Camping "off the grid"

jplante4 wrote:

GordonThree wrote:
There's three channels I watch on youtube with young couples boondocking in Class A's. The biggest concern they seem to have is burning propane too quickly, followed by water. The one group gave their borrowed RV back to the manufacturer and bought a boat, the other group keeps talking about trading down to a 5th wheel, and the last couple is selling their A and bought a tiny Airstream.

Wait. You're saying that Gone With the Wynn's borrowed that rig?

Never been a fan of the Wynn's.
Don't like their presentation or their approach to things. They seem too polished, too Hollywood (I think they are actually Texans), too smiley, and too phony to me but that's just my opinion. They have had 5 vehicles over a span of 7 years.
A 2009 Avanti from 2009-2011
A 2011 Monaco Vesta from 2011-2013,
A Fleetwood Excursion from 2013-2014 (for all of 5 months)
A Fleetwood Bounder from 2015 -2016
A Sailboat from May 2016 onward.

More power to them, I say. If they can swing these deals, get companies to donate RVs and materials to them at low or no cost, and get money for people watching their videos, good for them. But I don't find their information or their presentation to be of much real or entertainment value to me.

From what I've read, it appears they had some sort of deal with Fleetwood to get use of an RV, although they had to make some lease payments (likely minimal) Here's a quote from their blog: Disclaimer: We are not being paid to drive this test RV, nor is it given to us, we pay to lease the Bounder the same as we did for Roy. We are thankful to Fleetwood for helping to support our Resurrecting Dinosaurs series, it’s a passion project for us that we hope can benefit the entire RV industry. Transparency is always important to us, and as usual our thoughts are our own and can never be purchased!

I cut generator use to 1-2 hours a day with 640 watts of solar. More solar would have eliminated it. Love the res fridge.

What I ordered was 12 cu ft gas electric refrigerator, hot air furnace - not hydro, gas stove, MCD window shades-love them, large mirrors- a must for all of us, and an energy management system. I did not want an electric refrigerator which causes one to run down the extra batteries quite often, and that is when the generator must run.

GordonThree wrote:
There's three channels I watch on youtube with young couples boondocking in Class A's. The biggest concern they seem to have is burning propane too quickly, followed by water. The one group gave their borrowed RV back to the manufacturer and bought a boat, the other group keeps talking about trading down to a 5th wheel, and the last couple is selling their A and bought a tiny Airstream.

Wait. You're saying that Gone With the Wynn's borrowed that rig?

Ole B wrote:
I have a Ventana 2016. I would suggest ordering it with all propane and electric for what you want to do, that is what I did,otherwise you must run the generator 1 or two times a day because of the refrigerator, which runs on 120 volts. The Ventana LE can be ordered the way you want it. Another point to consider is how many times can you run batteries down before they will need replacing?

So I'd be curious what you ordered (refrigerator, propane / electric options) to enable lower energy use to help with being "off the grid"?

Thanks

I have a Ventana 2016. I would suggest ordering it with all propane and electric for what you want to do, that is what I did,otherwise you must run the generator 1 or two times a day because of the refrigerator, which runs on 120 volts. The Ventana LE can be ordered the way you want it. Another point to consider is how many times can you run batteries down before they will need replacing?

Our experience was similar to 'PastorCharlie'. We had 300w of solar and we conserved water so we could last 2 weeks out in the boonies. We never had to run the generator except if cloudy or rainy for 2-3 days at a time - which was rare because we were mostly in the sunny west. By the time 2 weeks were up we were ready to move anyway.

A stovetop coffee perculator makes awesome coffee; butter your bread and plop it in a fry pan and it's delicious toast. Our heat was a propane catalytic heater - much more efficient than a furnace. We don't watch television.

Before solar we could last 3-4 days before having to run the generator.

Wife and I often camp off grid in our Class A Newmar that is equipped with solar, inverter and 4 battery bank. Seldom run the generator except when the sun don't shine enough.

Solar/Inverter used for cooking, coffee, TV, lights, water pump, electronics, etc..

Generator used for heat pumps and A/C.

Propane used for furnace, frig and hot water and usually last a couple months.

Tanks usually need to be dumped and refilled around 2 weeks.

I boondock in my class A for 7 days at a time. I have led lights, led tv's, residential fridge, 6 house batteries, 400 watt of solar and auto gen start with a 2000 watt inverter. I fill up my 110 gallon fuel tank as close as possible to my camping site. My limitation is water.

If you have an 8 Cubic Foot ref., or smaller, and limit your use of non LED lighting, and exhaust fans, and a good voltage meter connected to the house batteries, you can go at least 3 complete days without having the 2 battery system drop below 12.3 volts. Using solar will help, but, in the summer, we try to find shade to park in, and pretty much limits the solar output. We normally carry a 2000 watt gen. to use as it will run for 8 plus hours on a tank of fuel, and is quiet. It will run everything but the AC, or hair drier. It will even run the Micro after about 30 minutes of charging the batteries. We changed our 8 cf refer, to a sidewise 14 cf, that self defrosts every night. We changed to the bigger one for more food capacity for dispersed camping, for longer times. The only problem is the big refer is a 12 volt energy hog, and after 2 days usually need to recharge. Boondocking is the bomb and is worth all the work, for the enjoyment.