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I have gotten enough inquiries through the forum and privately that I should post a new thread about my experience replacing the carpet in a HWH flat floor setup. I did this two years ago, and I am not a good documenter, and I don't take the time during a project to take pictures. 

The essence of the challenge is that the moving pieces of the flat floor, and the slide which comes into the coach in the retracted position take advantage of the compressible nature of carpet with respect to clearances that a hard surface will not allow. As it comes from the factory, the surface plane of the carpet is level with the surface plane of the granite. If you look at the coach with the slides in, you will see the dinette extends over carpet on the fixed (non movable ) floor. Also some coaches have columns at each end of the couch that extend over the fixed floor when the slide is in. If you simply install a hard surface on the same plane as the granite in the galley, both the seat bases of the dinette and the columns on the couch WILL hit the hard surface of the fixed floor. You will not be happy the first time you retract the slide. 

The second challenge is that the flat floor does not raise straight up and down. It pivots about a hinge on the driver side. If the hard surface flooring is installed flush with the edge of the flat floor it will hit the edge of the fixed floor as it swings up and down. I am going to try to illustrated this with some hand drawn sketches.
   

If you will run the slide in and out a couple of times and observe the flat floor as it finishes it's movement, you will see the issue. Newell gets around the problem by slightly beveling the edge of the carpet with trimmers. That is not acceptable with hard surface so another solution is called for. The solution is move the hard surface back from the edge just a little and accept a larger crack when the slide is out, or to let the hard surface on the fixed floor overhang just a little to meet the hard surface or the flat floor. There is a limit to how far you can overhang the floor on the fixed floor. There are steel structure at both slide walls that come in when the slide comes in. If the floor overhang is too great the slide wall will hit the flooring. The HWH hydraulics are strong enough to move the flooring. Don't ask how I know this. 

Now that the two critical problems are in consideration, here are the steps that I used to install the floor. 

Step one, determine the overall level of flooring that will slide under the two columns of the couch when the slide is retracted, since those two columns can't be moved easily. Establishing that level of flooring will tell you how much you will have to build up the plywood floor under the carpet. Obviously what ever flooring and underlayment you will use is part of the equation. 

Step two, take this mock up stack of flooring and underlayment to the granite tile interface in the galley. It will not be flush with the top of the granite. You can live with a transition, or you can make a series of shims to shim the floor at the granite and gradually taper to the edge of the fixed floor. 

Step three, with the slide IN, determine the edge of the fixed floor by sliding the mockup, or a straight edge, up against the slide wall. That determines how far you can cheat the surface of the fixed floor to the driver side. This a critical dimension so mark it well on the floor. 

Step four, deploy the slide. With mock up flooring in place on the fixed floor, position mock up flooring on the flat floor. I would leave about a 1/8 gap. With the mock flooring lightly secured. Start the retraction of the slide and ensure the flooring on the flat floor does not hit the fixed floor edge. If it does, it is too close to the fixed floor. 

Once you are happy with those dimensions and thicknesses, install the floor. Use adhesive. Yes I know the instructions say floating floor, but do you want the floor to float when you have just spent half a day aligning the seam between the flat floor, the fixed floor, and the dinette floor? 

Once the floor is in, I had to install shims under the dinette sliding bases, and under the couch so that it would not hit and scuff the floor when the slide came in. Once the dinette bases are shimmed above the floor, you will need to install Velcro to keep the base together when driving. 

If you are contemplating this modification, then read the guidlines and then watch the slide go in and out a couple of times. It will make more sense to you when looking at the operation. 

I have not made any commentary about installing floors in general. You or your tradesman should be able to figure that out. 

This does not apply to Valid slide setups. I have NO experience with that. Ernie can tell you what he did on that one. 

The floor has been in for two years and about 15,000 travel miles. I have a few trivial places where cracks have developed between the vinyl planks. I think that was caused when the slide wall hit the excessive overhang I used on the fixed floor. Also I use a high end underlayment padding for floating floors. Big mistake, since it is a bit spongy, and the floor moves ever so slightly when I walk on it. In bare feet I can feel the relative movement in the seam between the flat floor and the fixed floor. 

I hope this helps you if you decide to install hard surface in your Newell.

How much does a tag axle improve the ride quality? I'm trying to decide whether to get an RV with or without a tag. I'm wondering how the tag can have a major difference in the ride quality. All opinions will be greatly appreciated.

For those of you that have 50 amp service, what kind of temps can you handle using only the 4500 watt electric element on the aqua-hot with out using diesel, and can you take a regular shower on it? Trying to figure if it is worth wiring it at the house when I use coach as "guest quarters".
Thanks Jim.

I stumbled across this American / Foreign switch today in the aft right engine cabinet (Pic attached). What does this do? The switch was in the position with button push in on Foreign side. Is that correct?

We are going to remove the carpet and install a new flooring system. So I reviewed the threads related to flooring and found several old postings. Was wondering if there were any experience with the newer flooring systems. We are contemplating the installation of a interlocking vinyl plank system. The planks are 9" x 72" x 8.3mm. It is floating/glueless with a cork underlayment.
How will this system work with the slides?
Is a floating system a good idea for the coach? Should we use a glued system?

Also we are wanting to remodel the entry stairs. They are currently spiral. We want to make them full width and a straight entry into the coach. I have looked under the stair well and it looks like there should be no issues with the remodel. Has anyone transformed the spiral stairs into a straight entry?

Took the coach out for a quick trip this week and 10 min into the drive the yellow check engine light came on. All the gauges read normal and we were only driving about 50 miles, so I just kept an eye on things. 
When I started up the next day, the yellow light stayed on.  But then as we drove slowly to the park exit, I didn't notice the red light had also came on until after the engine shut down as we were stopping at a stop sign. I used the override switch to startup and move to a safe location. While moving the yellow light came on/off then both yellow and red came on but after we stopped both light turned off. So after sitting there idling for a bit with both lights off, I figured we continue driving. Well we got about a mile and both yellow and red came back on so I pulled off the road on to the shoulder. 
What I did was disconnect a plug and one of the wire harness' plugged into the DDEC, turn the ignition key on/off, then reconnected both to the DDEC. Why I thought about doing that, I don't know, but by coincidence or other, it did allow us to get home with just the yellow light on.
Any ideas?

How do you all air your tires when traveling? Is there a way to use the coach air? Or do you carry a portable air compressor to air tires and use as backup to open the door etc if main compressor fails?

How big of a compressor do you need to air the tires to 120 psi?

Saw this at a freeway QT today. Clever way to get your packages delivered along you planned route. Print a barcode and it is scanned, releasing the correct door for retrieval.

A few years ago my thermostats bit the dust and I installed new ones acquired from Newell.  I admit that their schematic left a lot to be desired.  I have been curious for some time that my rear A/C system does nothing when set to low fan.  However it seems to cool fine when set to high fan (two compressors).  I finally got around to checking the amps going to all four A/C capacitors.  All four have 124 volts available to the control board, but the incoming amps for the rear number one compressor only draws 8 amps while all of the other three draw about 11 amps.  The draw going from the control board to the number one capacitor is only 4 amps while all of the other draw about 10 amps.  I am embarking on the installation of high capacity relays, and want to be sure everything is operating OK.  Any suggestions as to what might be wrong would be welcome.

Has anyone ever had work done on their fuel tank sending unit? I just bought this rig and the tank was full when I bought it (thanks, Jerry). At that time the gauge registered about 7/8's. Drove it about 350 miles home and it read 1/4. Running the engine the other day, the needle was barely off empty. No big puddles of diesel under the coach, so I'm assuming the sending unit is faulty. Does it use a float or some other form of measurement? And, as an aside, there is a small black knob in the upper left corner of the tank. Can anyone tell me what it is before I find out that it's the tank dump valve? I don't have a picture yet, but I can get one.