, trying to make it something it wasn't. Here I had this '66
Dodge that I absolutely loved, rebuilt engine, beautiful interior, all
done by my grandfather and everything great "but" it sat for a decade
after he died and a few of Grandma's "friends" borrowed it once or
twice and lost/damaged things. By the time Grandma was emotionally
able to part with it and I bought it from her, the generator was shot,
it was in desperate need of paint and had a "soft spot" in the floor
that Grandpa "fixed" 15+ years earlier by sliding a piece of 1/8"
steel under the carpet. We enjoyed it as-is for awhile but I longed
for more, so one day I began tearing the floor apart to fix that
"little" soft spot and found the entire floor rotted, all window seals
shot and had been slowly leaking into the walls for decades and a
family of squirrels had been living under the bathroom.

I gutted the bus, put in a new floor, then started scheming. I mean,
while it was all torn apart, why not make it like a "real" coach? I
talked to fabricators about custom water tanks, bigger fuel tanks,
looked at sunroofs, new genset... By the time I added it up I was
going to be into it for thirty grand & a years' worth of hard labor
and still not have what I "really" wanted. So I gave it to a friend
and bought my Wanderlodge.

I'm very, very happy with my coach. I also watch eBay auctions and
have fallen in love with the LXIs, and that causes me grief ;-). When
I first read of the all electric coaches here, I thought they were
silly. Propane is great, why wouldn't you want it on board? But now I
long for a full size fridge with ice & water in the door, a diesel
fired burner for heat & hot water and a bigger shower, and I remember
that I don't need the complications of propane with a solid bank of
batteries and a powerful genset. Then I think about the extra 3 feet
on a 43' model along with a potential side or two and ideas for
cutting expenses and scraping together the extra dough begin to fill
my head....

Such is life. In the meantime I'll keep sprucing up and loving what
I've got and one of these days, when I can no longer resist the
upgrade bug, somebody is going to get a heck of a nice coach off me.

-Ryan
'86 PT-40 8V92

On Thu, Dec 25, 2008 at 6:31 AM, brad barton <"bbartonwx@hotmail.com"> wrote:
> Ryan,
> You sound like me with my '86 Newell. I just couldn't spend enough money on
> it to make it like a brand new coach. I'm not criticizing, just remember my
> drive and enthusiasm to make it as trouble-free and foolproof as possible (I
> eventually got over it).

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