Nice to hear it was all sorted and your now on track, and more importantly the process has returned to being exciting, rather than a nightmare. I can appreciate from experience the frustration of finally getting to that point of making the decision to commit to that huge purchase, only to have it, and all your plans, all go pear shaped before your eyes.
I see your 12v predicament. We have 240amp in two batteries, and the one 150w panel. We only run the low end stuff on battery and if the going gets tough, out comes the serenity cancelling, neighbour upsetting, greenie infuriating, fume belching generator .... and at 40deg the whinges would want to number more a few, and have with a committed plan before they try to make me turn it off. Ha. Our stopover "free camping" is way different to our actual "free camping" ... the actual "Free camping" is very much a generator inspired power hungry extravaganza.
The Dometic fridges are very efficient and work very very well on all power modes, but Ill stick to the 12v. The new models are all tropically rated and designed for high ambient temp environment. The 3 ways Dometic fridges worst enemy is voltage drop, or lack of current. The Narva style 12pin flat plug is rated at 35amps on the large pins, the smaller of the Anderson Plugs is rated at 50amp ....
your fridge will draw around 18 amps on 12v. The Narva is more than capable of carrying the fridge current, but obviously the Anderson is better. The biggest single requirement and issue, is the size of the wire and not the plug. A compounding issue is the required 6B&S size wire, which is very very thick. Although the Narva is adequate in capacity, its very difficult to get the 6B&S size wire into the connectors, so the Anderson becomes an easier option by default.
However you connect the fridge, it must be connected both positive and negative directly from the cars main battery terminals all the way to the fridge via its own plug, which is dedicated to just the fridge. Run pos and neg right thru, don't run just the positive and earth out the on the chassis. When you stop the car for a prolong period such as lunch, or over night etc, you'll need disconnect the fridge or the 18amp draw will flatten your battery. You can disconnect the fridge by using a motion switch, relays or simply pulling out the Anderson. If I plan to stop for more than a hour, I turn the gas on.
I have the 150ltr Dometic fridge, dedicated 6B&S twin core cable, running via an oversized relay, and circuit breaker, using soldered terminal lugs and a 50amp Anderson .... my fridge temp will routinely be lower, on a hot day after travel, than when we unplugged from the last c/park.
Our van by default, had 240v GPO in the bunks right next to where the pillows (and my sons head) would be. If he rolled over in the night with his tongue out he would light up like xmas tree. Im not sure what 240v items Jayco thought would be plugged into a GPO next to your head in a bunk, other than perhaps a CAPEP machine. Not a great photo, but the 240v GPO was on the robe wall behind the bunk curtains, and thats the agreed head end because otherwise my son would have to somehow reverse up the ladder.
So we had the GPO, and added 12v and TV point put in the wall at the end where your feet live when your sleeping; at the ladder end.
I also got them to provide me with wall plans so I knew where the plating and all the internal framework was located in case I want to cut holes in it myself at some point. The only spot they would put our ext shower didn't suit me, so I cancelled it in favour of putting it where I wanted it later, thats what motivated the wall plans initially. But we won't bother with the ext shower now because I found the housings just to cheap and flimsy.
Ive installed a 12v plug on to the road side, handy for all many of things but primarily for a 12v sullage sump. I should have had that wired from the factory.
They have no water filtration by default, We've not ever used filtration, preferring to limit the tanks to just drinking water, which presented a dilemma with the new van (next paragraph). In our previous 16.49.1 with only one tank, that worked quite well for us. We would top it up when the town water was good, and pass if it wasn't. If the water was average mains water for everything other than drinking. 3 months up the east coast during the drought, when water was probably at its worst and it still worked well and we never ran dry of tank drinking water. Not sure if that would over the west, i.e. if good water is relatively consistently enough ... but I suppose we can always buy a filter enroute. I think I would likely opt for the self contained canister type that can just hang on a chassis hook under the water filler, if and when I need it.
Another issue we discovered on our 5 week maiden voyage at xmas was the inability to extract the world best (Melb) tank water whilst connected to mains pressure. Unlike the little Expanda .... no hand pump. We drink a lot of water so it was both bewildering and annoying. I have a plan to remedy that tho .....
I still use my swag .. rolled out in the back of the ute at the farm.
When we purchased our first Expanda, I mentioned that maybe we'd wait until the next show for the special deals. Our favourite Jayco salesman (hi John) showed me the previous years show price list on a little printed card, and before I opened my mouth he started the ball rolling by offering a starting price thousands of $$$ under that, ending the negotiations many thousands of $$$ under that. The show is a great place to look and compare ..... but potentially the worst place to buy if you haven't done the figures and home work before.
We signed up in July 2014 for a Oct delivery, and when the van arrived a lot of stuff had changed mostly for the better in out case. A few things were missing, so photos are a great resource. In hindsight, and certainly next time, I will include in the contract the requirement for notification and approval of any proposed changes away from the display model.
If your going to provide your TV etc, make sure that the contract includes the wall plating ... or you'll be trying to mount your TV bracket onto 4mm ply and polystyrene. I requested just the blocking, and a bracket supplied in the box so I could mount it where I wanted it. I quite like the look of the Jayco Sphere TV brackets, and you can get a base plate at the same time to mount outside over the table and it all fits nicely when swiping TVs around. I mounted a base plate on the wall in the bunk pic above, to mount our outdoor TV on for storage .... and my son can watch it
