Sleeping over generator

Hank85713 wrote:
If in a wally world just park far enough away from others. roadside rests if they allow camping in the big rig area, well they run their engines/gens all the time so I doubt your little 4K would even be noticed.

Whenever we overnight on hot nights in a Walmart parking lot en route to/from real camping spots, we run the A/C all night off the generator while parking back with the big rigs in the parking lot section for them. The big rigs leave their engines running all night too ... plus we figure that it's pretty safe/secure back there, and ... does anyone want to mess with big rig drivers and their sleeping time?

As others have stated most class c have their gens forward of the rear wheels unless probably a short one. mine is 28 ft and sits on the driver side under the dinette. We have run it all night for the heater as tit requires a 30 amp voltage and 15 pops the circuit breaker. anyhow if not in a CG of some sort I dont see it as an issue to run one if needed. If in a wally world just park far enough away from others. roadside rests if they allow camping in the big rig area, well they run their engines/gens all the time so I doubt your little 4K would even be noticed.

Haha, but seriously, no laughing from me. We've been hopelessly gentrified, but both of us come from a long line of redneck DIYers, and they've discovered some awesome/frugal ways to do a whole lot of things. I will look it up.

Forget the generator at night. I use either the backup Honda genny or build yourself (I built one) a "Redneck Air Conditioner" run search on You Tube and don't laugh they really work and they're supper quiet, and really cold!!!

Samantha525 wrote:
Love the roof vent, positive pressure idea, thank you.

We first discovered this unusual roof vent usage several years ago for another purpose. We began using positive pressure to keep dust out of the coach when driving off-pavement on dusty roads. Since the air up high above the roof is usually way less dusty, pressure maintained inside the RV from air above the roof is "clean air pressure". No dust can enter the coach through windows, door cracks, or through any other tiny construction cracks down low where most dust comes from because the slight pressure won't allow it. Note ... this is NOT the case if you're following closely behind another vehicle when on a dusty road - that source of dust will be coming at you from both down low and up high!

So maintaining positive air pressure inside the RV keeps dust out when traveling and generator fumes out when drycamping.

After we discovered the roof vent positive pressure trick several years ago, I did some research on the Internet and discovered that some off-road RV manufacturers in Australia had long since been incorporating this type of venting into their off-road caravan designs ... since the Australian Outback is so dusty - especially from their long periods of drought! :C

Thank you for all the input. We camped in Cades Cove with no electric, no nothing and the people next to us had a big F800 truck with the hugest RV I have ever seen. It had a pop out screen porch on the back of it!!!! Their generator was so noisy we couldn't hear ourselves talk from over a campfire during the day. They did not run it at night. I would NEVER want to do that to another camper. We wouldn't be using the generator at all anywhere we had electric,which is mostly state parks where we spend the most time camping. We would only use it where there was no other option and we were burning up. We are camping in Cosby and Cades Cove this summer in our current travel trailer and chose the non generator loops for this trip!!! Love the roof vent, positive pressure idea, thank you.

If you go to a motel you pay a quarter to get a little vibration.

Our old 1990 Winnebago Warrior has the generator directly behind the driver seat. It's under one of the kitchen table seats. So unless you were sleeping at the kitchen table bed (no one ever does), you would not be over it. It's definitely not bad when you are in the back bedroom. It's a pleasant white noise roar.

But it is a noisy old beast. We do a lot of boon docking but typically we don't run the generator at night. Even in the south it usually cools off enough in the night to be OK for sleeping.

I definitely recommend installing CO detectors in your RV. I installed two - one in each sleeping area. One in the cab-over bed, and one back in our bedroom. With a 25-year old RV you never know when a furnace or generator or whatever is going to malfunction and start leaking exhaust gas inside. Obviously a propane detector is essential also. Most new RVs come with them but I had to install one in ours.

I had the generator running when I had the RV at a shooting range one afternoon with the kids. After a couple of hours one of the CO detectors went off. Clearly some exhaust made its way inside - probably through the open door (the generator was on to charge/run the kids' ipads).

If you are going to be sleeping with any kind of flame appliance or generator running CO and propane detectors are essential.

A propane fired furnace still needs electric to run the fan, it will run on the battery ,but will kill a single battery overnight, if you set at much above 60, it may even drain 2 batteries, depending on state of charge when you start.

My RV came with a small house battery under the hood. The furnace would run down the battery overnight. In installed a second huge deep-cycle battery in one of the storage compartments (I vented it) and now I don't have problems with the furnace for a weekend.

Samantha525 wrote:
What does it feel like to sleep over a generator? We are looking at class c's and I'm concerned about generators under the bed. Do they vibrate the bed? How much? What is the noise like, is it consistent or does it change frequently? TIA for any input!!

Unless you a) are a REALLY deep sleeper, or, b) are so tired a small thermonuclear device being detonated might not wake you, you will NOT be sleeping OVER a generator that is running.

Either the generator is running, OR, you are sleeping.

A propane fired furnace still needs electric to run the fan, it will run on the battery ,but will kill a single battery overnight, if you set at much above 60, it may even drain 2 batteries, depending on state of charge when you start.

I can see this being true with some combinations of batteries and furnaces-especially on larger rigs with small batteries. But it is not universally true. My 24' has 3.5 amp furnace draw when running. Even in low to mid 20s temp the furnace duty cycle is about 50% for low 60s sleeping temperatures. If I was having to run generator middle of night to provide heat (other than emergency situation), I'd be at the drawing board...