Category: tiny house

Power Hungry?

On By JohnIn tiny houseLeave a comment

Our Open Range has a residential refrigerator.

This is good–we’d planned on being on grid or having our generator available to keep things running for those times we weren’t in transit.

Ice maker, water dispenser, family-sized capacity… All reasons we decided on it rather than a unit with the less power hungry propane Dometic fridge.

Except the last few weeks of off-grid, extended transit periods have had a huge draw on the single G27 battery dedicated to the refrigerator’s inverter. It’s just not taking a full charge anymore.

And the single house battery (also a G27) also seems to have trouble taking a full charge now.

Yes, there’s a generator, but it’s big, not a built-in, doesn’t have a transfer switch, and it’s rather loud and inefficient. Its inconvenience has discouraged us from using it more often to keep things running optimally.

We’ll be looking in the coming weeks at upgrading our battery capacity and also look at some more convenient backup power solutions.

18 Meters and 10 Tons

On By JohnIn tiny house, travel, vehiclesLeave a comment

We don’t like overnighting in parking lots. But, when there are lots of miles to go and limited days to be someplace, our long travel days sometimes end at a Walmart, Cracker Barrel, or a Home Depot.

Tonight, it’s the Home Depot in Davenport, Iowa.

We’ll get Ohio on another trip, but we’ll pick up Minnesota on the drive to Sioux Falls tomorrow.

In other news, today was the first day pulling the new mega-bunkhouse. (Doing the final checks, in the rain, above)

It’s big.

Really big. (Side by side with the Jayco)

We’re nearly 60ft long now, and, at the moment, 20,000 lbs. – probably a touch over. We’ll be about 1,500 lb. heavier when we empty our storage unit.

The 2002 SRW/2WD Duramax does pull it, and at a reasonable speed, too. Though mileage would improve slightly if we set the cruise a bit slower.

Deer Creek Valley RV Park

On By JohnIn tiny house, travelLeave a comment

…and the adventure continues…

Tonight’s splurge: a full hookup site while in transit out to Indiana at Deer Creek Valley RV Park in Topeka, KS. After five days’ boondocking in the wee trailer, we’re all looking forward to nice, hot showers followed by some cool A/C.

We were looking for a full hookup last night before we left Denver, but found they were all booked–on a Monday night!

Then we started looking for any RV site with a dump station–also entirely full.

Finally settled for the last-ditch option in transit: a Walmart. We also had the pleasure of enjoying the sound of two large semi trucks all night long. Fortunately, the kids slept blissfully through it.

But tonight: all of the modern conveniences.