UPDATE: On my RV building plansWell, you spoke..... and I listened.Thank you to all those that provided feedback to me on my RV building plans. Your ideas and suggestions have been very helpful. Some of the things pointed out to me were; - My trailer was too high. (This was a rendering error and I corrected it) The actual trailer should come in at no more than 11' now.- I didn't have enough storage. Now I added a storage cabinet over the desk and an access door to storage below the trailer in the back.- Someone even pointed out that my tongue was not in the right spot and I corrected that.If you haven't seen my plans to build an RV or you want to see the rendering revisions I made please go to: MY RV PLANS If you have any more suggestions, ideas or feedback I would greatly appreciate it.Fondly, -Darla

Thanks for the update. Another suggestion - take photographs or have the builder do it as the build progresses. Knowing exactly where the framing is located and where the electric and plumbing run will make future changes and additions much easier.

You have perviously posted that you plan on using a RV builder to help you complete this project. From the 2+ years that I have been on this forum....one thing pretty much universally stands out, most if not all RV's on the market are cheap thrown together crapola unless it's a mega expensive 5th wheel or custom bus. It seems like you have a pretty good plan so possibly you should expand your builders to outside the RV trade?

I still think you are causing yourself some major expense with the vertical elevations of your plans. By putting the floor height up a foot over the as built deck, you'll have to add onto the wall height, have poorer egress/ingress, and add more drag when towing. I've mentioned that you can maintain the existing as-built elevations by insulating the floor from the exterior. The concept you have will require that the whole exterior wall structure needs to be cut off and modified if you intend to have a continuous exterior panel. In previous RV use, the entry door and it's catch must have given you some grief. That will be less grief than the amount of water infiltration you'll suffer with an in-swing door. As was also noted in your previous thread, here, trying to get around laws dealing with grey water discharge is a recipe for headaches. I wouldn't try it.

OP's Blog wrote: I’m going to try to keep a fairly clean gray water tank (basically soapy water from sink and shower) so that it does not require a sewer system to be discharged. I do know it's illegal to dump even just a grey water tank outdoors in some states, but I don't think there would be any harm to the environment if I had to dump that soapy water discreetly in a pinch.westend wrote: As was also noted in your previous thread, here, trying to get around laws dealing with grey water discharge is a recipe for headaches. I wouldn't try it.You can try to gloss over this part of your plan, but I'd take the advice given by westend. If it was OK to do this, it would never be necessary to do it discreetly.Now when are you going to actually going to start building?

2012Coleman wrote:OP's Blog wrote: I’m going to try to keep a fairly clean gray water tank (basically soapy water from sink and shower) so that it does not require a sewer system to be discharged. I do know it's illegal to dump even just a grey water tank outdoors in some states, but I don't think there would be any harm to the environment if I had to dump that soapy water discreetly in a pinch.westend wrote: As was also noted in your previous thread, here, trying to get around laws dealing with grey water discharge is a recipe for headaches. I wouldn't try it.You can try to gloss over this part of your plan, but I'd take the advice given by westend. If it was OK to do this, it would never be necessary to do it discreetly.Now when are you going to actually going to start building?Just a side note on shower water being clean, I don't think so. If you are human, Fecal Coliform bacteria will be present. You need to rethink the gray water or constantly carry a portable gray water tank to avoid issues with the authorities and other campers.

Update: On my RV Building Plans.... | Good Sam Community

Shavano
Explorer
May 21, 2014
Thread has degenerated into name calling and flaming.
myrvplans1
Explorer
May 21, 2014
06Fargo wrote:
There is some great information being put forward.

I think I'm in the spray foam insulation camp as well. #1 issue with every rv we've owned is lack of control of the interior climate. Every tank and system enclosed in the insulated envelope.

A V-nose might be worth taking a look at - we have towed both flat and v-nose cargo/car trailers and there is a difference in power required. The V nose could be used for storage, higher part accessible from inside behind a bulkhead, and the lower for gas bottles, batteries etc with ventilation.

Fargo... I've been told that spray foam works real well for climate control and sound reduction. It also adds to the integrity of the structure. I would consider a V-nose if in fact there was a way to adequately ventilate the batteries I would put in there. Thanks. -Darla
myrvplans1
Explorer
May 21, 2014
Dennis Smith wrote:
Darla, can you tell us what kind of camping you want to do. Are you planning on not using camp grounds at all? Just don't understand why your spending so much money where it doesn't look like a camper. But steps going up to the door lights coming out around the curtains, really does make it look like a camper. And I for one don't want someone knocking on my door at 2AM telling me this is a no parking zone, or worse yet, having someone hook up to my TV and start towing my rig away. I have read your post and just don't understand why your doing what your doing?

Dennis, I'm hoping to avoid campgrounds as much as I can. I bought a number of campground memberships years back and found that once you start that circuit you travel tethered to them. This time around I am hoping for an RV experience where I can travel anywhere without having to schedule campground stops. I'm not up for the 2am knock either, but I traveled all over the west coast for 3 years and did dozens of stay-overs in all sorts of places and didn't really get hassled by anyone. The key is to always asking permission. And as long as you don't drag out the carpet and lawn chairs most won't challenge you. I once parked in a California police departments parking lot for a night and they said fine. With an electric awning, 2 windows, a roof mounted ac, and propane tanks it's gonna be hard to pretend the vehicle is anything but an RV. I'm not really going for "stealth", just an appearance that doesn't invite unwanted attention. Thanks for the feedback. -Darla
noteven
Explorer III
May 20, 2014
There is some great information being put forward.

I think I'm in the spray foam insulation camp as well. #1 issue with every rv we've owned is lack of control of the interior climate. Every tank and system enclosed in the insulated envelope.

A V-nose might be worth taking a look at - we have towed both flat and v-nose cargo/car trailers and there is a difference in power required. The V nose could be used for storage, higher part accessible from inside behind a bulkhead, and the lower for gas bottles, batteries etc with ventilation.
Gdetrailer
Explorer III
May 20, 2014
Dennis Smith wrote:
Darla, can you tell us what kind of camping you want to do. Are you planning on not using camp grounds at all? Just don't understand why your spending so much money where it doesn't look like a camper. But steps going up to the door lights coming out around the curtains, really does make it look like a camper. And I for one don't want someone knocking on my door at 2AM telling me this is a no parking zone, or worse yet, having someone hook up to my TV and start towing my rig away. I have read your post and just don't understand why your doing what your doing?

Darla is a troll.

Basically getting "free" advertisement for her "website".

No one is going to simply start building a website for the sole and single purpose of posting a "plan" of rather preposterous "ideas" (I suspect perhaps attempting to "market" or "sell" her "idea" in a way of getting around forum rules)..

Comes here, posts some outlandish bs about spending $100K on HER "idea" of what RVs SHOULD look like and function like USING a cargo trailer..

Says silly things like "the customers don't know what they want"..

It is nothing more than a ploy to gain attention and it isn't just this website, she has been making rounds on other RV websites..

This thread just needs to be left alone and be buried into the abyss of neglect..

I am done with her silliness and adding her to my ignore list..
Dennis_Smith
Explorer
May 20, 2014
Darla, can you tell us what kind of camping you want to do. Are you planning on not using camp grounds at all? Just don't understand why your spending so much money where it doesn't look like a camper. But steps going up to the door lights coming out around the curtains, really does make it look like a camper. And I for one don't want someone knocking on my door at 2AM telling me this is a no parking zone, or worse yet, having someone hook up to my TV and start towing my rig away. I have read your post and just don't understand why your doing what your doing?
sacmarata
Explorer
May 20, 2014
Just joined the forum and was reading this thread and trying to glean some good ideas out of the mess that it's become. My father has a 28' Kodiak TT he has customized for cold weather camping and stays comfy in 30* weather with just a single space heater. As he indicates, it's the mouse holes that get you. You can use the most efficient insulation on the market but one cable hole with an 1/8" gap around it will suck in cold air if there is even the smallest opening somewhere else.
An experiment he showed me in my home that worked wonders for me was to take a balloon and counter weight it to be sationary so it has no lift or drop. Release the balloon and watch it follow your draft.

I agree with the spray foam insulation for mobile applications. It will stay put and what it lacks in R factor is made up for in the little nooks and crannies it fills that would be left with standard insulation.

The camper you are making sounds like a bug out vehicle to me. I've considered the same but on a much more basic level. I can't understand those that would assume such basic amenities would be bad or wrong for you. If you told me it needed a peacock cage on the roof I would begin thinking, "Well, how is she gonna do that? Theres gotta be a way" ...not..."well that's ridiculous."

I grew up surrounded by engineers who looked at everything practically and am very intigued by your idea. Please keep us informed and try not to return hurt for hurt when someone gets under your skin or makes a remark that challenges your pride. It's hard to do, but remember, usually, that's all the other person is doing as well.

Y'all keep at. theres still lots of good info in this thread, even with the mess :)
OhhWell
Explorer
May 20, 2014
myrvplans1 wrote:
OhhWell wrote:
http://www.coolrunninghs.com/ls090hxv.html

What is that? Does it need venting?

It is an insanely efficient AC / heat pump unit that uses an inverter powered variable speed compressor. It only pulls about 900W at max output. It's unfortunate that they don't make these things completely DC yet but well, there aren't any 12V dc AC units at all and the 24V models I believe are too big. Also, since it is an inverter powered DC motor, there is no High amp hard starting draw.

Anyway, if after trading blows you still want to believe you are open to suggestions, here are my thoughts:

Number one, do stick with the small residential fridge. It looks like you can avoid having a propane system altogether and that is a good things these days (with proper planning of course). Instead of having the batteries on the A frame, make some use of the raised floor and build a large vented compartment for a huge battery bank under the couch. Access could be from under the couch or a door and sliding tray on the outside. I would say under the couch if possible to avoid having to run longer wires.

You should be able to fit about 12 GC6s in there. that should give you about 650-700 Amp Hours to draw from before hitting the 50% depletion limit. With 6 effective 12V cells, the amp draw can be 120 amps constant and stay within the 20amp ratings for each battery. That means you can pull 1440 Watts out of the bank constantly and get the full 650 amps.

Instead of the battery box on the trailer A frame, you then mount the condenser portion of that AC system I linked and maybe build a box around it with proper ventilation to protect it from rocks and such when traveling. The indoor portion could simply be placed above the couch. I linked to the LG unit but I have heard there are or were Sanyo band units similar that could be set to run only at lower wattage, as low as 300 Watts running. Obviously your cooling BTUs are reduced as well but how efficient is that to be able to dynamically size your AC unit as camping conditions change?

Spend a few bucks on a quality Pure Sine wave Inverter/ Converter with a high inverter capacity. I am not familiar with what is out in the market these days but something like this:

http://www.campingworld.com/shopping/item/nature-power-sine-wave-inverter-chargers-3000-watt-with-150-amp-battery-charger-and-remote-control-panel/67193

So, with a 650 Ah battery bank to pull from, the AC at about 850 Watts (7.3 amps x 115 volts) could run non stop for about 8 hours taking inverter overhead into account. Obviously it is not going to run that much in a small well insulated trailer but that would be the capacity. Unless you open it a lot, the small residential fridge is not going to pull much power overnight either.

Of course, the draw and capacity are only part of the equation. You have to recharge the huge battery bank after running it down. The obvious thing to look to first is solar. Since the AC wouldn't be on the roof, you have a lot more of the limited real estate available. I know you said no skylight in your plans but I don't know if you are putting a roof vent up there? If not, all you would need is a vent for the grey tank since you will be pooping in little bags.

Personally, I would have a lightweight aluminum frame built to sit above the roof for the solar panels to be mounted on. This eliminates all the mounting screws in the roof as well as providing a single structure to remove if the roof ever needed repair. Also, it will soak up the heat from the sun and keep the roof of the trailer nice and shaded. I pulled up a simple mono crystal 100 Watt solar panel on amazon and it was rougly 4' long by 2' wide. On a box that is 16' x 8', you could possibly get 16 panels up there for a max of 1600 Watts or 133 max amps of charging to the battery bank not accounting for overhead on the charger. At full sun in bulk mode dumping say 100 amps into the batteries with the charger in bulk mode, it would bring the battery bank up to 80% in about 5 ½ hours. That would be assuming nothing else in the trailer is pulling power at the same time. Unfortunately, getting the battery bank to 100% takes a LONG since the charger will drop down the voltage so as not to boil the batteries.

All in all, I think it is very doable especially since you understand that you will have to bring along a quiet generator to supplement the solar. Also, getting a second alternator installed in your tow vehicle dedicated to feeding the camper through the 7 pin connector would be nice.

Get rid of the propane tanks. In the scenario I outlined you will have more than enough tongue weight to begin with. You have looked at how weight is distributed in this thing right?

GDE's awesome rebuild of an older camper and his concerns about the long term weather resistance of a cargo trailer brings up a thought: Since you are going to have to remove the walls anyhow to raise the roof height, what if you did something like he did with fiberglass composite panels for all the sides with the fiberglass wrap on all the seams then glue the cargo trailer like edge covering metal back over the seams to retain the stealth look? There may be a few reasons why that wouldn't work and cost being one of them but who knows.
Huntindog
Explorer
May 20, 2014
myrvplans1 wrote:
Huntindog wrote:
A couple of thoughts. Are you stuck on 15'?
It occurred to me that since most building materials are 4x8 standardized, that making the TT box 16' would likely yield some savings in labor, and not add any to the cost of materials. Most of the materials cut off over 15' will just be thrown away, and you would be paying someone to do it!. An extra foot would not be noticed at all when towing, but could make a substantial impact on the interior, at basically zero cost.
It may not work out to exactly 1 foot of extra room, and you would have to have the cargo trailer selected in order to plan it that close.
You would hate to be a inch short in the materials.
But some detailed construction planning couild pay some dividends.

In another post, we talked about how to handle the rear door. IIRCC, you said that the trailer builder could just wall it off.
I think that keeping the doors, if they are the swing open type could have some advantages.
First off it would keep the stealth mode consistent with your desire to not look like a camper.

Next is it would make the construction a LOT easier. If the rear is walled off, then everything will need to be brought in thru the small entry door. This will slow things down considerably and drive up the labor cost.
You could make a sort of false wall back there for when the doors were open, or have a screen wall like some toy haulers have. Might be nice sometimes to have some extra ventilation
Another thought: If you got a ramp rear door, you could use it as a patio. I have even seen pics of a toy hauler with this setup with the ramp hanging out over a lake, so that they could fish off of their own "dock" It looked pretty cool

Finally with the raised floor plan, if the rear doors were still there, you could access the area under the floor just by opening the doors. The possibilities here are endless. You could install some of those long slide out drawers like some camper shell kits have. One could even store one of those fold up canoes in there. Obviously, some of this space will be occupied by tanks etc. so thinking this out in advance would be necessary.

THANK YOU HUNTINDOG! I've been waiting all day to respond to your post. I really appreciate your feedback. Good stuff.

1) I think you're absolutely right about having to go to 16'. They seem to make the base cargo trailers in even lengths. The extra 12" could help out in a few areas. (When they say something like an 16x8 cargo trailer are they referring to a 16' box length or 16' from the rear bumper to the tongue hitch?)In the TT world, they generally measure from tongue to rear bumper, though sometimes the model number may be the box size.(really can't depend on that though as their is no consistency).
I am pretty sure that in the cargo world, they go by box size, though it may vary by manufacturer.
Best to make this a inquiry as it is a big difference likely 3-4'.

2) I like your idea about keeping the ramp door as a patio or to appear more "stealth-like." But, I ask the question... with an awning a/c and vent on roof, 2 windows and propane tanks haven't I overplayed my stealth hand? There are a bunch of guys online that built stealth cargo conversions with no windows (People want my head on a pike cause I only have 2 and they think I should have more), so I'm not sure I'm gonna fly under the radar even omitting the RV swirl graphics. How far you want to fly under the radar is totally up to you. I just mentioned it as a side benefit to your already mentioned desire. The further you stray from this, the faster it will be recognized for what it really is.
Though you just mentioned that as far as resale goes (I am not advocating that as a primary goal) that even though this TT may have a very limited market as a TT, that it could always be sold as a cargo trailer. This wouldn't be true if there was no cargo door. It may well be cost prohibitive to retrofit a cargo door, as some of the support structure for one may not have been installed at the factory.

3) While initially I was describing it as a "raised floor plan", it's not exactly that. There was an artist rendering error in my first set of drawings which showed it as a skyscraper on wheels.... it's since been corrected) I told the artist to "draw the vehicle so the floor plan laid out over the wheel wells creating sort of a basement".... he took that to mean add a basement area in addition to the area above the wheel wells. The trailer now comes in at around 11'-11.5' in height.... about 4" higher than my previous 31' TT.I wasn't thinking of overall height at all.
I was figuring that you were designing a flat floor from front to rear just to eliminate the wheel wells from intruding into the living quarters. Is this not the case?

If my thinking was correct, then there will be a basement of sorts. This area could be utilized many ways. Accessing it from the rear cargo doors is one way to do it.

As I mentioned before, in a typical RV build the walls are one of the last things to go up.
I toured the Sabre plant and saw this first hand. I even have pics of it. It looks really weird to see a almost compete TT with no walls. The plant manager explained that the walls would just get in the way in such small units.
Think about how restricted the access will be in your build with only a small side door.
I think that the increase in labor hours due to this will be pretty substantial.

Thank you again! Regards, -Darla

As you have garnered by now, I do a lot of modifications to my TTs just to suit myself. So far I have just modified TTs that I bought with the major features that I like, as a base from which build on.
Doing as you are proposing would be a lot of fun, though I would likely do the labor myself. Maybe some day I will have the time to do it.
myrvplans1
Explorer
May 20, 2014
tonyandkaren wrote:
Gdetrailer wrote:

The following document is my second and current rebuild, it took me 2 1/2 years to do, worked on it nearly every night and weekends.

KOMFORT REBUILD

Nice job on the trailer rebuild Gdetrailer! Your experiences with factory built trailers shows why some people such as Darla chose to build using a cargo trailer. No doubt her trailer will weigh more and be expensive but she's getting a very solid, practically leak proof base to finish out exactly as she wants it. It's not something the majority of RVs would want but from reading her blog and the posts on this thread, I'm believe that she's going to be living in the trailer fulltime for years with no intention of selling it. I certainly don't agree with all of her ideas but I'm very interested in seeing the finished product and how she likes it after a few months or years of living in it.

Obviously we all have different wants and needs-just look at how many different types of RVs are manufactured. But what Darla wants isn't being made so custom is a good way to get it. I'm not sure where all of the animosity on this thread is coming from. It doesn't make sense to me to get angry about something that doesn't affect you. :-)

Hi Tony & Karen, I got your message. Sorry I didn't write back. I've been trying to hold the fort down over here. :B I appreciate your sentiments. As for the animosity?... (haha from reading this thread you'd think I owned the LA Clipers) Here's my thoughts on that; I posted a thread trying to get some ideas, suggestions and feedback on my custom RV building plans. After receiving some initial suggestions on my design I responded in some cases explaining (or defending) why I chose to do what I did in my design. What I was hoping for is that the suggester would support that their point was valid by overcoming my design theories and objections. If someones idea can hold up after that it's most likely a good idea. And some did! In a sense what I was asking for was for them to even be more critical of my design while backing up factually their position. (That's more beneficial to me that even someone saying "Great design...Enjoy the trip." Apparently, some with vast and greater RV experience than me felt I had no basis to question their position or further mine and as a result I was described as acting in disregard of "good" advice, or that I wasn't listening or that I was trolling (whatever that is) or that I was building a fantasy vehicle. Then you know how it goes ..once a crowd forms, others join, the pushing starts, a few cars get turned over and then someone starts a fire. But, I gave as good as I got and I don't think anyone stepped over the line.

I have come away with a few really helpful tips. For instance I don't even remember who it was, but somebody asked about why I was going with an AC powered refrigerator if I intended to boondock a majority of the time. It was a real good point even though I had initially thought an inverter made such a refrigerator DC functional. My flag still stands. Best regards, -Darla