My wife and I are completing our first month full timing. I tried to prep for everything. But the thing I wasn't prepped for was how many people would consider it their duty to keep me from full timing. The person that sold me the trailer didn't try to stop me. He just made sure I had the most expensive trailer because none of the other trailers would work for full timing.
But, then, I found that the banks didn't want to lend me the money if I was going to stay in it full time. Next, the insurance companies didn't want to insure the RV if I was going to stay in it full time. I finally realized I wasn't really staying in it full time. Why just this last weekend I stayed in my sister's farm house while I visited.
The campgrounds didn't want me to stay in it full time either. They advertise that they are open year round, but they cut of their utilities for 4 months in the winter. Fine, I said, I will haul water and get by without utilities for 4 months. That is when they said, they will not allow me to stay in the camper, while the utilities are off, on the site that is rented for a year. So, I had to park it in a Mobile Home Court.
The mobile home courts didn't want me to live in my RV either. But I finally found one that would allow it. However, they won't allow me to stay in a travel trailer unless I have hard skirting like a mobile home. That is because of the same reason that the campgrounds don't stay open in the winter no matter what they advertise. Without the skirting, the water pipes freeze. I realize everyone will jump in with methods to keep them from freezing such as a dog house and heated hose. I am sure all of those methods work if done properly, but every campground I talked to that ever tried it found that the people didn't do it right and their pipes froze costing them a lot of money. Therefore, they won't allow you to try it.
So back to the mobile home court. You shouldn't use one of those flexible hoses all winter long because they become brittle in the winter weather and tend to break and leak. I am a fat man so it wasn't pleasant crawling around under the trailer gluing PVC pipe fittings, measuring pitch, and making turns to make sure the pipe was just the right length to slide over the sewer connection. Did, I mention that the reason the skirting prevents the sewer and water pipes from freezing is they are under the trailer instead of beside it? Also, a bit of advice, don't leave your cell phone in your pocket while crawling under the trailer if you are a fat man. It turns out you don't actually have to drop a cell phone to break the screen.
So, how do you heat the trailer during the winter? Easy, you use the propane heater. I prepped for that. I had an extend-a-stay valve put on my propane system so I could use an external tank. I even made sure the mobile home court was ok with propane tanks and that there was a provider that would deliver there. All of my neighbors have propane because it is cheaper than electric to heat. It turns out that none of the propane dealers in this area will deliver to a propane tank that is attached to an RV. It seems some genus somewhere used water lines to connect to propane tanks and blew their RV to pieces. So, the companies will only connect to tanks that are hard piped to fixed structures.
Again, I thought I had prepped. I read every estimate I could find as to how much propane an RV would use over a year for heat and cooking. I came away with a very rough ball park of 300 gallons. If the propane company delivers 300 gallons to a tank attached to your mobile home, that costs over $300. If you take your 30# tanks in to be filled every week, the same amount of propane costs $1200 in this area. No problem, just get a bigger tank and take it in to be filled. Did you know that a full 100# tank of propane actually weighs 170#. That is about as large of a tank as I could handle and that is still only 25 gallons of gas. Three hundred gallons is a monthly trip with that tank. By the way, there are a lot of rules about transporting propane tanks. No one pays any attention to them, but the dealers here do. Again some genus found out the hard way that you shouldn't carry a propane tank laying down in the bed of a pickup.which is why many local propane dealers won't fill a tanks over 30#.
Hauling propane is a lot like trying to get into heaven by works. You have to do it perfectly or you wind up burning. However, it isn't easy to haul propane tanks in an upright position. You need to make sure they are properly secured. It turns out that while 100# tanks are easy enough to buy, they don't come with brackets for attaching them to your truck. The internet is full of places where you can read about and see pictures of brackets people have welded for themselves, but if you don't happen to be a welder, you won't find any brackets that you can just buy and attach to your pickup.
About this time, I abandoned the 100# tank idea and avoided the future hernia operation by deciding to have my stock propane furnace converted to a gas/electric furnace. That way, with the assist of a battery for the ignition, I can use propane in case of a power outage, but otherwise use the more expensive electric heat. I am sure you know that while my neighbors call a heating person to come out and work on their mobile home heaters when they go out, that same person won't work on my RV heater. I have to take the RV to the shop to have the gas/electric furnace put in (I am sure many of you do it yourselfers don't have that problem, but "some assembly required" is not in my vocabulary).
Did I mention that in order to live in a mobile home court, I have to hard pipe my sewer under my trailer and then put up skirting? It isn't the temporary skirting that I have seen pictures of and read about on the web. It has to be nice permanent skirting. Fortunately, I haven't gotten that far on setting my RV yet, because I would have to take it apart now before I crawl back under the RV to disconnect the sewer so I can haul the RV back to the dealer to have a gas/electric furnace put in. However, it does make me think about what I am going to have to do if the furnace gives out some cold winter.
