We bought an old Red Dale truck camper for $350. It had been gutted. Some of the water damaged wood had been replaced. We stripped it down on the inside to the frame & aluminum siding. We're building it out to suit us. It's gonna be our off-grid travel rig. We enjoy projects like this. We also enjoy not spending a lot of money on a camper! Most of the cost will be tied up in the gear - fridge, solar, cook stove, etc. Things that can be removed from the camper. We'll be hauling this in a 2000 Ford F350. If you like videos you can see this camper project unfold on our YouTube Channel: Adventures of Sandra and Dave.
Pictures:
What it looked like when we got it.
Pictures:
What it looked like when we got it.
novaop wrote:
Painted directly over the old decal. I have no idea what the original colors of the logo were. It had faded to the point of being black and white. I think it's cool to retain this original logo on the camper.
A quick Google search shows red letters with black outlined white stripes over top.
Painted directly over the old decal. I have no idea what the original colors of the logo were. It had faded to the point of being black and white. I think it's cool to retain this original logo on the camper.
Stripes painted. Same pattern as the original paint job. Lighter/brighter blue color over a silvery white.
Good for you.
I just moved from CA where we had occasional 100's F in summer, to Vegas where we had 100's in March.
House has good insulation so couple of evaporate coolers keep us comfortable so far.
Can't think about firing up 4 ACs we do have in the house
Still I build new house in CA and paid lot of attention to insulate it well. So having 60's night in the area, I could cool down the house in the morning and when the afternoon hit 104F, the family room would stay at below 78F,
That what confirms the theory that insulation is the base and massive coolers or heaters are band-aids on poorly build living compartment.
Than in CA we had camping spots on 4-5000' elevations so with lake swimming AC was never needed. Than one morning in October we wake up to snow around.
I just moved from CA where we had occasional 100's F in summer, to Vegas where we had 100's in March.
House has good insulation so couple of evaporate coolers keep us comfortable so far.
Can't think about firing up 4 ACs we do have in the house
Still I build new house in CA and paid lot of attention to insulate it well. So having 60's night in the area, I could cool down the house in the morning and when the afternoon hit 104F, the family room would stay at below 78F,
That what confirms the theory that insulation is the base and massive coolers or heaters are band-aids on poorly build living compartment.
Than in CA we had camping spots on 4-5000' elevations so with lake swimming AC was never needed. Than one morning in October we wake up to snow around.
Looks good although I hope you will not regret putting fiberglass insulation.
1.5" of fiberglass will give you about R2, maybe 3.
Polyurethane would triple that.
1.5" of fiberglass will give you about R2, maybe 3.
Polyurethane would triple that.
We've insulated the walls....holding off on the ceiling until we get the solar panels mounted/wiring run through the roof.
We used fiberglass insulation because we HAD it. Several years ago we dismantled an old house and we salvaged a lot of materials from that. Another goal of this project is to save $ on the build where we can. "Free" insulation saved us a few hundred bucks.
We got our solar panels and components from Renogy. There are three 100 watt panels, an MPPT controller, a 1000watt pure sine wave inverter, and a 200 amp hr battery.
The camper has been wired for 12 volt - all lights are LEDs. We did wire a plug in for 110 for those times when we may have access to it. But we plan to stay mostly off-grid.
The exterior of the camper is painted a silvery white. I used acrylic house paint and rolled it on. I've already painted stripes on the camper....just don't have the pictures uploaded yet.
Notice also that the camper has new LED running lights.
In the below picture is the rack we're building for the roof. Solar panels will be mounted onto this.
