Camping "off the grid"

[teamnash-rv]

Being new to understanding class A MH I am curious for a MH like a Tiffin RED or Newmar Ventana LE how do batteries hold up when not connected to electrical services? Can you camp for days, a week or multiple weeks with out an electrical connections? At some point water/sewer becomes an issue but I'm curious from an electrical viewpoint.

Thanks

[dewey02]

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!

[nevadanick]

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.

[Ole_B]

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.

[jplante4]

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?

[teamnash-rv]

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

[Ole_B]

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?

[2gypsies1]

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.

[PastorCharlie]

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.

[doc_brown]

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.

[wildmanbaker]

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.

[dahkota]

We boondock and dry camp in a class A a lot. All of our favorite campgrounds are in national parks and we don't often have electric hook ups.
We have added 600W of solar and so never run out of electricity. But, with on board generators, running out of electricity is never a problem with a class A - running out of water is.
Knowing we have limited water and black/gray storage, we conserve. In warm weather, if starting with full fresh and empty black/gray, we can go 7 days on 85G. One of the benefits of many (not all) class As is they can carry a lot of fresh water.
So, if we got a tote for fresh water and another for black and gray, we could conceivably go for months at a dry camp location, even without solar. Our limit would then be our gas tank (80G) and how long and often we ran the generator.

Currently, we typically boondock/dry camp for 5-6 days, then go dump and replenish water and then find another place to camp.

[bluwtr49]

I guess we fall into the category of "not skimping" and enjoy having all the comforts of home even while boon docking. How long we stay put is dictated by water more than power.

We have a 10 KW gen set, 6 batteries, 3000 W inverter and 300 W of solar. Still, I like to start the gen set first thing in the morning for morning coffee and breakfast and than again around 5 in the evening for cocktails, dinner and watching TV. Gen set goes off around 9 pm when we settle in with books.

I don't like to run heavy loads like the microwave and coffee maker with the inverter...besides, I paid for having a good gen set to use so why not run it. I just sort of hums in the background.

[rgatijnet1]

I found that starting the chassis engine and letting it "fast idle" for a short time, using my 180 amp alternator, charged the batteries quicker than running the generator and depending on the inverter/charger to charge my house battery bank.

[RoyB]

We primarily camp off grid all the time with OFF-ROAD POPUP trailer. Even with this smaller camper one has to plan accordingly. You just can't just show up and be successful... We mostly camp within a couple hundred miles of Northern neck Virginia and occasionally make a family trip to Myrtle Beach and Gatlinburg Smoky Mtns...

We updated our batteries and other power savings things to run all the things we want to use when camping off-grid. Then we camp with the idea we will run down our battery to its 50% charge by 8Am each morning and then use our 2KW Honda generator connected to the the trailer to power up our batteries to their 90% charge state with a good three hour run on the generator... You have to be in a area where the use of the generator is allowed to do this... Some places have generator run time restrictions so that has to be planned as well... Sometimes we stay out for a couple of weeks with no problems... Finding Ice is usually our biggest problem haha

Very seldom see any Motorhome type units camping off grid here on the East side of the US. It is mostly tents, Popups,small TTs, TCs, Class Bs...

It seems there is two style of RV's... Those for RV Camping and those for RV Traveling which includes stop overs along the way...

Our OFF-ROAD camping is usually down a Forest Service road in one of the many Natl Forest areas here on the East side of the US. We love camping off-grid along the Virginia/West Virginia public access wooded state line and up and down the Blue Ridge parkway. Virginia has many public wooded lake areas to use as well... Some of our greatest camping as been in the high country in VA-NC-SC-GA-AL-TN... Some of the coastal places along the East Coast and South along the bay are good places too. Myrtle Beach has some great Beach camping places...

Out west is full of what is called DISPERSED camping areas but there isn't too many of those here on the East side of the US...

I guess if you can get the bigger Class As Motorhomes back off-road somewhere go and enjoy yourselves... No rules against it...

This is what we love to do...


Finding a secluded place along side a creek somewhere waking up each morning to good bon-fire and hot coffee watching the early fish jump is what we live for haha...

This is where all of your PLAN Bs come into play...

Roy Ken