Importing a bus to Canada

[Ray Davis]

You have propane on your coach? So few of these coaches do, that it's a bit of a surprise!

Ray

[dalej]

Ray, it seems that a lot of the early Country Coach bus's had dual cook tops 2 gas and 2 electric then a three way fridge 12vdc/gas/120vac. We have always like the setup but you don't see it anymore.

[Ray Davis]

Yeah, my 93 was all electric CC. I've heard of some busses with propane, but never owned one. Haven't seen many (or any?) either!

Ray

[Joe Cannarozzi]

Ray we converted our bus that was originally an all electric over to propane.

The electric cook top was broke and Deb always preferred cooking with gas and it needed shore or generator power to use it anyway, (was too big a draw for the 2500W inverter)

The Original fridge was 2-way a/c-d/c. It also was broke when we bought the bus. Switched it to a two way propane-A/C. It was not originally that large residential size fridge to start and the rv fridge replacement was a perfect fit. Could not have put a bigger one without major changes. I see it as an additional option or choice. We also park across the street in a vacant lot and we keep it full and cold all summer without any electric.

Dig this: when running on A/C power the fridge uses 1.5 amps what does yours pull with the compressor running?

It IS often FULL on a long trip. The flexibility and energy efficiency it provides IMO makes it a compromise worth making.

Who else has gas, Bill and Jody and JPJ that I know of.

Gives us the ability to utilize ONE smaller inverter (2500W), less expensive batteries, and probably get just as much camp time out of the set up as the more exotic and costly set-ups, if not longer.

When drycamping if not for the U-line ice maker we could actually shut the inverter off accept when kitchen appliances or something in the entertainment center is required.

[Jon Wehrenberg]

We had a propane coach with our 87 Liberty.

I would trade the propane furnaces for the Webasto any day of the week. They were quiet, they were trouble free, and they used almost no power, unlike the Webasto that is a constant power draw. The outside portion of the Webasto sounds like a jet, and the blower motors inside the coach for circulating air are only slightly quieter. The propane furnace blowers were half the annoyance level.

Our refrigerator was a 3 way, propane, 120 V or 12V. When running on propane it used very little propane or battery power. The downside was it frosted up the fins quickly and lacked the space we now have in our current one.

The only downside to propane was having to fill it occasionally, but that was not as inconvenient as it sounds. Over time we learned that some campgrounds had very well placed propane filling stations so whenever we were in one of them we just made it a point to fill up. We held 51 gallons so fill-ups were not that frequent.

[lloyd&pamela]

We have a two burner gas stove and 3 way refrig. I like that is automatically switches between the three or can be set to which ever you like.

[Joe Cannarozzi]

The industry has addressed the shortfalls of the gas fridge.

I have recently seen at the RV shows large 4 door models for size and 12 volt circulating fans to help keep the frost down.

Jon, can't beat the Webasto/E-spar for preheating the engine when no shore power is available though, would not be without it.

Around what year did the gas option disappear? What fridge does Newel use?

Lloyd Campingworld sells a little dc circulating fan that you put on a inside shelf and we have seen a noticable difference when using it when the fridge is very full.