Filed under: Comfort at Camp, Nature & Wildlife, Outdoor Recreation & Hiking, Preparation & Readiness, RV Modifications, Scenic Byways/Historic Routes, State & National Parks, The RVs We Drive
WE ARE CHEATERS!
June 7, 2012 by Professor95 · 6 Comments
Yes, I admit it. We are CHEATERS!
No, we don’t cheat on our income taxes or in a card game. Like thousands of other RV owners, we cheat on what is perceived as conventional camping.
For the past week, we have been camping at Big Meadows off of the Skyline Drive in the Shenandoah National Park. We have a beautiful pull thru site about 100’ long – more than enough space to accommodate our “big rig”. There is only one problem with our site – we have no hook-ups for electricity, water, or sewage. This, of course, translates to using our own on-board resources of water, battery power, and wastewater holding. It is easy to get by with no hook-up for a night or two, but if you have a conventional RV with a refrigerator, water pump, and lights, you will quickly learn that the small battery packs that come with your RV will not sustain your needs. The amount of water you can store and the capacity of your waste holding tanks will determine just how often you flush the potty, bathe, or wash dishes.
Our beautiful mountain campsite
If you are in a towable RV it is a real hassle to hook-up and pull the camper off of your site to a dump station to dispose of waste water and fill up with potable water.
Some long-term dry campers simply avoid using the RV’s resources and prefer to use bathhouses where water and waste are involved and candles, battery powered LED lights, or lanterns for lighting. This may also include forgoing any TV usage. The RV is simply a place to sleep and a shelter from rain or other inclement weather.
Then there are the cheaters – people like us. We expand our battery storage capacity, convert every possible lighting unit to LED, carry auxiliary water containers and some sort of wastewater device that we can easily move to a dump station and thus enjoy the amenities our RV provides without the inconvenience of trekking to a bathhouse or constantly buying ice to keep our food refrigerated.
Freshwater and gray water transfer tanks sitting on truck bed.
Actually, cheating isn’t difficult and anyone that owns a RV can expand his or her self-sufficiency for relatively little extra cost. We accomplish our cheating with a 50-gallon drinking water safe auxiliary tank we fill at a potable water station and then pump it into the RV using a 12-volt Shurflo pump . We transfer our gray water via a macerator pump into a surplus 55-gallon plastic drum, which has been adapted for a standard 3” dump cap. Recharging our batteries is accomplished by either sunlight on our 300 watt roof mounted solar panels or a small 2000 watt “quite” inverter generator powering a 75 amp battery charger.
It can get pretty cool at night in the mountains and some heat in the RV is welcome. Only problem is the fan in a RV furnace is a battery power hog, so we use an indoor safe portable propane heater that requires no electricity.
Our morning coffee is made in a Coleman Camp Coffee Maker that works on a camp stove or the RV gas burner stove – again, no need for electricity to make perfect tasting coffee.
If you would like to become a cheater and are not sure about what or how to accomplish independence from a full hook-up camping site, make a comment or ask a question. I will do my best to give an answer and hope other experienced cheaters will join in with their tricks.
Quite 2000 watt inverter generator
Twin 125 AH AGM batteries expand 12 VDC Power
Indoor safe LPG space heater
Coleman Drip Coffee Maker does not use electricity
HAPPY CAMPING TRAILS TO ALL!
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Howdy Randy,
Did you paint your inverter/generator yellow, because I can’t find a yellow one?? Red or blue; no yellow!
Hey Butterbean!
Yellow is either Champion Power Equipment or Kipor. Red is Honda and Blue Yamaha – at least that was the way things were until CPE also put out a red and silver model to go with the yellow. I’ have two of the little yellow units with the parallel kit so I can run the A/C if needed. Great little gennys – no problems for the past two years. Someone told me black bears are attracted to red but avoid yellow. Some of the black bears in our mountains can get pretty big – don’t want any messing with my genny
Far be it for me to covet another man’s big, er, rig, but most of us don’t have 18-wheeler-type tow vehicles with space or weight capacity for 55 gallon drums and 50 gal aux water tanks. However, the other hints are useful for dry campsites and boondocking.
I hear you Lew – and thanks for the comeback. But, I was hauling around the drums long before the Volvo. I put the fresh water tank (empty, of course) either in the camper or the bed of the PU and had a receiver on the back of the camper for a bike carrier/rack that I strapped the waste drum on. Once on site and disconnected both worked well in the bed of the Chevy PU. Newer devices (spell $$) I like are made like waterbed mattresses – one for fresh water and one for gray water. When empty the carry/storage issue is lessened.
Randy
Folks,
I have RVed with Randy several times, his article pointed out some excellent ideas to save power and conserve…but I must blow your cover….Randy has more batteries in the “bed” of his Volvo than Carter’s had liver pills….but he does know how to conserve.
One again, another good article Randy.
Mike
Well, shucks Mike. I wasn’t going to mention the twenty 50 amp hour AGM batteries under the hatch on the Volvo bed. That 1000 amp hours of reserve is primarily for the on-board DC to AC inverter (3,000 watts) – not the 12 volt support system. Thus, they are my cake icing capable of running my modified 6,000 BTU bedroom air conditioner all night. This is nice when the temps are in the 90′s, humidity near 100%, no hook-ups and no generator allowed hours. That may be another technical blog for the future.
Randy