# New 2011 298Re



## MT MIke (Aug 13, 2011)

Took delivery of our new Outback 298re last Saturday, just got back from 5 days of dry camping with it.
Great camper, we all love the floor plan.
Did have problems with the oven in it. Would not like to stay lit. If I propped the door open slightly for the first 5 minutes or so I would put a butter knife in one of the vents on the upperr edge of the door), then it would stay lit. The burner tube glowed red, which I hadn't seen on our previous trailer.
Not too many mods so far: put a MaxxAir on the second vent. Installed an extra cabinet and a tp dispenser in the bathroom. Installed a 26" LCD in the bedroom (just barely fit!) Cut a bit of plywood off the corners of the sheet under the mattress in the bedroom - the sharp corners bit the DW while we were setting it up.
Today, I filled the gap around the outdoor kitchen from inside the trailer with expanding-cell-foam insulation.

I will say, even with two batteries, we found we needed to run a generator some each evening to top off the batteries. We had night time lows around 35 each night, so the furnace was running quite a bit. We didn't run it long enough the last night, and woke at 5:30 to an inside temp of 53. Started the gen and all was well. Are others finding this typical? I thought we'd get a bit more time dry camping, we used to in our other trailer. Of course, it didn't have as many lights (inside or out) and the stereo did not run off 12v.

Montana Mike


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## luverofpeanuts (Mar 9, 2010)

MT MIke said:


> I will say, even with two batteries, we found we needed to run a generator some each evening to top off the batteries. We had night time lows around 35 each night, so the furnace was running quite a bit. We didn't run it long enough the last night, and woke at 5:30 to an inside temp of 53. Started the gen and all was well. Are others finding this typical? I thought we'd get a bit more time dry camping, we used to in our other trailer. Of course, it didn't have as many lights (inside or out) and the stereo did not run off 12v.


Did you have problems with the charge dropping all the way in only a day? I probably top the batteries off every day if I had a genny along with me anyway. We lasted from Saturday night to early Tuesday morning with the standard battery. That was in August in Minnesota, so lights, water pump, and fridge were the only things needing any real juice. The furnace running will burn a fair amount of juice, I think.


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## MT MIke (Aug 13, 2011)

Did you have problems with the charge dropping all the way in only a day? I probably top the batteries off every day if I had a genny along with me anyway. We lasted from Saturday night to early Tuesday morning with the standard battery. That was in August in Minnesota, so lights, water pump, and fridge were the only things needing any real juice. The furnace running will burn a fair amount of juice, I think.

Yeah, the last day, I had run the genny in the morning to make coffee. We shut it off, but listened to music for a bit. That evening, we only ran the genny for about 40 minutes while watching some Seinfeld. At 5:30, DW wakes me to say she thinks we are out of propane. I checked, the fridge said "check", but the hot water heater was running. Turned on lights in the bathroom, and they were dim yellow. Checked the panel, and it said batteries were empty. Started the genny, and the furnace kicked on right away. Thankfully, we didn't have any neighbors close to hear the genny. That is the next upgrade, a quieter gen set.


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## KTMRacer (Jun 28, 2010)

MT MIke said:


> Took delivery of our new Outback 298re last Saturday, just got back from 5 days of dry camping with it.
> Great camper, we all love the floor plan.
> Did have problems with the oven in it. Would not like to stay lit. If I propped the door open slightly for the first 5 minutes or so I would put a butter knife in one of the vents on the upperr edge of the door), then it would stay lit. The burner tube glowed red, which I hadn't seen on our previous trailer.
> Not too many mods so far: put a MaxxAir on the second vent. Installed an extra cabinet and a tp dispenser in the bathroom. Installed a 26" LCD in the bedroom (just barely fit!) Cut a bit of plywood off the corners of the sheet under the mattress in the bedroom - the sharp corners bit the DW while we were setting it up.
> ...


you don't mention what size and type your batteries are but, remember the furnace is a power hog. It draws about 8 amps, and the fridge will draw power as well. There is at least one fan istalled at the factory for the fridge and it draws about 2 amps when running, which is most of the time that the fridge burner is on. We have a 295RE, and the 298RE uses the same WFCO converter in the same location. IMHO that is one of the biggest issues for any dry camping. The converter probably NEVER goes into bulk mode charging, and your likely only getting 15A or so to the batteries when you charge, not the 55A claimed. So, it takes forever to top off the batteries. the reason is the WFCO charging alogrithm and the long run from the charger to the batteries. If your going to do much dry camping, install the PD 55a replacement power supply for the WFCO converter. Then you can get some serious current to the batteries. And be mindfull of lights in the 298RE. It has lots of them and as an experiment, I turned on the interior lights in the living area and the current draw was more than 25A!! each bulb draws about 1.5A (3A per double fixture) IIRC.

We have 2 Trojan 6V T-125's for batteries, a hunter setback thermostat in ours replacing the factory thermostat, and LED lights in the interior. Set the thermostat for 50F at night and coming on to 68F at 8am. We can easily go 3 days/nights with temps in the 40's at night before the batteries are down to 50% capacity if we don't need to run the furnace much during the day. Then it takes about 3 hours to bring them back up to 90+% with the PD converter charging them.


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## MacTeam (Jul 27, 2008)

Mike,

You mentioned "Today, I filled the gap around the outdoor kitchen from inside the trailer with expanding-cell-foam insulation."

What's the deal there? had not thought about this one... are you thinking for insulation purposes? Bugs getting in? Water leakage? Any pics?

Many thanks.


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## rdvholtwood (Sep 18, 2008)

Welcome to Outbackers Montana Mike!! Glad you found us.


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## MT MIke (Aug 13, 2011)

MacTeam said:


> Mike,
> 
> You mentioned "Today, I filled the gap around the outdoor kitchen from inside the trailer with expanding-cell-foam insulation."
> 
> ...


I'll snap some after photos in the next day or two, didn't think about before photos. On mine, there was light shining in, especially on the corners. I figured if I could see light, I was losing heat and allowing bugs in, so a $3 can of goo fixed it right up!

BTW, does anyone else have a problem with the wind shields on the outdoor kitchen clearing the grates and control knobs? I think I'm going to dremel an arch into the bottoms of them so they clear the grates easier when I am setting it up and taking it down.

And, on the mod front, installed a bypass on the water pump so I can draw anti-freeze directly. I just don't think I am comfortable just blowing out the lines and pouring the pink stuff in the p-traps.
Mike


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## luverofpeanuts (Mar 9, 2010)

MT MIke said:


> BTW, does anyone else have a problem with the wind shields on the outdoor kitchen clearing the grates and control knobs? I think I'm going to dremel an arch into the bottoms of them so they clear the grates easier when I am setting it up and taking it down.


Yeah...that is a pain.... I bend the wind screens carefully and they still scrape the grates. I also have just popped the grates up and out, then fold out the windscreens and pop the grates back in. A poor fit... but we don't use the outside burners much.


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## MacTeam (Jul 27, 2008)

BTW, does anyone else have a problem with the wind shields on the outdoor kitchen clearing the grates and control knobs? I think I'm going to dremel an arch into the bottoms of them so they clear the grates easier when I am setting it up and taking it down.


Though I haven't done the mod yet, several folks have added a set of small turnbuckles with a quick disconnect in place of the cables on each side of the stove.

a) you can drop the stove down to allow the wind screens to clear the knobs when opening it up or closing it







you can adjust the stove angle up and down to make it perfectly level - even if your TT is not so the eggs don't all slide to one side of the frying pan.


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