Testing Ollie's Four Season Capabilities

A practice camping night with a low of 16 deg Fahrenheit

Two factors were key to our decision to buy an Oliver: 1) Build quality, and 2) Four Seasons capability.

Here in East Tennessee, it’s not uncommon to have one day in the 70s, then a day or two later, it’s down below freezing. This past week, it was sunny and warm. Then as the weekend approached, the temperatures plunged.

These variable and unpredictable temps can be a blessing and a curse. It's possible to have several wonderful, sunny days in the 60s and 70s during the winter, but then it can rapidly plunge below freezing. Winterizing the trailer would mean losing out on what could be some great days of camping, thus the desire to have a true four seasons trailer.

As the temps dropped this week, I experimented with the Dometic propane furnace and Truma AquaGo water heater.

The Dometic furnace works great. The air is very warm, and it's easy to get the trailer up to a comfortable temperature even when the outside temps are in the teens. I do not have a good sense of how much propane I'm using, especially with such low temperatures, so I wanted to also experiment with a space heater.

Lowe's sells this DeLonghi ceramic space heater that seemed like a great choice and I'm quite happy I purchased it. It's quiet, very light, and has a digital thermostat, allowing me to select the exact temperature desired. As light as it is, I'll likely give it a permanent storage spot in the bottom of the Ollie's closet.

As for the water heater, I could not be more pleased with our decision to go with the Truma AquaGo. It features two options for maintaining itself above freezing using propane. Eco mode uses less propane, but takes a few seconds longer to start getting hot water. Normal mode uses more propane, but provides near instantaneous hot water even when the temperature is well below freezing. For us, we didn't want the water heater to turn a four-season trailer into a three season one.

As we set up for our overnight of driveway camping, plugged into our new 30 amp garage outlet, it was already in the teens. I used propane furnace to quickly heat the inside to about 65, then turned it down to 60. I then turned on the DeLonghi and set it to 80.

We watched a two hour movie to try out the DVD player. The Oliver's sound system is quite good and the Visio TV is more than adequate. As the movie ended, we realized it was quite warm in the trailer so we turned the space heater down to 70. I tried to flush the toilet and could not get any water despite water flowing from the two sink faucets. The cold water supply to the toilet may have frozen and fearing potential damage, we moved the space heater, from the main cabin to the shower floor. Shortly after we did this, the toilet flushed and we left the heater in the bathroom throughout the night with the door propped open.

During the night, I could definitely hear sounds coming from the water heater that sounded like a pump and a propane heat source. The bottom line is that Truma’s antifreeze capabilities work great even with temps in the teens.

I also believe that the small ceramic space heater is a nice option for providing heat when 30 amp electrical service is available. The furnace provides a more comfortable feel, but it obviously uses up propane, which may need to be conserved for cooking and the water heater.

Overall, Frieda and I could not have been happier with the comfort of the Ollie on what was a very cold night. Our two Jack Russell terrorists Maddie and Skipper liked it too.