Our goal: travel trailer turned tiny home!

Mother.of.Dragons wrote:


?????? thank you for the comic relief in these doom & gloom posts!

Added info:

As I said, we DO intend to have this parked with all the hookups most of the time (electric, water, sewer - if we don't do the composting toilet), I already found a few parks that take travel trailers long-term.

And yes, part of the reason we want to tear out the walls is to re-do the insulation. I was looking at the spray foam. Maybe panel over the drywall for an extra layer too.

So the generator would be primarily used for its intended purpose, as a BACKUP unless we were traveling & stopped somewhere that it was A. allowed, & B. a necessity. The solar panels would be to supplement either of these primary power sources. And I have a family member with experience installing them who said they would do it for me.

As far as the heating element, being in the coldest room in the house currently (it could potentially get down to 55° WITH baseboard heat on in the wintertime), we always were able to get it up between 60 & 70 in the room with a small electric "fireplace" look heater. One in the bedroom & one in the front room would surely suffice to heat the space. The dragons need at least 60° for a sleeping climate at night, and I also have ceramic night heat emitters for each tank on the coldest nights. In the daytime, the tanks basically heat the entire back side of the 3 bedroom rancher we currently live in (their daytime tank temps are 90°+), so I doubt we'll be cold along with the 2 space heaters and better insulation.

I will definitely look into double pane glass windows. Good idea.

The only thing I don't like about a regular mobile home is the fact that they cannot just be on a towhitch to move, considering they're a "wide load". So it defeats the purpose of being able to take your home with you on road trips & vacations.

And yes, we do plan to eventually move south. But our current job situation doesn't really give us both the option to transfer down south, so it will take finding new jobs together (or possibly jobs that don't require physical attendance, that we can telecommute or do online).

Hope that answers a few questions/concerns.

And this has been our dream for a few years now. Yes, we're aware we're downsizing, we embrace that. All about the simple life. And yes, we know we may be in for challenges with finding ways for this to work for full-time. We also embrace the journey.

If you are planning on having full hookups if possible, why not just shop around for a floorpan you like and skip gutting the whole thing? Try it out and see how it works as is...maybe add some floor insulation or a skirt around the bottom when you are parked for longer term.

Use your generator and solar panels to supplement you energy use if needed.

It you have electric hookups, an electric oil heater works great to warm up a small space.

Keep the propane as a backup, you don't HAVE to use it, but it's there.

We were able to keep our camper warm down into the 20's with one oil heater, and we had 3 open tent beds with very little insulation.

The dragons having their own tank heaters will help too, as long as you have electric hookups. Being "off grid" entirely would be tough with that much energy load in the winter, as electric heaters use a lot of electricity.

Just wondering if you really need to reinvent the wheel. I think it is entirely doable as long as you can hook up at any long term stops, especially in the winter.