# New 298Re



## Contractor Shawn (Nov 4, 2012)

New member here but not new to rv'ing. Just bought a new 298re. Wonderful coach. We had a solar panel added along with dual 6v batteries. I will be adding two more 6v batteries soon. Also had the dealership add a bedroom door as my wife and I don't care for the fabric curtain. Took our first trip with it over thanksgiving. Minus a few issues everything else went well. Towed 700 miles round trip and saw better mpg in our tow vehicle. This is another plus. One thing I noticed was the fact that the trailer seems to leak air. I had one tank of propane run out in the middle of the night. Woke up at 2:45am to find it was down to 40 inside. I thought these trailers were "artic insulated"


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## KTMRacer (Jun 28, 2010)

Contractor Shawn said:


> New member here but not new to rv'ing. Just bought a new 298re. Wonderful coach. We had a solar panel added along with dual 6v batteries. I will be adding two more 6v batteries soon. Also had the dealership add a bedroom door as my wife and I don't care for the fabric curtain. Took our first trip with it over thanksgiving. Minus a few issues everything else went well. Towed 700 miles round trip and saw better mpg in our tow vehicle. This is another plus. One thing I noticed was the fact that the trailer seems to leak air. I had one tank of propane run out in the middle of the night. Woke up at 2:45am to find it was down to 40 inside. I thought these trailers were "artic insulated"


congrat's on the new trailer. We have a 295RE (no bedroom slideout) and love it. As to the "artic insulated" claim, IMHO outbacks are a very nice 3 season trailer. Once it gets down near freezing outside, you'll go through lots of propane. Insulation is OK, but all the single pane windows loose lots of heat. Our solution at night is a Hunter setback thermostat set at whatever is the lowest temp it will go to about 45F IIRC, and down comforter. Then the furnace comes on so it's 70F or so by the time we get up. Use less propane, and personally, the furnace makes enough noise to wake us up anyway.

Ours tows real nice and we love the floorplan. BTW ours is 2 1/2 years old, has about 15K miles on it, about 150 camping days and other than the alloy wheels developing white spots (replaced under warranty) has been completely troublefree.


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## Contractor Shawn (Nov 4, 2012)

KTMRacer said:


> New member here but not new to rv'ing. Just bought a new 298re. Wonderful coach. We had a solar panel added along with dual 6v batteries. I will be adding two more 6v batteries soon. Also had the dealership add a bedroom door as my wife and I don't care for the fabric curtain. Took our first trip with it over thanksgiving. Minus a few issues everything else went well. Towed 700 miles round trip and saw better mpg in our tow vehicle. This is another plus. One thing I noticed was the fact that the trailer seems to leak air. I had one tank of propane run out in the middle of the night. Woke up at 2:45am to find it was down to 40 inside. I thought these trailers were "artic insulated"


congrat's on the new trailer. We have a 295RE (no bedroom slideout) and love it. As to the "artic insulated" claim, IMHO outbacks are a very nice 3 season trailer. Once it gets down near freezing outside, you'll go through lots of propane. Insulation is OK, but all the single pane windows loose lots of heat. Our solution at night is a Hunter setback thermostat set at whatever is the lowest temp it will go to about 45F IIRC, and down comforter. Then the furnace comes on so it's 70F or so by the time we get up. Use less propane, and personally, the furnace makes enough noise to wake us up anyway.

Ours tows real nice and we love the floorplan. BTW ours is 2 1/2 years old, has about 15K miles on it, about 150 camping days and other than the alloy wheels developing white spots (replaced under warranty) has been completely troublefree.
[/quote]

I'll have to do something about the cold insulation. We like to camp all year. We are in SoCal so temps are usually mild but we spend a lot of time in the eastern sierras. I really didn't mind the noise of the heater but man it eats propane. I am taking the trailer back to the dealer tomorrow morning for a front cap replacement as the original one was heavily scratched on delivery. Also having them look into my black tank as it is real tough to dump.

I may have them replace a tire too as I took a chunk out of it with a curb in the dark. Oops!


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## CamperAndy (Aug 26, 2004)

Unless you had the tank filled yourself or confirmed they were full I would wait to condemn the propane use rate for now. Dealers have been know to short fill the tanks just to test the systems. I agree they can use a lot but one tank should last longer then the first weekend.


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## KTMRacer (Jun 28, 2010)

CamperAndy said:


> Unless you had the tank filled yourself or confirmed they were full I would wait to condemn the propane use rate for now. Dealers have been know to short fill the tanks just to test the systems. I agree they can use a lot but one tank should last longer then the first weekend.


good point. My experience is that a "full" 30lb tank should hold between 7.1 and 7.5gallons of propane. Propane has an energy density of about 85,000BTU/gal IIRC. Furnace is 30K BTU/hr. so you should get near 3 hours of run time per gallon of propane = 21 hours of furnace on time/tank.

No in cold weather (as it gets below freezing) a few things will shorten the run time. Tanks pressure decreases with temperature, and propane boils at about -40F. so as the tank nears empty, the tank gets very cold and pressure goes down so you probably won't get the tank completely empty before the propane flow goes down enough that the furnace shuts off. I have a propane firepit, 80KBTU/hr max output and even in the summer once the 30lb tanks gets to about 1 gallon left, the pressure drops enough that flow drops dramatically.

But even in low temps you should be able to have the furnace run about 15-18 hours/tank, and that should cover several days of use unless it stays well below freezing all day and night.

when we camp in the winter it usually is in the 40's during the day and into the low 20's at night. under these conditions on our 295RE we get about 3 days out of each tank along with the water heater, stove, oven and fridge propane useage. And stove, oven, wh and fridge really don't use much propane. We set the thermostat at 45F at night and in the AM under these conditions the furnace pretty much runs continously for several hours to get the trailer to 70F, then starts reasonable cycling.


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## Contractor Shawn (Nov 4, 2012)

CamperAndy said:


> Unless you had the tank filled yourself or confirmed they were full I would wait to condemn the propane use rate for now. Dealers have been know to short fill the tanks just to test the systems. I agree they can use a lot but one tank should last longer then the first weekend.


Great point on the tanks. You know what you get when you assume...... Trailer was dropped of at service today and will be with the, for a few weeks as things get straightened out. Once she is back in my possession I will fill the tanks again myself. We were in conditions that had us down in the teens at night so I know the heat ran a lot. I think I will run it through a fog test once back to fing the major air leaks too.

Still we are very happy with this trailer. It is soooo nice inside and out. I know we made the right call.


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## Adam S. (Jun 11, 2012)

Contractor Shawn said:


> Unless you had the tank filled yourself or confirmed they were full I would wait to condemn the propane use rate for now. Dealers have been know to short fill the tanks just to test the systems. I agree they can use a lot but one tank should last longer then the first weekend.


Great point on the tanks. You know what you get when you assume...... Trailer was dropped of at service today and will be with the, for a few weeks as things get straightened out. Once she is back in my possession I will fill the tanks again myself. We were in conditions that had us down in the teens at night so I know the heat ran a lot. I think I will run it through a fog test once back to fing the major air leaks too.

Still we are very happy with this trailer. It is soooo nice inside and out. I know we made the right call.
[/quote]

I know this is a bit old but I thought I would post my results from cold weather camping in our 298re. We spent the winter in the adirondacks where temps ranged from 20 to -16 at night. One bottle would last about 2.5-3 days at those temps keeping the trailer at 65-68 range. I considered that pretty good..below 0 is wicked cold yet we were comfortable all day/night long.


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## Contractor Shawn (Nov 4, 2012)

robertized said:


> Contractor Shawn I have a 2013 277RL and shortly after I got it I had to replace the Automatic Changeover Regulator and the two pigtail connectors. The regulator and the two hoses are made by Fairview Fittings & Manufacturing and after doing some research on the net I found out that others have had some problems and they weren't highly rated. The regulator leaked severely around where the rim of the unit is crimped together and the two hoses leaked at three of the four crimped hose connections. I replaced the Automatic Changeover Regulator with one made by the COVAGNA GROUP and the two pigtail hoses are made by MR Heater. I checked everything with liquid leak detector and everything is doing fine now. Good luck with your new TT.
> 
> PS If your are going to have the front cap replaced then you should read the Post I made titled "New Front Cap" this would be the right time to deal with some issues in that area, additional insulation.


Thank you for the information. I've been out with the trailer again and the propane seemed to last much longer. I'll keep you all posted as we go.

Shawn


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