Thom and Cari's Parkliner

[Carol H]

Glad to hear you seem to have it sorted out Thom! I still recall the first time I towed by trailer after having switch it to radials and I did indeed feel the difference! All good stuff.

[Francesca Knowles]

I'm not surprised you can feel the difference with the new tires, Thom- downsizing the width of a trailer tire is the simplest possible way to reduce rolling resistance. The inch and a half difference between the old ones and the new is a 15% step in the right direction!

Francesca

[accrete]

I would imagine the narrower tread is part of it...whatever all the elements are i'm grateful.

...also going from 45psi in stock bias up to 60psi w/radials helped in ride quality !

And on skinny tires...we ran what we called Pizza Cutters (9*35) on our highly modyfied Toyota Landcrusier crawling on granite up in the sierras and have always preferred them especially here in the soggy roads as they slice right through the puddles.

[accrete]

Rain finally let up for a quick photo... It is 1300 memorial day & the park has few remaining campers left... & none within sight of our spot. Happy Hermit Campers... Just my soul mate & i.



A couple of set up notes;
This particular spot #53 is a pull through... And while that is fine (& one of the few remaining when I made reservations) we will avoid it off possible on the future as it is quite an incline. The van at level was our priority & we had a nice rest.

... The Parkliner? Not so much!
While the BAL leveler & single tire chock have things set level side to side, there is such a grade I felt uneasy unhooking the rigs so there is a nose low set to the trailer... We will be moving Tuesday after brunch so we'll live.


Thom

[accrete]

Over at our adventure blog-thread an inquiring reader asked "Why Butane"... and the long answer is at this post on that thread : )

A picture helps tell the story...
(note ice-box stock wood grain door. our first mod...changed to nice white)



and when it's cookin' time...


The galley is very clean and functional. And when we want to boil water for tea/coffee/bag-meal the 12,000 btu butane stove comes out of the lower cabinet and the stove is ready. We enjoy the simple amenities and systems in use in PL #35 !

[gmw photos]

That's very clean and tidy looking Thom ! I like the white panel in the ice box door.
Your neatness makes the galley in my trailer look cluttered by comparison !

[accrete]

Hi George,
the door panel swap was one of those "Duh" kind of things. I was actually surprised that the cooler didn't already come in white. But a quick run to the local home-depot with the original panel and one of the workers happily cut a new panel out of 1/8" white paneling.

On the neat-factor...My wife has trained me well ; )

OH, and on the ice cooler... we put one block of ice in the upper ice tray on monday and it was still below 40 degrees thursday nite and about 3/4 of the block remaining. Outside temps were in the mid 60's days/mid 50's nites.

[accrete]

I mounted the xantrex LinkLITE battery monitor, though i'm in chill out mode today and waiting to actually hook it up tomorrow (Sunday June 2)...the week was busy with our vacation and my early work shift today put me in the mood for relaxing and watching some SciFi while doing the loads of laundry from trip (all while Cari is at work to surprise her...i'm such a good husband.)

Here is a photo of the monitor location chosen due to ease of access:


And i also put "www.ACCRETE.com" in a combination of 1/2" + 2" silver vinyl letters on the rear wall of Parkliner to point curious peeps to my domain and then to the links back to the build thread here at FGRV and van build thread at Sportsmobile forums.

Now to dial up some SciFi

[accrete]

Finally took the time to wire up the Xantrex LinkLITE battery monitor.

Here is a shot inside the converter bay showing the negative side shunt and then the positive side inline fuses going to the monitor:



And here is a shot of how the monitor is mounted and the 3-twisted-pair of wires inside a protective sheath that runs into converter bay:



Right now the unit is in charge mode but once off i'll do some testing to see what the LED lights and MaxxFan and pumps draw and report back here.

Cheers,
Thom

[starbrightsteve]

Two questions. Is the compartment that holds 1 or 2 batteries on a park liner vented or are the batteries vented ? Next question is on a totally different area and its the water tank. Park liner offers as an option an additional 12 gallons of water capacity. Is that extra capacity in a separate tank or is the primary tank just bigger? Has the tire rubbing issue been fixed in park liners that are now coming off the line.

[accrete]

Greetings Steve and thanks for the stop by the build thread and your questions.

Originally Posted by starbrightsteve

...questions. Is the compartment that holds 1 or 2 batteries on a park liner vented or are the batteries vented ?

Stock compartment is a non vented area holding 1 (or optional 2nd) sealed optima blue top D34M battery(s).

My Parkliner #035 is unique as far as i know from the factory in that the street side berth only houses the dual batteries and the converter/charger. Typically the 15 gallon water tank would be in this location also. That said...my unit's battery & converter bay was one big area only separated by a ~80% wall that allowed air flow to/from battery area into converter area.

If you look closely you will see that the wall to the right of the right most battery is not quite up to the top of the bay (this is a shot after my first re-routing of battery leads- this is not stock wiring. I beefed it up. And before my venting of battery bay only area to outside) :



Now you can see from this shot that i completed and sealed the two areas (the two pieces of wood you see above the original wall are 1"x1") :



What i changed:

1) Completed the 80% wall to fully separate the batteries from converter.

2) Vented the battery bay to the outside that houses two _sealed_ agm optima D34M 55 AH batteries.

If i were to order one knowing what i know now? I would pay the extra ~$50? each and move up to the _sealed-with-vent_ D27M 65 AH batteries and then insert the 1/4" vinyl tube and vent it outside.

3) Vented converter bay into open area under berth which also vents to outside via 30amp door/cover area. as seen in black vents on top of cover in this shot:

Originally Posted by starbrightsteve

...questions.
Park liner offers as an option an additional 12 gallons of water capacity. Is that extra capacity in a separate tank or is the primary tank just bigger?

Since i requested #035's stock 15 gallon tank to be located on the curb side bench storage area i could have also had it side-by-side with the optional _additional_ 12 gallon tank that is optionally placed in this area in front of the typical hot water tank. Since i did not request the HW tank there was plenty of room for the 15 gallon tank on the curb side as shown in this image:

Originally Posted by starbrightsteve

...questions.
Has the tire rubbing issue been fixed in park liners that are now coming off the line.

Here is a before close up of #35 with the stock 205's showing rub area. You could not put your pinky finger between rubber and glass:


Well...i know from talking with the #34 owner, that his and my rigs are now rub-free with the latest upgrade/swap of bias 205's to radial 185's.

Here is the clearance with new 185's...two fingers worth plus change:


Both of us are very happy. I can only imagine that Chandler is shipping all current units with the 185 radials. They made a world of difference!

In closing...
Knowing what i know now?
I would happily with eyes-wide-open order a new Parkliner. Chandler is doing a good job of bringing his creation to market. Yes there are some road bumps, but IMO, no brand is exempt from such start up issues.

Cheers & Best wishes on your search.
Thom

[starbrightsteve]

Thom,
Thanks for explaining your setup. From what you say it sounds like the stock battery setup in a parkliner is unvented. With respect to the water tank in a park liner with hot water heater, the larger tank is on one side and the smaller tank is on the other. I can see that the new tire size will eliminate the tire rubbing issue. I spend time watching the Casita forum. Folks there are mostly going to bigger tires with higher load ranges to avoid blow out problems. I will admit many of them are LOADED 17 footers. Do you have any concerns about the lighter carrying capacity tires
Steve

[accrete]

Originally Posted by starbrightsteve

Thom,
Thanks for explaining your setup....Do you have any concerns about the lighter carrying capacity tires?

Hi Steve, thx for the thx

On the tires we have now...

The original 205 bias 6 ply load range C tires were rated at 1542lb capacity...

The new 185 radials are load range D 8 ply rated at 1874lb cap.

The tires we have now are quite an upgrade in quality and safety from the originals.

Our loaded PL#35 is 2400lbs at scales.

THAT SAID... I LOVE the look of the Casita wheel wells and the larger 15" rims/tires. I already hinted to Cari that once the warranty is long gone i would like to take our PL down to one of the local boat shops here in Astoria and pay a pro to knock out some fiberglass and have room for some bigger tires on a new Dexter or Flex-Ride axle Yea, i'm crazy!

You can see here after my fiberglass repair that there is quite a bit of room inside the wheel well above the outer trim/wall :



It goes up about 6"+ or so above the top of the 14" tire so if the outer wall was knocked out and fiberglass was added to the area after the hack one would have some useable room and a more Casita-Like look in the well area...

Then i'd finish it off with the same trim we put on the van conversion that tows the PL down the road:

[accrete]

A potential egg-owner asked some good questions in the research phase of their egg-hunt at _this FGRVforum thread_ they started. In the context of answering a few of her questions i posted a reply at that original thread and woke up today believing a re-post in Parkliner #35's build thread you are now reading would benefit the curious. So below is my re-post (_original post over at the other thread_)

----beginning of quoted post:

Greetings Kristen and welcome to the forum.
First, best wishes on your hunt for an _adventure rig_ for you and your hubby.

OK...I'm partial to Parkliner, and since you seemed at least interested in that brand i will share what my wife and i did in ours, much of which seems to fit with what i read from your posts (with a bit of reading between them also)...

Items we chose in our Parkliner #35 (_link to build thread_)

Ice Box standard... We luv it! The only mod we did was swap out the stock wood grain for white on the panel (~$10 bucks at home depot and ~10 minutes work). A $1.25 block of ice in the upper area keeps fridge at ~40 degrees for 6 days (it was low to mid 60's daytime)...we keep our veggies in there. Our Engle Deep Blue cooler has ~20lbs of ice and our meats and keeps low 30's for ~week. There is still ice in the Engle from a 20lb bag we put in on May 25th. We will put another bag in this Sunday...we keep it cooled down from now till fall freeze. It is a well spent ~$10 a month and it is ready to go when we camp every 4th week from now till November.

(I am adding a PS detailing why we chose the fuel source that we did for our PL#35. Post script will be below this in Blue text.)

SAFETY DISCLAIMER: We arrived at our decision due to our personal experience and camping style. Use your common sense and follow all manufacture's recommendations.

A fellow Egger asked the question "Why Butane?" over at this post in our Adventure Blog here at FGRVforum. I won't repeat the my entire reply, but the gist of it is our choice came about due to our typical camping environment over the last 20 years of adventures in the Pacific Northwest. Our temps are what i would consider _mild_. They run from a low ~40 in early morning to a warm ~high 70 in the late afternoon. Nothing Butane can't take care of in the morning _chill_. IF i were living in the Dakota's or say the Sierra Nevada's we would have gone with the built in Propane system BUT we would have utilized an aftermarket radiant wall propane heater rather than the typical fan-driven propane heater; we've had them in rigs and disliked the noise and battery drain. That said, if you camp during the milder times with temps rarely if ever dropping into the mid 30's Butane will still be fine. We have woken up in our van conversion not knowing it had snowed outside during the night. Got up, put on a kettle to boil on the butane stove in the van's kitchen module and ~5 minutes later the kettle is whistling with 16oz of hot water and all cabin _chill_ is gone. Inside the van recorded temps with the two of us inside run ~8 to 10 degrees warmer than outside.

Also take note that i stated we use this setup to take the _morning chill_ out. WE NEVER use these appliances when we are relaxing or settling down for the evening. WE ARE ALERT and walking about the rigs or getting our clothes on or prepairing a meal. WE NEVER use these in the evening when getting ready for bed. That is what _body heat_ is for

Sooooo....theoretically outside temps would have to be mid 20's before the Butane appliances would have _cold start_ issues. Then one just places a canister in bed with them and warms it up for a few minutes and all is well. Sounds kind of creepy dangerous, but perfectly safe unless you carry pocket knives with you in bed to puncture the can! Also realize these canisters are the size of a can of cooking spray and easily warmed with body heat. OK...i think that ends my PS in blue text thoughts.
Now back to our regularly scheduled program

Heater... No built in Propane by choice. We use a small Stansport Portable Outdoor Butane Heater. We place it on the bamboo floor in the shower/bath area with door open to living area. Last week (5 day trip with temps in low 50's at wake up)...we ran the heater with front shower window open and MaxxFan cracked for about ~30-60 minutes each morning to take chill out of Parkliner cabin (we sleep in the van and eat/entertain in the Parkliner). We have yet to finish that butane canister, but probably close to empty i suppose.

Hot water & Showers... We use a portable 12,000btu butane stove (one fuel source rule for us. we buy our butane canisters at a local restaurant supply for ~1.50ea. Put in a new canister i think the second morning that was nearly used from a prior trip. 3 days of meals/boiling water and canister is still going.) that is clean and efficient. We can cook indoors or out. We boil water for showers in a tea kettle. For showers Cari (My McGirlver) rigged up a battery powered garden sprayer (PS we used a RL Flo-Master 1.3 gal. Battery Powered Sprayer) for use in the shower. First we put in a kettle of room temp water, then a boiling kettle full...and we get two luxurious showers out of that little bit of water!

Magic Table... We ordered it cuz we thought we'd have the unit in the "U" sofa configuration. BUT what we've found by the third adventure is we really like having both main and side tables up and ready to use at all times (remember bed/froli sleeps system is in van conversion). So in retrospect...we could have saved a few bucks and stuck with the standard non-folding main table...but then i suppose i would have always wondered if that "U" was as cool to use as in the pictures. (sure it's nice, but not very practical!). We use the main table to dine & relax at. And the side table to charge electronics and as a galley extension/prep area.

Roof Fan... Ask Chandler to install a MaxxFan 5100K ...it is light years ahead of the Fantastic Fan! (_image link_ to a shot of our van conversion roof where i swap out old FF for MF after loving the MF on Parkliner!)

Galley Window...Ask Chandler to install the same window in the galley area as what is used in the forward shower window. It is a nice hinge-at-top weather proof marine design with glazed privacy glass. Lets in a nice breeze if needed during cooking!

Dead bolt... GET IT. The door hardware is a high quality home schlage matching pair and works excellent!

Parkliner/Chandler was also open to our request of moving things around (such as fresh tank on camp/river/curb side). Ask him...he will probably say yes!

I think i answered most of what i saw in your OP...I will check in tomorrow after work.

Cheers,
Thom

----end of quoted post.

[cpaharley2008]

My only concern with some of these observations of butane vs propane and portable heaters vs factory heater and ice box vs a refrigerator is that a novice may not be as careful as others in operating an outdoor heater inside a camper or a portable butane stove over a stock propane stove. I'd suggest that any advice given here on the forum should be not be considered as necessarily correct and that a manufacturer should always be consulted in the use of an appliance.
I have seen a lot of persons attempting to and failure to properly back up their unit, and then level their trailer, let alone to properly set up a portable heater inside that unit. Some are better off having stock items that are at least safe. When they read what others do they feel they can do the same where in reality they can not do such with the same safety others can.
Some posters even state a disclaimer when responding for advice, something others are not aware of.
Your ideas have a lot of merit and I like most, but to a novice they may not be the best.
I think this may be a good idea for a new thread!!

[accrete]

Originally Posted by cpaharley2008

...I'd suggest that any advice given here on the forum should be not be considered as necessarily correct and that a manufacturer should always be consulted in the use of an appliance..!

Hi Jim.
Perfectly said and i agree 100% with your post and thoughts on this matter. Cari and I have a good deal of experience with what we are using and what works for us _safely_ due to our anal-safety-measures inside our rigs (lots of air flow and venting, safe use area, etc...) which may not be in place in others thoughts/use/environment. My _job_ for my employer is "Safety Coordinator" and my daily routine is training the crew is safe work practices. To say i'm anal around the camp site and on our adventures might be an understatement. But even so... none of that makes what or how we are doing what we are doing proper for someone else to do or follow.

READER...take what Jim says to heart. Don't do anything myself or anyone suggests if you are not able to take 100% responsibility for your decision and the outcome.

Your post prompted me to insert a PS into my PS:

SAFETY DISCLAIMER: We arrived at our decision due to our personal experience and camping style. Use your common sense and follow all manufacture's recommendations.

[accrete]

Today's project was a test by putting up some .093" Acrylic sheet on the top part of a side window to act as a storm window. In our full time Mobile Suite we are surrounded by Herr dual pane jalousie windows and have not witnessed any condensation... so going into the Parkliner and looking at the Herr single pane windows with condensation on the upper fixed-pane in the morning when we come in from the van was expected...but sort of a bummer also. That meant we had some testing to do.

In our old stick built house, before we replaced all windows with new dual pane nylon framed window treatment, we used that shrink film. It actually worked well at eliminating the condensation. So we thought we might as well buy some thin acrylic sheet from Home Depot, cut up some pieces that will fit the upper window and try it out. We put up the larger window on the street side dinette area (42" window). I will keep an eye on it the next couple days to see if this will work. These acrylic sheets only go on the upper "fixed" part of the jalousie windows. The opening lower section is uncovered and left stock with screen.

The lower glass (opening section) never showed any condensation, maybe because it has the stock screen+no-see-um screen acting as sort of an air curtain of sorts (that's not the right wording!), or maybe because there is a slight air flow even when closed?. Anyhoo...time will tell. If things look like they are working on the one window, we have enough to do the tops of the other three.

: ) Thom

[Brian M. in NY]

Thom,
How are you attaching the Acrylic to the upper half of the windows? I am seriously considering doing something similar after our experience this past weekend. Temps ranged from the low 50's at night to mid 50's during the day. Rain was pretty much steady for three days. Each morning we awoke to completely fogged over, drippy windows even though the lower half was left open about an inch over night. Out came the microfiber cloths to wipe down the windows and of course they fogged up again as soon as we put the coffee water on to heat. We ended up having to run the furnace with the windows open an inch or so to keep the windows from fogging. This created a temperature differential of ~10 degrees between inside and outside. Effective, but not a very efficient use of propane. Sounds like the DIY storms are the way to go.

[Brian M. in NY]

Originally Posted by accrete

Stock compartment is a non vented area holding 1 (or optional 2nd) sealed optima blue top D34M battery(s).

Thom,
Don't know if you've looked on the ParkLiner order form lately but, I just noticed that the standard battery is now an Optima Blue Top Group 27 battery. Perhaps that is Chandler's solution to the battery box issue?

[accrete]

Originally Posted by Brian M. in NY

Thom,
How are you attaching the Acrylic to the upper half of the windows? I am seriously considering doing something similar...

Hi Brian, i hope you had an enjoyable trip despite the dribbles : )

I've just made an image with a bit of text explaining what i did with the acrylic sheet as an experiment. It looks beautiful in place and i would imagine it should work fine for what i'm hoping for (added insulation to lessen the condensation buildup?). I'll attach the image.

Some more explanation. As a first attempt/experiment...
I placed the .093" thick sheet into the middle-of-window frame area that has that routed out area and that is holding all the weight of the sheet. Then i have placed three ~2" long x ~.5" wide velcro strips to hold the upper edge of sheet in place. This gives a natural vary small gap between the acrylic and the aluminum frame in the areas that are not covered with velcro. I was thinking (yea i know, dangerous) that this gap would allow some circulation (i don't know if this is good or bad). . . but my thought was as the sun shines on window area there would be some natural warming of air and this might also clear out/circulate between panes? Again, don't know if that is proper... This might be one of those experiments that can only be carried out live (i.e. while camping) as i was unable to get any condensation to build up just sitting over night.

I hope that helps some. Here is the image: