Full time storage, but far away from home - possible?

One concern must be addressed if left in storage. The trap line. I know of Canadian folks who pulled to Southern California. While there put unit in storage and flew to New Zealand for a month.
When they got back a pack rat or some other critter took up residence in their fancy expensive fifth and did thousands in damage. Ruined their winter because it took a dealer many weeks to repair.
Stored, these unit’s must be checked every week and traps set up in every door.
I have several unit’s stored on our yard and I make the rounds once a week.

In side the main door I set traps and a peanut butter/pail of water/antifreeze so it’s easy to check.
Even though I have sealed our trailer and our kids the odd one still gets in.

We put ours into its annual 5 month hibernation just a few days ago. Winterised it, disconnected battery, no battery tender. Trailer is completely dead. Genny got run till the carb was dry. A little gas additive put in for storage. The truck even goes into a long winters nap. Tanks left full with a dose of BioBore JF diesel storage additive.

For us getting to the storage place is a full day of travel involving 2 flights.

We're from Alaska and have left our DP in Arizona for the last six years instead of running it back and forth to Alaska. We take it out of storage to use it 3 - 4 times a year, usually for 1 - 3 months at a time.

Ours is diesel, so there's no problem with gas going bad. Don't worry about exercising the generator in their hot dry weather. We've found the biggest problem is the water in the 6 volt batteries evaporating. When you put it into storage, fill the batteries to the proper level the night before and then check them when you take it out of storage.

The biggest problem you'll run into is finding storage space. In their heat, you want covered storage during the summer and it's getting harder to find all of the time. Because of the shortage of covered storage, people no longer check out of their storage space when they leave for a couple of months. About two years ago when we finally found covered storage again, we now keep it year round. So if you plan on leaving your MH home over there, start calling for storage the day you get there or even before you leave home.

And as for your question is "far away" storage possible, the answer is yes. Most of the MHs stored in Arizona belong to people who live out of state.

Bill

I know a Canadian that has a 5W in southern NM. It stays in the storage lot at the RV park, he calls and they will put it in a space for him. He comes down on his M/C, hooks up the RV and he's snow birding for the winter. Summer they move it back to storage for him and he rides back north.

That's reassuring; thanks for the quick feedback all. I'll keep an eye for any further input, but will proceed :-)

Lots of seasonals do exactly what the OP wants to do in the South and in the North.

Left my motorhome and toad in Anchorage for four winters, flew back and fourth on spring and fall.
Put in sta-bil and disconnected ground on all batteries, all eight of them.
You have to take care of the batteries also.

I don't have a built in generator on my 5er, but I've had a stand alone generator for over 15 years. I try to run it monthly as it primarily used for power outages at the house. However, there has been many times when I've got for several months between start ups and it's always run very well. It almost always starts the 2nd or 3rd pull of the cord.

I keep Sta-Bill in the gasoline fuel tank and when shutting down, I always turn the petcock to the off position and let the carburetor run dry and the engine shuts itself off.

When starting it back up, after sitting a month, or two, or three, I simply flip the gas flow valve again, wait about 5 minutes, put it on choke and about 2 pulls of the rope, it starts.

The only exception is when the temperatures are zero degrees, which has happened in the winter months in the past. Then, I had to pull, and pull, and pull, but eventually it would start.

We have 2 garages, the big one not attached to the house and not heated where the trucks are kept, the other a one car garage attached to the house I use for a wood working shop. The last couple winters, I've been storing the generator inside the smaller heated attached garage. When we had a power failure last winter, the generator started right up. So, it's now permanently stored in the smaller garage attached to the house, as it's always slightly heated and the generator will still start easily, even if it's zero degrees outside.

This is my experience with my generator. But from my limited experience, I wouldn't stress leaving the generator unattended to for 3 months.

I used to do this years back. leave the MH in tempe AZ and fly back an forth never had a problem.

PartyOf Five wrote:
We'd like to park in the Southwest at a secure storage lot, then go every 3 months or so. In the next 12 months we hope to see NM, NV, AZ, CA.

My 2 concerns are that my generator won't get exercised, the gas will get stale.

Fake news. LOL.

The alleged necessity of ‘exercising’ a generator is to prevent rust on the generator portion of the genset. That’s hardly a concern in the dry southwest, if it even is anywhere else.

As was stated, just add Sta-bil or equivalent before fueling up the last time before parking it (and run the genset a bit to get it up through the carb) and you’ll be fine.