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Lessons Learned on the Road: Chapter Six

15/09/23 at 5.00pm   /   by Jessie   /   0 Comment

Welcome back to our series “Lessons Learned on the Road”! If you’re new to this series or just need a refresher, here are the basics: Each post corresponds to roughly a month of travel (or two months, as the case may be). Posts are random-ordered lists covering a range of categories and topics, some specific to RV life, some related to travel, and others simple observations and knowledge obtained along the way. We hope you enjoy our musings!

You can read earlier posts in this series here, here, here, here, and here.



-We’ve written before about our preference for traveling without campground reservations or an itinerary (sometimes we wake up and really don’t know where we’ll go that day or where we’ll spend the night) and the many benefits of first-come, first-served camping. Traveling without reservations or firm plans has proven to be ever-helpful while traveling in the Pacific Northwest, as we’ve had to pack up and move on a dime several times due to wildfires and smoke. Flexibility has been our friend.

-If you’re going to be hauling around full or semi-full tanks with any regularity, it’s a really good idea to reinforce your tank supports under your RV. We learned this the hard way when our fresh water tank support worked its way loose while driving down a rural highway. Handyman Jason reattached it with a new bolt and then added a second piece of bent-angle steel under the fresh water tank. It seems to be doing the trick.

-For several months now, we’ve been using concentrated all-purpose camp soap (‘Camp Suds’ or a similar brand) for dish detergent. It works really well and suds much less than traditional dish detergent, so we can use less water when doing dishes (I found myself using a ton of water to rinse dishes before we made the switch). However, I will note that I still use Dawn when washing our metal grilling spatula/flipper because Dawn cuts the grease faster than camp soap. I also use Dawn occasionally when we’re in a developed campground with hook-ups and a dump station because we think it helps cleanse and cut grease in our grey tank.

-Weather forecasts in the Pacific Northwest are rarely accurate. It’ll be beautiful and sunny when rain was forecasted for the day and vice versa. But most of the time, you should err on the side of planning for a grey, rainy day. 

-Another water-saving strategy we’ve been using for a while: We often collect sink and shower water in plastic tubs/bins and repurpose the water for flushing the toilet. On occasion, if I do a fairly clean load of dishes, like washing our water bottles, I’ll even repurpose that water for mopping the floor or cleaning the shower. When we can’t repurpose all the water we collect, we’re often able to dispose of it in designated areas within campgrounds or dispersed camping areas (e.g., utility sinks, grey water drains, pit toilets). Collecting some grey water makes a huge difference when boondocking/drycamping and/or staying in a campground without a dump station; we can usually stay put without dumping our tanks for 5-7 days when we’re able to collect and repurpose or dispose of some grey water (our grey tank is 30 gallons).

-Always turn off the water pump before traveling. Jason usually asks me at least three times, “Is the pump off?” before we pull out of a campground. I usually roll my eyes and say, “Yeeess, worry wart.” But no more. I’ll never roll my eyes again, as we know some full-time RVers through social media who had a bad experience recently when their pump accidently got left on during travel.

-Unless you’re buying diesel, it’s illegal to pump your own gas in Oregon. It’s like New Jersey. We’re not fans of this law.

-Cell phone service anywhere around Mount Rainier, including towns outside the park, is close to nonexistent, and it’s even worse with an old iPhone.

-You may be more likely to see a black bear in Mount Rainier while walking on a paved path near an inn than while hiking in the backcountry. The bears know where the dumpsters are.

-It’s not uncommon for price ranges on Allstays to be grossly incorrect in either direction (sometimes camping areas are free or less than advertised, and sometimes they’re more than advertised). Despite this, we still love this app and it’s our go-to for most everything related to our travels. We’ve found that it’s helpful to call campgrounds or look at specific websites to verify prices. 

-Salt and Straw ice cream in Portland is delicious! They have the most unique ice cream flavors, and the employees are super nice and fun even when you’re being painfully indecisive. When I told our server I’d never been before, she let me sample probably 10 different flavors. The best part? The samples are served on cold metal spoons. Bliss.

-A trip to Mount St. Helens is worth it.

-There are LOTS of visitor centers on the western side of Mount St. Helens: one operated by a town, another by the county, and then another that’s a Science and Learning Center. While these may be worth a quick stop, keep driving and save your time and energy for the Johnston Ridge Observatory, located closest to the mountain and at the very end of the road. It’s operated by the US Forest Service and is first-class. They offer a multitude of ranger talks frequently throughout the day, Junior Ranger programs, lots of exhibits and trails, and two movies. Don’t miss the movie on the geology and eruption of the mountain. It’s one of the best park/monument films we’ve seen all year.

-When you drive down lots of lumpy, bumpy roads with your RV, it’s a good idea to periodically check the screws on your water pump. The vibration of the pump itself, plus lots of miles on the road, can cause the screws to loosen and the pump may stop working until they’re tightened up again.

-Don’t skip Sunrise at Mount Rainier. Paradise is THE thing to do, and with good reason, but Sunrise is equally as good, if not better.

-We should have installed a roof vent cover a long time ago. As in, before we left home. The covers cost about $20 at Walmart and take about 20 minutes to install.

-Seattle sprawls for hours north to south. Seriously, hours. Expect lots of traffic, especially on a Friday and/or a Seahawks game day.

-Related: Seattle Seahawks fans take their football seriously. And it seems like most people in Seattle are Seahawks fans.

-It’s almost always worth it to drop the travel trailer before looking for dispersed camping on unfamiliar roads (and let’s be honest, they’re all unfamiliar roads), even if we end up paying for one night of camping in a developed campground. Scout it out first or you might end up doing some of these ridiculous things.

-You might draw the attention of casino security if you stand on the tailgate of your truck to inspect the roof of your RV (see same ridiculous post).

-Many Washington state rest areas have very nice multi-lane dump stations with potable water. Some also allow overnight parking for up to 8 hours.

-There are a lot of Panda Expresses in the Pacific Northwest. This makes Jason happy.

-When there are wind gusts up to 60 mph in your campground and trees are falling, it’s time to go.

-Related: Trees in the PNW are so tall that you can’t tell they’re swaying in strong winds simply by looking out the window of your RV. But if you go outside and look waaay up and see only the whites of leaves and branches falling, you get a good idea pretty darn fast.

-When a big storm is expected in a rural area, it’s always a good idea to fill up anything that can hold water (fresh water tank, water bottles, bathtub in a traditional house) before the storm hits. Well water pumps generally require electricity, so no power = no water. 

-Forks, WA is well-known for being the setting of the popular Twilight series. So well-known, in fact, that when you call Coachmen Roadside Support for a problem with your RV, the Coachmen employee may say, “Oh, you’re in Forks! Like the Twilight Forks! So cool!” Yeah, it might be cool if our RV wasn’t broken on the SIDE OF THE HIGHWAY. 

-We did like Forks because various local groups set up food tents/trucks in the Ace Hardware parking lot. $0.50 hotdogs while we try to repair our RV on a Friday night? Yes, please! (And we got to support the local high school track team.)

-The Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum in Oregon is pricey but totally worth it. Stay until the last hour of the day, and once the families have left, go play in the kid’s area.

-Don’t try to pronounce anything in the WA peninsula. You will get it wrong.

-Sunsets over the Strait of Juan de Fuca in the WA peninsula are some of the very best we’ve seen this year.

-Don’t skip the northern Oregon coast while in the PNW.

-If you end up eating at the highly recommended Pelican Pub and Brewery in Pacific City, OR, don’t skip dessert. Order the Caramel Carrot Cake; it comes with a root beer caramel sauce, a caramel cream cheese frosting, and is topped with coconut English toffee. Also, order one of their craft beers.

-With enough peer pressure, swimming in Crater Lake is totally worth it despite the frigid water – it’s an unforgettable, exhilarating experience.

-We’ve noticed a trend of legal marijuana stores located right next to fast food places. Coincidence? We think not.

-Horses cause a ton of trail erosion, making for unpleasantly challenging mountain bike conditions.

-Volcanos have shaped much of the PNW landscape. In central Oregon alone, volcanos have formed mountains, lakes (including Crater Lake, the deepest lake in the US), deserts, and lava beds, fields, caves, etc, which juxtapose old-growth forests and lush vegetation.

-There is no sales tax in Oregon. This is a beautiful thing when your spouse insists on buying a new bike for his birthday.

Real Life on the Road: Errands

15/07/20 at 1.00pm   /   by Jessie   /   0 Comment

We have more ideas for blog posts than time we want to spend writing. We’ve wanted to start a series of posts about real life on the road for quite some time, and we’re finally jumping in! Our hope is that this series provides a more realistic glimpse into our everyday lives, however mundane, boring, or frustrating, especially for folks out there who are considering a trip like this sometime in the future. So, send us your burning questions or topics you’d like to hear more about. We’ll be more than happy to share!

 

A few months ago, during a great catch-up phone call with one of my best friends who always asks the most thoughtful questions, she inquired, “What do errands look like when you’re on a trip like that?”

It’s an interesting question because I initially thought the answer would be pretty simple and boring. With a few exceptions, it feels like our errands look a lot like they did in our pre-travel/pre-mobile life. After the first month or two on the road, this trip truly doesn’t feel like a vacation anymore; it feels like real life because, well, it IS real life for us right now, boring errands and all. However, as I began writing this post and reflecting more deeply on her question, I realized that most of our errands do look different, if only because there’s an added layer of complexity involved.

I’ll jump right in and give you our boring, yet sort of interesting, answer:

 

Gas Station: We need gas for the truck. Often. Usually this is a quick errand, but sometimes it’s surprisingly difficult to locate a gas station, especially in super rural areas. When we’re towing the trailer, it can also be hard to find gas stations that are big enough to provide the turning radius we need or that are easy-in/easy-out. Lastly, we don’t have the benefit of knowing where the cheapest gas is in town. For most of these problems, the GasBuddy app is helpful, and sometimes the larger, RV-friendly gas stations are marked on the AllStays app.

Grocery Store: We need groceries, and we often need to stock-up fairly significantly when we’re in larger towns or cities because small-town or rural grocery stores will, unfortunately, kill our budget. In the southeast, rural produce stands and farmer’s markets weren’t hard to come by, but they’ve been nonexistent in the west. We occasionally hit up traditional grocery stores, but again, we never have the benefit of knowing which regional chains are the most affordable without trial-and-error or asking around; you’d be amazed by how infrequently local folks can answer the question, “Which grocery store in town has the best prices?”. Thus, we limit most of our shopping and all of our big re-stocking trips to Wal-Mart, Trader Joe’s or Aldi when we’re lucky enough to be in a place with one of the latter two, which isn’t often (much to our chagrin, we haven’t been in a state with Aldi locations for many months now). Usually, when a TJ’s or Aldi is available, we’ll go to one of these places and to Wal-Mart, just like we do at home; Jason has an amazing mental log of which items are cheaper at which place so we can be as budget-friendly as possible.

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Bank/ATM or Cashback Location: We need cash for laundromats, national park gift shops (most have a $5 purchase minimum to use a credit or debit card, and we usually buy about $1 worth of postcards), and camping fees, as we prefer to pay these fees with cash and some places accept nothing else. Bank of America ATMs and branch locations have also been nonexistent for many states now, so we usually get cashback at Wal-Mart. This actually works out well because it’s possible to get small bills there, which obviously isn’t an option at ATMs. Small bills are necessary for the change machines at laundromats, which usually accept only $1 and $5 bills, and for camping fees, as exact change is always required unless you want to overpay, and you know we aren’t about to do that!

Laundry Facility/Laundromat: We need clean clothes regularly so that our laundry basket doesn’t emit foul odors. Yes, an outdoor/active lifestyle means we sweat a lot. Early in our trip, state parks (namely, those in Florida and Louisiana) had inexpensive laundry facilities for registered campers. A few national parks have as well. Mostly, though, we’ve had to rely on laundromats, which are, thankfully, fairly easy to find in most any town. Usually, we choose a laundromat (when there’s more than one in a town) based on proximity and online reviews when available. Often, our first stop is sufficient, but sometimes we have to try two or three places before we find one that’s suitable. We have pretty minimal standards, but we’ve seen some sketchy places! I could probably write an entire post or two about our laundromat experiences; they’re great places for people-watching, and some of the owners are quite eccentric to say the least. The best laundromats are those that are clean, cool, reasonably priced, fully functional/well-maintained, and equipped with lots of plugs so we can charge our electronics and with public Wi-Fi so we can upload pictures or a quick blog post. Overall, beyond drive time and time spent looking for a good place, the laundromat errand isn’t too time-consuming. There’s something to be said for being able to do multiple loads at once and being forced (more or less) to fold straight out of the dryer.

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Shopping: Just like at home, we occasionally need prescriptions, new clothes, bike maintenance items or other “specialty” things that can’t be found at Wal-Mart. This was especially true the first couple months of our trip when we realized we both needed more outdoor/hiking gear and clothing, new camp chairs after our old ones literally fell apart, and a few RV-specific items like a new chock after we ran over one (whoops!). Normally, we would purchase many of these items online, but shipping is complicated because we often can’t predict where we’ll be in 3-14 business days, or whatever ridiculous window of time most places provide for shipping speed. Also, the only way we can receive mail is via general delivery to a post office, and UPS and Fed-Ex won’t deliver to a post office, so unless something ships USPS, we don’t have an option anyway.

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Post Office: We try to mail postcards to family and friends, especially to our nieces and nephews, pretty regularly. We also have to restock on stamps every once in a while. Occasionally, we need to send or receive packages and other mail. Sending is easy. Receiving is much more complicated. We have to predict in advance where we’ll be around the time the mail/package will arrive and select a post office nearby. We then have to call said post office to double check that they accept General Delivery mail (most do and will hold items for 15 days). Lastly, we have to give the sender the correct location/address and cross our fingers that it arrives in the time frame predicted.

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Truck Service: Having our truck in good working order is pretty vital to the success of this trip. Jason keeps great track of our service needs, which, knock on wood, have been minimal to date – oil changes and tire rotations. We can usually find a GMC or Chevy dealer fairly easily online and then call for a next- or same-day appointment. However, when we were in Big Bend National Park (the most remote place we’ve been), we realized we needed an oil change pretty darn soon, especially since we’d have to drive about 300 miles to get to any substantial town/city. With no cell reception, we used our OnStar service in the truck to find a dealer and to book an appointment, which allowed us to plan our route out of the park based on the location of our appointment. As an aside, I’m pretty sure the OnStar operator who helped us was shocked to learn that the closest dealer to Big Bend was roughly 300 miles away; to quote her, “You’re going to hate me, but the closest dealer is about 300 miles from you.”

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RV Service: We’ve had to have the RV serviced three times, plus one very time-consuming and frustrating failed attempt due to an RV service place that was making our simple issue way too complex and seemingly attempting to take advantage of our warranty. Again, knock on wood, all of our issues have been simple fixes and nothing major – a couple of awning adjustments and fixing a random valve that was installed upside down. When you use anything as often and heavily as we have so far this year, and when that thing happens to be your home, I think you’re bound to have a few things crop up. Since we have a year warranty, we want to make sure we get any issues addressed right away. Finding good RV service places, especially ones that can fit us in on short notice, has been challenging and frustrating to say the least but overall we’ve had pretty positive experiences once an appointment is made. Appointment times have ranged from about 30 minutes to six hours, during which time we can take the truck on other errands. And we have no shame about coming back to the RV mid-appointment to put away groceries or laundry or to have lunch.

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Wi-Fi or 3G (we have old phones, so 3G is as good as it gets for us): Sometimes finding a place with good/fast wireless, or even a town with 3G for paying bills online (3G is much more secure than an open wireless network), can be our most frustrating errand. Yes, we know we could get a personal hotspot, but that costs money, and our data plan isn’t large enough for that to make much sense anyway. We are very rarely in towns/cities with Starbucks or other reliable wireless service, and we don’t really want to feel obligated to buy super expensive coffee anyway (or french fries at McDonalds). We’ve discovered that the very best place to find reliable wireless for blogging, posting pictures, etc. is a public library. As a bonus, one of us can work on the laptop while the other works on a desktop computer so we can get more done, or I’ll stay at the library while Jason does other errands.

Propane/LP: Our water heater, stove, refrigerator, oven, and heater all run on propane unless we’re hooked up to shore power, at which time the water heater and fridge run on electricity; however, we’re rarely (maybe 5% of the time these days) hooked up to power. We use our water heater, stove, and fridge daily, so while we try to conserve and limit our propane use, it is something we rely on pretty heavily. We have two 20-pound propane bottles on the front of the trailer. We like to have one of them completely full at all times while the other is in use; otherwise, we risk running out of propane in the middle of nowhere, which would mean lots of spoiled food (we keep our fridge and freezer pretty well-stocked) and no way to boil water for coffee. I’m not sure which of those things would be worse.

We end up with an empty propane bottle requiring a fill about every 20 days. Lots of gas stations exchange propane bottles, but it’s often harder to find a place that will simply fill a bottle. Our AllStays app is, once again, helpful in that it shows LP locations that fill bottles; however, I’d estimate that it shows only about a third of the places that actually have LP (many locations simply aren’t on the app), and sometimes the app doesn’t provide a location for many hundreds of miles. Sometimes a simple Google search is helpful in finding a location, and sometimes asking around at various local spots is helpful, but regardless of how we identify a LP location, they are almost always hard to physically find. Some places have weird hours, some no longer do fills, sometimes directions are given by confusing landmarks, and almost all places have poor signage and/or provide many other services at the business location, making it hard to ascertain whether they do, in fact, sell LP (seeing a sign like the one pictured below basically makes us do a happy dance). Bottom line, finding LP sometimes feels like a wild goose chase and can be a pretty time-consuming errand. Also, prices and quality of fills vary significantly, but at this point, we usually take whatever we can get. Most recently, we found a place that has a “Frugal Friday” discount on LP; we liked that place a lot.

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RV Dump and Potable Water: As a quick refresher, we have three holding tanks in our RV: fresh water, grey water (soapy water that goes down drains), and black water (waste water that goes down the toilet). Since we boondock/dry camp most of the time, we’re hooked up to a city water connection very rarely; even campgrounds with shore power/electricity hook-ups often don’t have water hook-ups. Thus, it’s essential that we have fresh water on board for cooking, drinking, flushing the toilet, and washing ourselves and our dishes. With normal conservative use (not ultra conservative use), we can usually last about 3-4 days without taking on some amount of fresh water, and we can usually make it up to 5 days without dumping the grey tank and up to 1.5 weeks without dumping the black tank, even without using other bathroom facilities.

Some of the campgrounds and other random places we stay have RV dump stations for emptying the grey and black tanks. Some have potable water (i.e. clean drinking water that we can put in the fresh water tank). Some have both, some have neither, and some have one or the other. When the place where we’re staying has neither or just one of these “amenities”, it becomes an errand to find a dump station and/or a place with potable water. The same “rule” applies as above: some places have just one and some places have both, so sometimes this is a one-stop shop kind of errand and other times it requires two stops. Most everything I wrote above in the “propane” section above is true of finding dumps and potable water. We have multiple apps that help with locating these resources, but it can still easily turn into a time-consuming wild-goose chase. Occasionally, we just happen to encounter a free dump station (again, sometimes with potable water and sometimes without) at a rest area or gas station that we decide to use even if it’s not imperative. It’s kind of like using the bathroom, whether you need to go or not, when the opportunity presents itself while traveling; you never want to be in the position of desperately searching for a bathroom, though sometimes it’s inevitable. IMG_1086 (2)

I think that’s a pretty exhaustive list. Of course, we don’t have to do every single one of these things every time we do errands, but certainly many of them, and we often give ourselves a day or two in a town or city to get everything done. Errands can be exhausting and time-consuming under “normal” circumstances, and I think more so when you’re navigating a new place each time. There is no automatic pilot or knowledge of the area to rely on. We have learned that it’s much easier to get everything accomplished in a smaller town/city or in a fairly compact suburban area where things aren’t so spread out and we’re not fighting traffic. We’ve also learned to map out retail locations in advance so that we choose a town/city to land in for a day or two that can meet all of our needs. It’s an added bonus if we can find cheap camping nearby so that we don’t have to drag the trailer around with us, but this is definitely hit or miss. So, there you have it – everything you ever (or never) wanted to know about our errands.

What else are you itching to know about regarding “real life” on the road? Leave a comment below or shoot us an e-mail at rvgapyear@gmail.com with your questions!

 

Be Cool Man

15/07/08 at 11.00am   /   by Jason   /   0 Comment

***This is simply an account of how I optimized our refrigerator efficiency. It is not technical advice. I am not qualified to give anyone technical advice about RV refrigerators. Don’t go monkeying around with your refrigerator based on this post. Do your homework, call your manufacturer, and/or consult a professional.*** 

Early in this blogging endeavor, Jessie gave a good overview of the electrical system of our RV (Link to Jessie’s earlier post). We knew from the beginning that we needed to keep our electrical needs at a minimum so that we could avoid having to pay for electrical hookups and so that we could remain generator-free. We’d need several things to make this happen.

First, we’d need to follow the weather to the best of our ability to minimize our need for A/C. We don’t mind being hot and sweaty during the day. We are usually out hiking or doing something active, so this is to be expected. But we do want to be somewhat comfortable at night so that we can sleep well. We are both cranky monsters if we are sleep deprived and/or hungry. You see, to run A/C on most RV’s you need (1) an electrical hookup OR (2) a serious generator which would be: heavy, loud, expensive, and in constant need of gas.

Second, we’d need decent battery capacity. We decided on two 6-volt golf cart batteries wired in series to produce 12-volts with the capacity (215 amp hours) we needed to “get by” for several days of LED light use, inverter use (to charge phones, our laptop, run the blender for smoothies, our small “house fan”, etc), and water pump use in a conservative but comfortable manner.

And finally, we needed a way to recharge our batteries at least to a small degree to slow the rate of discharge of our battery bank (all two of them). A generator will do just that and then some, but for the reasons listed above and our huge desire to keep this endeavor as “green” as possible, we decided to go with a 100w portable solar panel. I’d done the research, crunched the numbers, and devoured every article/blog post I could find on the subject. I purchased all of the necessary equipment and proceeded to very carefully, so as not to electrocute myself or blow anything up, install all of the necessary components Jessie referenced in her “It’s Electric” post many months ago. I had supreme confidence that all would work as planned. And everything did work as planned except we just weren’t able to recharge the batteries using the solar panel at the rate I’d calculated. It became clear in Texas that we had an energy vampire.

Energy vampires are sometimes difficult to ferret out and this one proved particularly elusive. It even got to the point where we began shopping for a (gasp!) generator. But that would be a $1,000 commitment and an admission that I was wrong. Not something I’m good at. So we decided to give it another couple weeks. I’d finally identified our vampire as our refrigerator. All of the literature I’d read said running your RV refrigerator on LP gas mode uses virtually no power except for a tiny bit used by the electronic monitoring hardware that tells the unit what to do and when to do it. But it became increasingly clear that everything I’d read was wrong in our particular case.

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I began our investigation of this vampire by isolating variables. This proved tricky because we needed power and time to test the multitude of theories I had. Finally, we arranged for a campsite at Zion NP that had power. So we defrosted the refrigerator (RV refrigerators in most travel trailers are not frost free) and we purchased a small RV refrigerator fan designed to run off two D batteries and circulate air to help prevent frost inside the refrigerator. Both of these things seemed to have helped to a small degree but they weren’t “the” answer we were looking for.

Enter our campground neighbors at Bryce Canyon. A lovely retired couple from New Orleans who ran the generator in their motorhome a lot. More than anyone we’ve encountered by a wide margin. He struck up a conversation with me about our portable solar unit, which turned into a lengthy conversation about boondocking/dry camping/off-the-grid. He knew nothing about his battery bank. Not how many batteries he had, what kind, not the capacity. He’d never so much as opened the battery compartment in his motorhome. I spent a bit of time educating him about batteries and capacity. He seemed interested but he was well into his 3rd-12thcocktail of the evening. Then he mentioned the heater in his refrigerator as being a big energy draw and proceeded to tell me about how he’d installed an on/off switch to disable this heater. To say I was skeptical would be an understatement. He showed me the switch he’d installed and explained the heater to the best of his ability. At the very least I figured it would be something worth reading about so that I could dismiss his information or, in the very unlikely scenario that he had provided us with the magic bullet, I could take action.

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Son-of-a-bitch if this guy who knew NOTHING except the exact thing that I didn’t know was right. The RV refrigerator manufacturer of our unit had indeed hardwired a heating coil around part of the door frame to prevent condensation from building up and preventing a tight seal (not a bad idea in very humid climates, but we were in Utah). For a very long time the manufacturer had installed an on/off switch to allow the user to disable this feature. Somebody in their infinite, bean counting wisdom decided to do away with this switch to save a few bucks on each unit. Anything that produces heat uses power at a high rate, especially when you are running on battery power. This was, indeed, the silver bullet we’d been looking for. A couple of hours of cellphone internet research later, I was able to disconnect the cable providing power to this little heater (it also provides power to the refrigerator light, so ours is now dark), wrapped it in approximately 17 feet of electrical tape (perhaps a small exaggeration), and taped it out of the way but in an easily accessible place if we decide we need to reconnect it. I’d considered installing a switch similar to what our campground neighbor had done but I’m reasonably sure that would void our two-year refrigerator warranty. I am happy to report that the next day our TOTAL energy usage for the day was cut in half and we’ve had no problem keeping our batteries charged with our 100w solar panel. We are now as energy efficient as possible and we’ve driven a stake into the heart of our energy vampire.

Link to the article I found online that helped me solve this problem.

 

 

Let’s Meet Moby

15/04/02 at 9.30am   /   by Jason   /   0 Comment

We’ve had several requests to actually see more detail about the RV. So here is 13 minutes of it. Popcorn optional. Expect more (much shorter videos) along the way.

It’s Electric!

15/03/06 at 9.23am   /   by Jessie   /   0 Comment

No, I’m not here to talk about popular line dances, though that might be more entertaining. As Jason mentioned in a recent post, he was hard at work during our time in Casar upgrading the RV’s electrical system. Prior to doing some significant research, we knew nothing about this topic. With persistence and determination, Jason will spend hours on end learning how to do home (or in this case, RV) projects on his own via YouTube videos, online forums, blog posts, etc. rather than pay anyone to do a project he believes he can learn how to do himself. This was true when he re-roofed our backyard shed a couple of years ago with no prior roofing experience, and it has held true with the RV. You can call his approach cheap, frugal, or resourceful depending on your preference; I prefer resourceful. So, Jason has made himself somewhat of an amateur expert (how’s that for an oxymoron?) when it comes to the workings of our RV’s electrical system. I, on the other hand, know just enough to sorta get it. Enough to explain it to you in layman’s terms before Jason writes a more detailed post on the project.

First, our RV came with two pathetic batteries, which we upgraded to true deep-cycle batteries. The batteries get charged from the truck when we are driving. When the batteries have some charge, they can supply direct power to anything that is hardwired into the RV, including the inside and outside lights, power awning and slide-out, water pump, and refrigerator (with some propane available too). Basically, these things run off DC (direct current) power. If you google DC power like I just did, you will find that DC power is created by such things as batteries and solar cells/solar panels. Keep that in mind for later. You still with me? So, DC power from charged batteries is great for hardwired things, but it cannot supply power to outlets, or subsequently, to anything that has to be plugged in like the microwave, TV, coffee maker, cell phone chargers, etc. Again, tuck that bit of knowledge away for later in the post.

Now, obviously, as we use hardwired things like the lights, or as the RV sits and rests, the batteries get discharged (i.e. start to lose their charge) and eventually have no charge. As mentioned above, one way to charge the batteries is to hook the RV up to the truck and drive. The other main way is to plug into a power source at a campground (campgrounds have RV campsites with electrical hook-ups, meaning you literally stick one end of your power cable into the RV and the other end into a pole with a huge outlet on it). This campground power is referred to as “shore power”. When we’re plugged into shore power, the batteries get charged AND we have power to everything in the RV, including the electrical outlets. Life is good. The outlets work because shore power provides AC (alternating current) power. AC power is what we have in our homes; again, it’s the power that makes plugged-in things work. AC power CANNOT directly charge the RV batteries or directly provide power to the hardwired things. Luckily, the RV came equipped with a converter that automatically converts (hence, the name) AC power into DC power so that the batteries can charge and the hardwired things can run while we’re hooked up to shore power. We don’t have to do a thing. The converter just works like magic. Again, life is good. Outlets work, hardwired things work, and the batteries get charged.

At this point, you may be thinking, “Ok, what’s the big deal? You have DC power for hardwired things when the batteries are charged. You have two ways to charge the batteries. And when you’re plugged into shore power, you have AC power for outlets and the RV converter automatically converts AC power into needed DC power for the batteries and hardwired things.” You’re right. No big deal. At least no big deal until we’re out west where campgrounds are fewer and further between and we can legally camp on federal lands for free for days at a time. This is called “boondocking”, “dry camping”, or “wild camping” because federal lands don’t have electrical hook-ups or water hook-ups (we’ll get to water another day). Thus, when we camp in these places, we are essentially “off the grid” and have to rely on battery power alone. Enter, two problems:

Problem number one is that batteries lose their charge as they’re used and/or as they’re just sitting. We will likely boondock for several days at a time without hooking up to the truck and driving. So how will we keep the batteries charged? Our solution is solar power, which will be plentiful out west. After much research by Jason (naturally), we purchased two portable solar panels that hook up directly to the batteries using cables much like the ones used to jump-start a car. Portable panels simply mean that we can set them up and move them around wherever and however we want, so we can change the angle throughout the day to face the sun directly as it moves through the sky. It also means that they store flat in a nice compact carrying case that we keep in the “basement” compartment of our RV (the basement is just a long narrow storage compartment under the RV where we can keep things that we don’t want in our living space). According to Jason (because I just had to ask him), we could boondock for about two days without the solar panels; with them, we’ll be able to boondock for three to four days depending on power usage and sunlight. Pretty cool, and we like that they’re sustainable energy. As an aside, all of our hardwired lights in the RV are LED so they draw much less power.

Solar panels

Okay, first problem solved. Onto problem number two. We’ll have DC power from the batteries when we’re boondocking, but we won’t have AC power for outlets/things that need to be plugged in. Could we live without those things? Sure, but we plan to do quite a bit of boondocking out west, and it’s pretty important to at least be able to charge cell phones. Plus, having the conveniences of a coffee maker, toaster, and microwave are pretty nice for meal prep and good our general wellbeing. Again, after much research by Jason, he figured out how to install an inverter. An inverter is essentially the opposite of a converter. The inverter magically changes battery- and solar-produced DC power into AC power, allowing us to have plug-in power inside the RV. Jason can provide more details in a later post, but the installation required lots of steps. We – scratch that, Jason – had to purchase the inverter, wire it to the batteries, drill a hole into the basement of the RV for the wires to pass through, mount the inverter (essentially a black box) onto a stud in the basement, drill another hole for wires into the floor of the RV, snake the wires along a floorboard, drill ANOTHER hole into a cabinet for wires to be hidden, install an inverter on/off switch onto said cabinet, and then install a new outlet onto same said cabinet, which is the outlet we can now use to plug things into when we’re running off battery power alone (i.e. boondocking and/or not hooked up to shore power).

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It’s really quite amazing when you think about it, and I sure am proud of Jason for rigging it up (it looks completely professional) and gaining the knowledge to understand how it all works and how to make it work even better for us. Here’s to living off the grid!

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