BYO power cord to closing?

[jlb27537]

Phil, There are a ton of options on going south. We chose S Texas. Florida is just too expensive, Arizona is too dusty and busy.

Might check out our winter home.

https://www.rancherovillagetx.com/
http://rancherovillagecircle.com/

Come see us. Site 516.....

Jim

[philiprmcgovern]

Looks like a great park, Jim. Thanks for the invite. Don't be too surprised if we take you up on it. We've talked about heading back down to Mexico and you're right on the way. We've seen a lot of the Yucatan from the water and want to see more of the shore side. Take care.

Phil

[philiprmcgovern]

" get two batteries? If not, have them upgrade that. The new fridges take a lot of power. We got four golf cart batteries for ours."

Hey, Ron:

I owe you a couple of beers for mentioning the fact that the "residential" fridges eat a lot of amps. You prompted me to think about the unit we ordered and the fact that we intend to boondock and live off a solar system. Turns out, the new fridges can't use propane and draw a ton of amps at all times -- fine if you're hooked up but not so much if you're not. I seriously doubt that the 600 watt solar system I'm planning could keep up the the Samsung fridge that come on the unit we ordered.

I called my salesman today and asked about swapping out the new residential fridge for an older two-way type. He called the factory and was told that they could ship out a whole new RV with a two-way fridge that is, otherwise, identical in every detail to the one we fell in love with. It might delay our delivery date by a few days but, it should save us a ton of frustration and modifications down the road when we start dry camping. He also said the purchase price would stay the same.

Many thanks for setting me straight.

Phil

[Dam Worker]

Phil you might want to have Keystone deliver the new unit with the twin size battery box as the only way the factory puts them in is with the inverter and electric only fridge. Your deal should be able to help you achieve that. I am still waiting for mine to be shipped to me. They shipped me a battery box but they messed up and shipped me another single battery box. One battery with our unit (3160 RL LE) even with a generator is a joke. While boondocking and having to run the furnace I would sometimes in the morning have to plug into the truck just to be able to start the generator. My plan is to use probably two six volt batteries in the new box for the unit and then also run a separate battery for the generator utilizing one of my single battery boxes. It looks like I will have room.
Good luck.

Tom Marty

[philiprmcgovern]

That's a good suggestion, Tom, and I appreciate it but my Grand Plan is to use 4 6-volt golf cart batteries along with 4 x 150 watt solar panels. I plan to build the battery box myself. As far as the inverter goes, I plan to invest in a 2000 watt Xantrex inverter/charger. I don't know how "smart" the Montana chargers are, do you? Our only generator will be our Honda 2000 and, if we need to, we might add a second one. This is about the same setup we had on our sailboat and it worked pretty well for us.

It did occur to me to ask the factory to add toppers for the slideouts, though. Do you happen to know what that would cost? If it's a lot, I could add them myself later on if it turns out there is a real need for them.

I see that you're in Washington. Our son and his wife both work for MSFT in Seattle and we plan to camp out in their driveway (ha, ha) in a few months. Maybe we could meet up and compare High Countries. BTW, I looked on the Keystone website for your 3160 RL LE, but couldn't find it. Maybe it's a West coast model?

Thanks again for the suggestion.

Phil

[Dam Worker]

Phil my 3160 is a Montana. We looked at High Country's and Mountineers before we got this one. By all means I would think that four golf cart batteries should work well. Xantrex seems to be a quaility unit for what little bit I know. Trace engineering used to be real good, but that was some time back. There is an article on here under boondocking that is quite informative about inverters and solor power.
As for slide toppers your likely to get the best price before you sign on the dotted line. I do not remember what the cost was from Keystone but I do remember Tacoma RV would be able to sell and install them cheaper than the factory. Long story short we do not have them on our unit and we ended up buying locally here in the Tri-Cities, Eastern Washington. It appears with our unit that I might have a hard time having room to install it on the kitchen slide as it has it's own awning already using up some of the space needed for a topper. The other two would be quite easy as they already have the drip rail fastener already in place if I was doing a self installation.
My 3160 RL also has the Legacy Edition. I hope you enjoy Seattle, it can be very nice especially in late summer. We are in the desert here in Eastern Washington.

Tom Marty