new Owners/ first time Buyer Solitude 375 RES-R in South Alabama / Florida panhandle

[Neverland]

well... After looking at 100s of 5th wheels in every configuration and brand we bought the GD Solitude... and after a few weeks of debate the family decided our new home will be
Named "Neverland" ... Our family is quiet eaten up with Disney from back when Disney was a wonderful family driven entertainment outlet and now have numerous generations
that still love it. After16 years in Orange Beach, AL and with both our girls in their 20s and out of the house we sold our home and the Wife and i will be full time for a few years until
we find the property we are looking for and the building supplies come back to some sort of reality. We plan to build 2 small homes 1 in Coastal Florida and 1 in rural Colorado at
some point down the road. looking forward to meeting many of the Grand Design family on the road!

Rusty and Tabatha Parker
2021 Solitude 375RES-R

[howson]

Neverland -- congrats and welcome. I can tell you already found the Welcome Letter--or you're forum savvy 'cause the signature is spot on.

Look forward to your future contributions on the forum.

Howard

[KWyer]

Congrats!!! We bought the same unit earlier this year. Words to the wise, do the following immediately;

(1) Put child locks on the three drawers in the hutch to the left of the cooktop area as these may accidently open up during transit and then the drawer handles will "hook" your slide when deploying as they are hard to see before deploying the kitchen slides. This can result in slippage of the gears and a timing issue that makes the slide askew and will need to be corrected with considerable work and most likely by a repair shop as you have to drop all the underpinning to get to the timing gears. Another option is to use the kitchen slide side isolation switches in the passenger side propane tank bay to only deploy the table side first and then check the drawers mentioned above before deploying the cooktop/refrigerator slide.

(2) Put some Loctite on the freshwater tank pull rod junction and the valve. You will need to get up under behind the wheels and use two sets of plyers to be able to really cinch it down by holding the small connector that comes out of valve while tightening down the rod to it with the plyers or some channel locks.

(3) Open up the large panel in the front storage area to gain access to the plumbing area under the bathroom and tighten up the connectors on the p-trap under the shower drain.

(4) Check and tighten the p-traps under the kitchen sink and the bathroom sink.

KW

[Neverland]

Neverland -- congrats and welcome. I can tell you already found the Welcome Letter--or you're forum savvy 'cause the signature is spot on.

Look forward to your future contributions on the forum.

Howard

Many years working offshore with lots of asstime...LOL

[Neverland]

Congrats!!! We bought the same unit earlier this year. Words to the wise, do the following immediately;

(1) Put child locks on the three drawers in the hutch to the left of the cooktop area as these may accidently open up during transit and then the drawer handles will "hook" your slide when deploying as they are hard to see before deploying the kitchen slides. This can result in slippage of the gears and a timing issue that makes the slide askew and will need to be corrected with considerable work and most likely by a repair shop as you have to drop all the underpinning to get to the timing gears. Another option is to use the kitchen slide side isolation switches in the passenger side propane tank bay to only deploy the table side first and then check the drawers mentioned above before deploying the cooktop/refrigerator slide.

(2) Put some Loctite on the freshwater tank pull rod junction and the valve. You will need to get up under behind the wheels and use two sets of plyers to be able to really cinch it down by holding the small connector that comes out of valve while tightening down the rod to it with the plyers or some channel locks.

(3) Open up the large panel in the front storage area to gain access to the plumbing area under the bathroom and tighten up the connectors on the p-trap under the shower drain.

(4) Check and tighten the p-traps under the kitchen sink and the bathroom sink.

KW

THANK YOU !!! only had it home 2 weeks and found a water leak on the back of the shower faucet and fixed it fortunately before it caused major damage
... cant take it to the dealer as we are living in it... what child latches did you use ?

[SolitudeAtLast]

How did you find the leak on the back of the shower faucet (connection behind the wall)?

[Neverland]

How did you find the leak on the back of the shower faucet (connection behind the wall)?

1. saw water dripping from side / bottom of RV where it shouldn't
2.. opened nautilus side hatch found water along bottom of wafer board wall all the way to about the middle of the storage area and several inches of moisture up the carpet
3. cursed / cried
4. removed the walls in the front compartment to get access to be able to see where the water was coming from.
5. noticed water dripping down the exterior wall from under shower buffer / pan along exterior wall onto water heater and its smart parts but i cant see where water is coming from... put a tub to catch water and turned off water to rv.
6. cried and cursed more... rv is less than 2 weeks from taking delivery... sold home and living in rv... tow vehicle broken and been in shop since before signing loan and had to borrow a truck to get rv home... cried more
7. got on FB and searched the solitude owners pages and found that there is a access panel in the pantry to be able to get to the back of the shower fixture and a vacuum breaker for tank
8. pulled the mountain of food the wife had on shelf ( this is the most filled shelf ) and removed the access panel to find the line on the cold side was damp.
9. turned water back on and line started to drip. turned water back off and drained pressure on lines
10. removed the giant shower panel thing after google and youtube was able to figure out how to remove it without damaging it or rv
11. turned water back on to find exact leak (loose hose style connection on cold fitting) tightened about 1/4 turn didn't want to overtighten and damage seal or faucet verified leak stopped and reassembled shower and pantry 9 dried out the wafer boards for compartment in the blazing south Alabama sun and then put it back together.

all of this was on Mothers day so being Sunday no support from dealer or GD and i wouldn't expect it being it was a Sunday. Long answer but if this helps yourself or someone out it was well worth the time typing it out !!! it was a very emotional few weeks selling our house and grandchildren that live next door asking who was going to live there and why all our stuff was gone... Our grandchildren both have lived there mostly since birth and was WAY tougher on me than on them.. not much bothers me... but that was a ruff few weeks

[KWyer]

Thanks for the additional info on the shower faucet as I have a leak somewhere also and am about to dig into the trailer to try and find it.

As for the child locks I use the following but had to add some small pieces of wood to the inside of the cabinet to make them work. I will send some pics in a few.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Safety-1...S133/204817681

[KWyer]

Hey also check your kitchen chairs for hidden protruding screw tips as they used way to long of a screw of some of the seat base attachment points and when you sit down or if kids knell in them they can puncture your skin. In our set of 4 chairs they all looked the same but one of them used a different connection method and that is the one that had the bad problems with the protruding screws. The others also have some issues but not near as bad. The thumbnail picture shows the screw and the tape measure indicates the height of the wood on the seat base so you can see how much of the screw was exposed to people sitting on the chars that would push through the padding of the chair as it was compressed.

[SolitudeAtLast]

Neverland We had a similar water leak at the connection behind the shower wall on our Keystone. There wasn’t an access panel, so had to remove screws and pull the fixture out just enough to tighten the fittings and stopped the leak, & reseal fixture to the shower wall with silicon. Then checked all other water fittings and had to tighten some of them, as well as some sink drain connections.

Our 2020 Solitude is a different floor plan than yours and may not have the access to the back of the shower. But, when we get back to it in Nov I plan to check water & drain fittings to be sure they are tight, if I can get to them. I have not yet been behind the passthrough wall for a look, but plan to do that too.

Safe travels!