RV Fire

[Brent]

The Tampa paper had a story and pictures on an RV that had a front tire blow out.

Before the vehicle came to a stop, sparks from the pavement and tire rim ignited the tire and it burst into flames.

The owner and a state trooper (who saw it happen) couldn't stop it with two fire extinguishers. The RV (according to the pictures) was destroyed by fire.

The fire department arrived and put the fire out and removed the propane tank (it did not explode).

Sure makes you think about the correct tire pressure and checking tires for wear or damage.

[robert]

Tire pressure monitoring is one of the most important things you can do while you are driving an RV.

I had a 1997 BF and I had at least six blowouts or flats while driving it. That lead me to investigate TPMS and although "I did not buy the company," I did become a distributor for PressurePro.

For your own safety and peace of mind, get a tire pressure monitoring system. Naturally I know that PressurePro is the best on the market, but do your own investigation. In the mean time, take a look at my web site, www.tpms.us

BF owners should also take a look at my advertisment located under "Vendors Who are BF Owners," located at the bottom of the forum page. Click here to jump to this page:
http://www.bornfreervclub.org/bulletin_ ... c.php?t=22

No matter which system you buy, be sure to buy one.


Regards,

Bob

[Mike Jean Bandfield]

Tire pressure monitoring is one of the most important things you can do while you are driving an RV.

The Absolute Truth

I've been using an IR thermometer to measure the temperature of each tire at each stop. I think it is a good validation of the pressure checking system if you have one and a good alternative for us who don't have the system yet.

It tells you very quickly (takes about 30 seconds to circle the vehicle) and easily how evenly matched your tires are running. And, its a lot more accurate than the old trucker's tire thumper method. If one corner or one tire is running hotter than the rest its time to adjust pressure and think about load distribution.

I haven't been doing this long so at this point I can only say that my tires appear to run 30 degrees above ambient on the shady side and 40 degrees above on the sunny side. I've not researched it thoroughly yet and can't say if there is a calibrated scale of acceptability. Running different speeds, brands and models will, no doubt, result in different operating temps.

Mike

[bill crommett]

I, too use a cute little infrared thermometer for checking the tire temps. While am not too picky about a couple of degrees difference (which can be due to variations in distance the thermometer is held) I have found that the sunny side makes a small amount of difference. A great inovation ! !

Bill

[mi99amigo]

Does one buy these IR Thermometers at a tire store? Hardware store?

[Mike Jean Bandfield]

I got this one off ebay last year. There are cheaper ones available but this one had the range I wanted for other purposes. It is very accurate, scans for continuous readings or locks instantaneous readings. And, it has a laser sight. I can't say too much about the vendor except it was a clean fast transaction and the device arrived in a couple of days.

http://tinyurl.com/fe8hg

Or search eBay for any vendor:
http://tinyurl.com/f2dbt

Mike

[Ralph Strauch]

The owner and a state trooper (who saw it happen) couldn't stop it with two fire extinguishers. The RV (according to the pictures) was destroyed by fire.

The fire department arrived and put the fire out and removed the propane tank (it did not explode).

Sure makes you think about the correct tire pressure and checking tires for wear or damage.

This should also make you think about the hazards of driving with the propane turned on. I had read about propane fires in RVs being triggered by minor accidents, and even seen a couple of burned-out RVs on the highway, before I got my BF, so I ordered it with a 3-way refrigerator which will run on DC while I'm driving. It sure feels a lot safer not to have the propane on. while driving. I think it's a real shame that BF doesn't offer the 3-way as standard equipment (Lazy Daze does), and that the coach has a sticker warning about the hazard of driving with the water pump on, but nothing about the propane hazard.

Different subject: I find that some threads on the forum, including this one, display with very wide horizontal window that require horizontal scrolling to read the postings, while others don't. Do other people experience this, and does anyone know why it occurs?

Ralph

[robert]

I think that the IR Thermometer would be a great addition to your tool chest.

If you have not been able to have your RV weighted, the IR thermoneter would serve a similiar function.

I know that the following sounds self-serving in that I am a distributor of the PressurePro TPMS, but I felt it was important that every RV owner realize that the IR Thermometer should be considered as an addition to and not a substitue for a TPMS.

With a TPMS, you get "real time" status reports on the condition of your tires, while moving or while standing still. You get automatic warning notice when your tire presssure drops below a specific set value.

It saves time and energy in the morning before you start driving, as you can check all of your tires, including your spare and even your air bags without even stepping outside.

There are numerous stories about what a flat or a blowout will do on a RV or on a tow. In the terms of financial lost, a RV'er was billed 2 million dollars by the state, the cost of extinishing the fire started by a flat tire on his tow.

Another person who recently purchased a TPMS had suffered damages exceeding $5,000 to his tow and motor home caused by a flat tire.

When you look at the potential loss, the cost of a TPMS is probably the cheapest insurance you can buy.

[bfadmin]

Ralph,

The reason for the super wide pages on this particular topic is because of the posting by Mike Bandfield above of a very long eBay webpage address under the heading: Or search eBay for any vendor:

Since this address was so long and since it can't be interrupted if you want it to act as a functioning link, it forces his posted page and all other pages on this particular topic to be very wide requiring the scrolling that you talk about.

I guess the only way to avoid this problem is not to post website link addresses that are long. The other cause of this problem is when posts include photos that are more than 7.5" wide, although this topic does not have any photos posted to it yet. That is the reason that the bfadmin has requested no photos be posted that exceed 7.5" in width.

[bfadmin]

Sam,

Yes you can do what you say, but in the case of a website address link, I
think you will find that if you break up the long address into shorter
sections by hitting the ENTER key, it will cause a break in the continous
address string and cause the link to be non-functional.

And I did exactly what you suggested in my text posting above and below
and it works OK per your suggestion. You are correct in that the bfadmin
does not have the time to modify and/or correct every posting. Each
individual posting on this forum needs to understand these issues and post
accordingly so that the forum pages are easy to read and navigate.

Otherwise, you do get a GOLDSTAR!

Bill Hemme

[Ralph Strauch]

you can simply write
perhaps ten words on a line,
then push "enter" on your keyboard,
such as I am demonstrating in this post.

Pushing"enter" will start a new line
of print in your text.

May I get a GoldStar for this post, bfadmin......?

You won't get a gold star from me, Sam. Setting the line length is one of the
things the computer is supposed to do form. It's not like using a typewriter,
where I had to do it myself. I'm doing it here only because the computer isn't
doing it right, which is something the site admin should be able to correct.

Many of the threads on this forum do do it right, sizing the thread window
to the size of my browser window and wrapping the text to fit in that window.
Some of the threads, though, seem to use a window that's about twice as
wide as my browser window and wrap the text to that. This is one of those
threads. That shouldn't happen, and whoever runs this forum ought to
figure out why it is happening and correct it.

Ralph

[Mike Jean Bandfield]

Please forgive me. I'm still expiramenting with and learning the phpBB system. In that process I push all the buttons just to see what happens and don't always get it right the first time. In my defense, I run a 1400X1050 monitor on my laptop and the urls were wrapping fine in the preview window at that resolution. When designing a web page, I expect to have to test it at other resolutions but I'm not in the habit of testing forum posts for proper behavior at different resolutions.

Note: The offending post has been edited and fixed using tinyURL.com. (There are several other similar services available.) This would be my proposal for a solution to the long url problem.

Mike

[Ralph Strauch]

The reason for the super wide pages on this particular topic is because of the posting by Mike Bandfield above of a very long eBay webpage address under the heading: Or search eBay for any vendor:

Since this address was so long and since it can't be interrupted if you want it to act as a functioning link, it forces his posted page and all other pages on this particular topic to be very wide requiring the scrolling that you talk about.

Thanks for the explanation, Bill. I tend to skim through super wide threads more quickly than others and hadn't figured out what caused the problem. It just seemed to be a random thing from one thread to the next.

The real problem here is poor design of the forum software, I think. A better design would wrap long URLs but still interpret them as functioning links when clicked. Eudora does this, for example, with long links in received email, so long as the originating emailer hasn't broken them up with hard line feeds. You might want to report this as a bug to the software vendor and see if you can induce them to correct it.

Ralph