Whom Of Us Boondocks 14-days Or More At A Stretch?

[MEXICOWANDERER]

I mean on a regular basis? Vacations like...

Trying to get an idea of whom is whom...it helps.

SOLAR or GENERATOR?

[pnichols]

Mex ..... in many of your posts you seem to be too hot or too cold.

I wish you could live where we do .... between 40F and 85F is the norm 90% of the time, including in between earthquakes .... about like Hawaii. :B

[pianotuna]

Hi Mex,

Wet cold is horrible. I used to dress far more warmly in Toronto than in Regina.

[pnichols]

Update:

Naio .... here's the actual personal heater models we use at home and in our small motorhome on trips. They're no longer available new. This model only consumes 150 watts on it's HIGH setting:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Sharper-Image-Worlds-Smallest-Big-Heater-Personal-Electric-Model-VX351-/2722...

They are of excellent quality and have a safety shutoff if they tip over. Both of ours have been reliable for years. They're so small that one or two can be packed out of the way just about anywhere in any RV.

[MEXICOWANDERER]

In Tecate my NIST mercury thermometer measured 22F for four mornings with afternoon highs to a scorching max of 45F. That agreed nicely with the snow on the ground and drifts closing La Rumarosa Pass on Mex 2.

"Feeling Cold" is a relative thing. Your eyebrows are arching? Attend a San Francisco 49'ers game in December. You'll see arctic grade clothing, comforters, goggles, gloves and those hand-warmer thingees stuffed in pockets.

It was -27F on Mammoth Mountain ski area with winds reported to be in excess of 35 mph when I was begged to drive CA 203 ascend to 9,000 ft altitude and get a tour bus started. I was dressed in Eddie Bauer North Slope bib overalls and coat with Coyote fur hood, wool thermals over silk underwear, wool socks and expensive snowmobile boots and thinsulate mittens. I told the driver "Three hundred dollars or I walk" Tour bus drivers were flaky. I had to have the cash in hand or I'd never see it.

#1 kerosese heaters. Four of them. My Yamaha 5500 generator which was running since I left home. Two 60 amp battery chargers and an hour later, after squirting pure oxygen from a rosebud welding torch down the 8V-71 intake, the engine gave a backfire and started.

What's the point of this?

When I helped a friend start a tugboat moored at the 5th street quay in San Francisco, I had dressed similarly, except for googles, boots, and silk. I froze my butt off in the foggy wind. The temp was in the low forties. He did the labor. I supervised and shivered. The Transamerica De Laval camshaft had shifted halfway between forward and reverse due to lack of pneumatic air pressure. I used air from a diver's tank to whack the cam into reverse. The engine caught, the air tank filled and I drained my friend's wallet at Fisherman's Wharf.

I can guarantee that when the temperature is in the low forties here, the wind whistling at 40 mph, and the humidity is at 80% you'll wish to God you were back at 0F and bone dry humidity.

[pnichols]

Naio wrote:
I had a few days this winter when I went to bed at 4:30 because it was cold out! Read books surf the net, watch tv, make phone calls...

Naio, no need to be too cold in your camping rig!

I'm not sure if you still have the little Honda EX650 generator you once mentioned ... but if you do it'll very quietly run a couple of these personal heaters - plus charge your van battery(ies) and charge your iStuff and run your TV all at the same time from around 5:00PM to 10:00PM on about 1/2 gallon of gas. We take along a couple of earlier versions of these personal heaters with us camping just in case (we got ours at secondhand stores for $5-$7 apiece). They're also great at home to take the chill off one person at a time (note that they consume only 200 watts on their HIGH setting):

http://www.sharperimage.com/si/view/product/Smallest+Heater/200890#%22

[Naio]

I had a few days this winter when I went to bed at 4:30 because it was cold out! Read books surf the net, watch tv, make phone calls...

[Almot]

Not "buddies" but Olympians. Don't know if these cat heaters are same prone to altitude sickness as buddies, but for me it is enough that "I" don't like high altitudes.

Had to sleep a few times with no heater and with morning frost on the walls outside. Woke up one hour before the alarm clock 'cause started feeling uncomfortable. 35F rated sleeping bag. Sleeping is not a problem, you can get MINUS 30 bag if you want, and it will never "conk out". Those are usually mummy style, you can partially unzip it and open the foot box, but can't open it completely when it gets too warm. The problem is - what to do during few hours after sunset before bedtime.

[BrianinMichigan]

When it is cold outside/inside we open up our sleeping bags and use them as blankets. Nothing better than the soft feel of flannel when sleeping.

[JiminDenver]

40? It gets ALL the way down to 40? You poor things. (snicker)

At altitude it is almost always cooler at night, even mid summer. Any other time and you can expect to wake up to at least frost on the panels. I checked the forecast for the weekend and it calls for snow Friday. No big deal, set the furnace for 74F daytime and 65F at night with a very comfy down comforter.

Everyone is different and in different situations. Buddies are not a option for us as they don't like it above 7000 ft and may kill you over it. Still, seeing how others do it opens up the options for how we may do it in the future.

Mex, our camp stove puts out more heat than the trailers but nothing is faster at making 10 cups of joe than a Bunn coffee maker. 3 minutes and you are done.

[mlts22]

I understand the allure of heat pumps.

However, since an A/C unit is so necessary for life in Texas from May to December, I want to use the overhead unit as little as possible, other than exercising it a few times a month. If a Vornado fan-forced heater conks out, I'm out somewhere near a C-note. Overhead A/C unit decides to bid the world adieu, that's 10-20 times that to make the rig habitable again. Even in February, I've encountered 100+ degree weather.

[Naio]

Mex, may I suggest sierratradingpost.com? They often have Land's End (and other brands') closeouts for super-cheap. You have to pick through the overpriced stuff, but I get all my loungewear there :).

I am right now wearing high-tech long underwear (top and bottom, $5 each) and thick polarfleece pajama pants ($7) from them.

In the fuzzy slipper department, I personally love the Wesenjak (sp??) wool felt booties, but they have all sorts. I got my mom some real sheepskin ones for xmas 10 years ago and she is still wearing them.

[pnichols]

SCVJeff wrote:
but that's a moving target depending on outside tempo and what can be harvested, no?

Obviously 65 is way more efficient than 55. So where's the break-even point?

Reply to Topic | Subscribe | Print Topic | Post New Topic |

Page

Not all heat pumps are the same.

For starters what is being referred to in this thread are "air-to-air" type heat pumps. There's other type heat pumps for fixed (residential/commercial) structures that are a geo-thermal design in that their heat reservoir source is tapped via pipes buried in the ground that use a liquid for transfer of heat from the ground into a structure.

The small capacity house window/RV-roof heat pumps most folks are aware of do indeed fall off quickly in efficiency of moving heat ("pumping" it from the outside air) as outside temperatures get below around 40 degrees.

FWIW In contrast, our stick and brick home utilizes a large relatively high tech central air-to-air heat pump with such things as a multiple stage compressor and variable speed main blower. It still puts out heat from the registers with outside air temperatures down in the high 20's. Heat pumps for RVs aren't going to be of this type.

[Almot]

MEXICOWANDERER wrote:

Over here, in Baja, with a 2X4 house made out of 1/2" plywood I might as well be camping. Last year I turned four stove burners on for the night, a week of doing this cost me $76 US dollars for LPG. I was chilled in the bedroom but my eyes watered. Neat huh?

Good. At least we are not talking now about boondocking forever at 5300ft :).

The lowest temps in Baja during the coldest winter months (I'm talking North Baja, not warm Cabo) are about 40F. Normally, only few days a month and only for a few hours in the morning. When I couldn't use a heater because Olympian cat was in the middle of installation ordeal, evenings were still not too bad. Warm slippers and wool sweater in the evening work fine, then - bedtime under nice warm blankets. I'm wearing wool sweater and warm slippers in shore home in winter, no big deal. But, when making breakfast, I tried staying close to propane stove and later pretended that I was still cooking, for about an hour until the sun got higher. One burner, not 4. There is no "bedroom", floor plan is one open space, easier to warm up with a stove, though Oly cat also has to warm the whole area.

With Oly cat running - phew... My only worry now is not to make it too warm to sleep. Will check the propane numbers, but it looks like it draws less than $5 a week, during the coldest month. Though it's not running all night, and Mexican propane is cheaper.

About insulation - I am not sure that my "insulated" trailer, with 1/4" interior plywood and one inch of scattered pink wool is better than your 1/2" ply. Maybe just a little. The wool is very loose, I know this by some spots that I had to open. In some areas there is no wool at all.

[MEXICOWANDERER]

Descend to minimal Delta T and you end up competing with a candle. In the mountains, a motel owner switched out his AAA motel nearly new heat pumps and just gave them to me, free.

I took them to Henderson NV and made a neat $4,000 dollar profit, minus 660 miles of dollar ten gasoline.

Sold them out of a bed of a pickup truck. Good thing I had a signed receipt in my pocket - three Clark County Sheriff's cars rolled up certain they had cornered a stolen merchandise fence.

I kept one. The Amana was useless as ---- on a boar hog below 40F. But it sure worked well (at 6,780 ft altitude) on intense sunlight 90F days. These were 240 volt units. Yeah, I can see some uneducated schmuck using 1,900 watts to do exactly nothing.

I ended up trading the Amana in Reno for a swamp cooler that measured 4' on a side. In the Antelope Valley with summer 2% R/H, 115F air entered and 73F air exited.

Damned hard to beat a pot-bellied stove. Just ask any Bluetick.