YepYep...

My stove/oven (a Wedgewood unit with stainless steel top) is LP, but I don't use it - I've covered it over and use the space for things like a toaster oven, George Foreman grill, etc... The oven works well for storing cooking stuff in... Works well, but eats gas and, I don't eat that much anyway...

I don't use the LP furnace at all - I've fired it up maybe twice after I bought this trailer just to make sure it worked, but it's not original to the trailer and it sucks a bottle of LP dry in nothing flat... Thinking about gutting it out; capping the LP line; and making the spot a storage area...

My refrigerator (Dometic RM460) is small, but it can run on either electric or LP - just flip the switch... Doesn't hardly use any power and keeps my beer damn cold... The freezer isn't frostless, though so, I have to go in and scrape it out every so often...

The plumbing is another story... This old box still has Polybutylene lines in it... When the 'recall' happened, this box was sitting in a horse pasture and never got upgraded to the newer plumbing...

If it ain't broke, don't fix it... I haven't had any issues with the plumbing thus far... I run a pressure regulator and filter on the incoming water line... I am going to have to replace the bathtub faucet pretty soon, though - it's finally getting worn-out after 30-years, LOL...

When I replaced the water heater, I had to use John Guest O-ring style fittings to connect the new water lines (which includes a manual bypass) to the existing PB... Works like a charm...

Flush valve in the toilet (Aqua Magic IV) went out a couple of years back... Spliced in a John Guest O-ring valve to shut off the water flow and use a 1-gallon water jug to flush my toilet down into the blackwater tank... Drain the tank about once per week... Been using "Oxy-Kem" packets in the tank for a couple of years and they seem to work well.. Don't bother with 'special' RV toilet paper - Scott 1000 works just fine... To make sure - put a 'sheet' or two in a glass jar that's half-full of water and can be capped - shake the jar for a couple of seconds and, if the paper disintegrates, then it's fine for your RV holding tank... I've had really good luck with Scott 1000 but, watch out for the generics - DON'T use the Walmart generic - just because it says it's 'septic safe' doesn't necessarily mean it's okay for RV's...

The one major consideration, especially being this close to the coast, is air circulation.... I have to 2 roof vents and I've installed covers over both of them so that they can still vent without getting rain water pouring down through them... The vent over my bed has a fan positioned up inside it to force airflow out through that vent (the bathroom vent provides the incoming air) ... Doesn't completely eliminate mold/mildew, but it helps significantly... DampRid containers spread out throughout the trailer also helps...

Keeping the roof seams sealed hasn't been too much of an issue... The previous owner had a single-piece sheet of aluminum installed that completely covers the original roof and is sealed down around the edges... I've been up on top and re-sealed the edges to make sure...

Currently in the process of gutting out the 'dinette' to open up more floor space and put in some shelving... (It''s one of those setups that folds down to make a bed - Pfftt... Don't need it and my 'overhead' bed has already been converted to storage as well as where my microwave is stationed...)

Gotta figure out some kind of skirting, though... The axles on this box were flipped so, it sits rather high... Thinking about putting storage boxes underneath and skirting around the rest of the way...

I'd really like to build a covered deck/porch... Depends on how much $$$ it would take to do so...

 

PEX fittings from a hardware store were what we always used to replace crimp-on fittings even on super-mega-bitchen ALFA trailers with all the bells and whistles. I was told day one at the first RV place I worked at that you didn't want to spend the money for the tool to crimp band-type fittings because sooner or later they let go anyway and you had repeats from people with leaks they brought to you to fix...

*The tool to tighten them is only $2.99 and lasts forever. Every RV should have one in a drawer somewhere

The big one for sucking an LPG bottle dry though was always the furnace - once that sucker uses all the gas, good luck priming the line again! I always told folks that if you have a 120VAC line a small electric space heater beat the (S) out of any furnace installed in the silly things.

Those LPG furnaces ought only to be used for emergencies. They are the least economical units I ever saw...

 

That's because you never had to troubleshoot a slice valve, brother.



*The safest way to empty a full tank with a slice valve handle that corroded and broke off is to drill a hole in the OPPOSITE side and drive it open with a pin punch. You will still get some dirty nasty on you even if it works... God forbid you have to use a sawsall to cut the line if there is anything left in there!

~And consumers never bring them to you until they are full.

How WOULD they know what to do?

"Gosh, I dunno. We took it to the dump station and the handle pulled right out..."

 

What I see is that the price of "SPECIALIZED APPLIANCES" is way off the deep end, I have thought since I saw them up close and personal (I put a year and a half into RV servicing) that there needs to be a better way.

Also the fuel usage of some of the LPG appliances, the furnace is the main one - it's ridiculous.

LPG is portable fuel, YES - but it is also more expensive than other fuels. I think it's high time the RV industry looked at alternative fuel sources and energy in general with an eye towards making it less expensive to own and operate one. Every time I think it over, I realize that RV PARTS are an exorbitant market, the price of everything is high. A single roof air conditioner is right about a thousand dollars US - compare that to a window air unit that only cost $199 and change, and does the same or better job.

I think it's time RV's took a quantitative and qualitative leap into the present day.

LPG doesn't really work - it was intended to be cleaner. But anytime you settle on a cleaner fuel - the price rises with that. It is also intended to be portable - but sustainable is another question. Where things diverge is cooling and heating, it seems to me.

Burning LPG to heat an RV I still maintain is the least caloric efficient system I ever saw - an RV furnace will eat an LPG gas-load up at a horrific rate. THAT ALONE tells me something is wrong with it - there is an inherent "inefficiency" such that it is neither efficient nor effective

GOETHERMAL is a notion lately, and one of the ideas I had was a simple pump system that would draw water from a nearby body of water, such as a lake or river, and circulate it through a heat exchanger. You would have two hoses that you dropped into a lake, or some such, and it would pull water in one - then expel it after picking up heat energy from the RV to a place downstream - so that the heat was carried away.

A system like that would work phenomenally well on a BOAT and could be powered by solar electric panels. All it would require is a circulation pump, a heat exchanger, and a fan with ducting.


* NO energy sucking compressors, condensers, fixed orifices or valves, receiver-driers, the only items requiring power would be a pump and a fan. It could run on 12VDC or 6VDC ganged batteries charged by a solar panel or two

Bodies of water tend to maintain an average temperature around 60 - 70 degrees in the summer, and are relatively stable.

Conversely - bodies of water in the winter have deep temperatures that are fairly stable - that is why fish run deep in the winter.

The ideal test case for this would be a houseboat, with a one hundred foot garden hose and a filter


THAT'S one idea

Shucks, all you would need to test it is an extra radiator with an electric fan and a pontoon boat! Use an RV water pump and there you are...
*Hook a thermostat to the pump

 

Follow this series...



Once upon a time, a tent was all you got. A motorbike was IT because it gave you freedom - that is long gone today. I mean - look at those bikes. Twin cylinder 350's I'm guessing....

But you could just RUN AWAY into open country. There are few places you can do that anymore, the EPA doesn't want you messing up alluvial pools (whatever in hell they are) and it would tear up the poor dear environment that was in trouble anyway.

Like anything except rattlesnakes and scorpions could do well in those places


"Blessed are we, for we have preserved the fukken scorpions"

Before Ken takes off on my negativety, you need to keep in mind my sense of humor. I thrive on getting up no matter what happens - as Neitzche said, it makes us strong.

With my background it would be strange not to find amusement in adversity


But I miss not being able to run away in whatever form of transport can take me away - be it a bicycle, a minibike, or a car or truck.


I'm going after it again by damn! I'll tent camp all over north America in a tiny little car, and bring Woola with me



How is that clip for a classic?

It calls to mind: "ZEN and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"
~Which I recall had a pinkish purple cover

Am I the only one here that read it?




I think that inside every one of us who travel and camp - is a wonder. Maybe I should express that as: "A sense of wonder". Something inside us just wants to see something new, or maybe familiar, but around the next turn in the road. It doesn't really matter if anyone else saw it before - we just never did.

And we want whatever that is...

I can't tell you what it is or why.

But it just is




We're funny in that way

 

Nope... My folks have a copy of it and I've read it - however, it's been many years (about 30 or so - the book was first published in 1974)...

As I recall, the central theme was about a college professor who damn near drove himself insane trying to find the 'one' true definition for "Quality"... It wound up taking a motorcycle trip cross-country with his son to help him realize that such a definition doesn't exist as the very concept of "Quality" is subjective depending on whomever is interpreting that concept - there is no one defining 'law' that determines what "Quality" is...

 

Can't really help it - most of my life I've gone with intuitive thinking, rather than rigidly structured. That's why I'm not as good at math as I am at looking at a whole picture and zeroing in on the part of a thing that doesn't work right.

It used to piss off other techs that I worked with, but my Chiefs were usually thrilled. Part of that probably comes from learning to listen to what an engine sounded like and recognizing what the odd noise out was. Other techs would tell the Bossman they were still running tests, when I would just walk up, stand there for a minute, and say: "It's THIS..."

But to do that, you have to absorb a whole lot of at times seemingly unrelated other stuff.