Dry Camping in a GMC Motorhome
Some days are good, some days are better. Today seems to be one of the good days here. The blogger will not load my photos as I want them. Oh well, on with the story.I want to give you some ideas today. We have spent some time getting our motorhome to be as self sufficient as possible. I mean, what is a motorhome? It is a home away from home. Often times we find ourselves in places where there are no "hookups". No electric, no water, and no sewer. This is not a problem for us and we have spent over a month straight with no hookups.
All motorhomes come with a generator. We keep our's in tip top shape but rarely use the thing. It takes fuel to run it. A small 1 kw portable will do everything we need so we carry one with us. Do we use it? Rarely. The picture should show one of the 4 solar panels on our roof. They are placed so as to have no shadows on them during the day. I orient the coach for maximum sunlight on our roof. We do not tilt the panels so I have 4 instead of 3. Our's total 300 watts.One must have a good meter. I had a photo of our Trimetric 2020 meter here but it seems to have departed. I am telling you, this is going to be a good day.
Anyway, picture in your mind a good meter that not only shows voltage, mine is at 14.7 now as sun is bright, but also amperage going into and out of your house batteries. It must work like your fuel gauge on a vehicle, showing how much fuel is in your batteries at any given time. The meter will show charging and discharging. Between this metter and our 4 6 volt deep cycles is a good charge controller. This is like a battery charger you plug in at home to charge up your car battery, but better. It is a 3 stage Trace that has adjustable set points. This is important. Don't buy a cheap charge controller. 150 bucks or less will get you a good one. Of course we have heavy 6 gauge cable connecting all of this together. Now you have a simple idea of how we get our batteries charged.
Somehwere in this blog is a picture of 2 red 
6 gallon gasoline jugs. Also there is a 3/4 inch hose lying beside the coach. Guess what this is? Well, one must take on water and get rid of water. To take on water we use collapsable 5 gallon plastic jugs. They can be bought at Walmart now for 6 dollars. Obviously the red jugs are not for taking on water. They are where I put the sewage that comes from the 3/4 in. hose that is hooked to a maserator. The maserator makes everything in the waste tank liquid so it can be pumped through this hose. It is then disposed of in a variety of ways. One of which is it can be poured into a normal household toilet.
6 gallon gasoline jugs. Also there is a 3/4 inch hose lying beside the coach. Guess what this is? Well, one must take on water and get rid of water. To take on water we use collapsable 5 gallon plastic jugs. They can be bought at Walmart now for 6 dollars. Obviously the red jugs are not for taking on water. They are where I put the sewage that comes from the 3/4 in. hose that is hooked to a maserator. The maserator makes everything in the waste tank liquid so it can be pumped through this hose. It is then disposed of in a variety of ways. One of which is it can be poured into a normal household toilet.
We need hotwater. Here is how I solved that problem. This is an on demand hot water heater. It takes just a bit of lp to run this thing. Great thing to have.
A picture of our refrigerator has now disappeared. It is a 3 way meaning it will run on 110, 12, and lp. The thing will run forever on lp. It takes very little to keep our food cold.
Check out this tv. I had one almost identical but it was taking 57 watts to run the thing, almost 4 amps dc. Things have improved. I took the Kill A Wall meter, below, to the store and started checking the consupmtion on tvs. This one drew 25 watts, about 1.8 amps, half what the old one did.
Below, or above, it is a red box with the ac cord in it, is our 12 volt power converter. It is a 2,000 watt and runs everything. We use the vacuum and hairdryer. It will also run our microwave. Get a good one and keep it close to the batteries. Now I see my picture of the Kill A Watt meter is gone. We have a thieving picture snatcher in the house.
Our most recent addition has been the high quality lighting from the American made leds. You can look around by clicking the Predentrver link at the top of this page. These things are great and give great light. It is soft white and looks about like a soft white fluorescent light. I bought some 1156 fixtures and placed them around the coach.
This might give you some idea of the light.
Here is where I have added the fluorescent leds. These things are great and a one time buy. I got sick of buying those tubes. This light was drawing 2.2 amps with the old tubes. This light now draws .4 of an amp. The other fixtures about.1 or less. An old 1156 will draw around 2 amps. Now, you can see what a savings on our batteries. We will need much less charging with the new tv and the led lighting. These leds have built in regulators giving them a lifetime warranty. They will operate, full brightness, from 9 volts to over 30 volts and not blow out. My old cold blue chinese lights were blowing every time I started the coach when a light was on. Also the voltage over 12.5 from the solar would pop one. These will last and give great light. We will only have led lighting in our coach from now on. Got to love American made stuff.
The air condioning, well, that's a no no. If we need i,t it is time to move. Sometimes we do use it going down the road by firing up the big Onan generator.
Last but not least, a big bowl of m&m candy. The thief took mine right off this page. I told you today is a good day. Before it is over, it will become a better day, because I am going to find that bowl of m&m candy. Hope everyone is having a great week. Should you have any questions, just email me. I like things uncomplicated and simple. Anyone can outfit their rv the same way we have.
Dan
posted by Dan & Teri Gregg @ 11:41 AM
3 Comments:
Very informative!
There's no link at the top of the page (I'm using a tablet) so I tried Googling "Predentrver". Would you believe this is the only page on the entire web with that word on it? But Google suggested Prudent RVer instead, and it was right.
Maybe you could add the web address to your "about us" paragraph on the blog, and/or to the signature you use on your emails to GMCNet.
I am looking forward to trying some of these LEDs in my newly-purchased GMC.
Steve, Somehow the link has been removed. I will try to get it back. Email me if interested in leds for your coach.
gregg_dan at hotmail.com
Dan
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