wincrasher65 wrote:
Davydd wrote:
My wife and I just spent 66 days on the road in overnight temperatures down to 5 degrees F in our new Advanced RV. We traveled a total of 11,000 miles from coast to coast. We plugged into shore power a total of 7 times and that was before we realized why bother. We've pretty much proved we have a totally self-sustaining Class B. Average water replenishment (40 gal.) and dumping (26 grey/18 black) could easily stretch to 10 days. Comfort was always utmost in my mind and we have pretty good front and back zoning with our articulated beds in back and rotating seats with a computer desk up front. 24" TV can be watched from either zone, however, we rarely watch TV when on the road. Our B is total electric and diesel fired for heat and hot water. No propane and no Onan generator. The compressor refrigerator runs 12v DC only.
We camped in dispersed desert BLM lands, remote national forests, backyards, driveways, parallel parked on residential streets, casino parking lots including the Las Vegas Strip, overflow state parks (parking lots), Camping World, Walmarts, Cracker Barrels, company parking lots, downtown parking garage, and maybe some I've forgotten. Our camping cost would have been practically nil if we hadn't opted for location in San Diego, Savannah, Charleston, Phoenix and Sedona. What it was coming down to toward the end was I was beginning to resent having to pay $40+ for campgrounds and the amenities I didn't need especially private campgrounds. Even the public campgrounds are going up in price. I have to admit I was not fond of eating a Cracker Barrel meal out of courtesy after about the third time. The last time in Henderson, NC we didn't. Timing and opportunity made us miss out on trying a Cabelas. We chickened out of parking in the Stovall, NC police station town hall parking lot because we couldn't find anybody around for a blessing to do so. Never got any 3 AM knocks on the door. We haven't tried a truck stop or rest stop yet.
So it sounds like, after all the discussion of power requirements, batteries, solar, engine generators, etc, that the feature that makes this van work well is the diesel heating system. Any idea of what your consumption was to heat the coach?
Also, if you are boondocking so much of the time, where are you most often filling water and dumping tanks?
The diesel heating was minor and as Avanti mentioned it was quiet when it was on and was very efficient. In those 66 days we rarely ran our heater. Maybe a dozen times and mostly in the morning after waking up. Maybe three times we left the heater on all night set at 54 degrees. Our first night in a boondocking situation in the Advanced RV parking lot the outside temperature got down to 5 degrees. That is a temperature few Class Bs are capable of surviving in with water in the tanks and without hookups. For heating the Espar takes maybe a cup of diesel per hour.
As for filling water and dumping, we were getting nearly 10 days on the average. There were many places where we were in full hookup campgrounds such as San Diego, Phoenix, Sedona, Tucson, Savannah, Charleston, etc. mostly for location convenience and/or the only campgrounds available. We also stayed in some state parks in the overflow lots without hookups but access to water and dump stations. All in all, it is easy to find water and dump stations. We never even had to resort to truck stops and rest stops that had them. When you can go more than a week it is easy to anticipate and plan your stop. We do make liberal use of public facilities for restrooms and showers when we can to conserve our tanks. 40 years of tent camping honed that skill and habit. :)
We actually hooked up electrical a total of 7 times and quit bothering after February 23 even when we had access at a campsite. It took a month before we realized there was really no reason to hookup. Then it just became a matter of principle not to.
As I mentioned, we don't have propane nor an Onan generator. We do have the second alternator that is capable of putting out well over 200 amps per hour charging. We never used autostart or or idled our engine to charge batteries other than doing a little bit to test the systems to see how it worked. One hour of driving usually recharged our batteries to 100% after an overnight using all our electrical systems with no worry about conservation. Bake bread or a pizza? No problem. We had full electrical use of our B 24/7 with both 120v AC and 12v. That meant the electrical outlets, microwave/convection oven, electrical induction cooktop, and Keurig coffee maker were always available and were used liberally.
In effect, we have a Class B capable of parking anywhere to camp in temperatures down to 5 degrees (proven) without winterizing, never needing an electrical hookup and needing a source of water replenishment and dumping of tanks conservatively about once per week.
What makes the van work well is the sophisticated 800ah lithium ion battery bank coupled with the second alternator and large, efficient inverter that can quietly power all the 120v systems. Surprisingly, solar was pretty much a non-factor. I pretty much pre-determined in my analysis solar was going to be frosting on a cake.
