Archive for Tips & Ideas
September 25, 2007 at 11:09 am · Filed under Tips & Ideas
We don’t often voluntarily camp in freezing weather, but it’s more because of me than the Airstream. My interest in ice extends to skating, and cubes in my lemonade. Growing up in Vermont, I feel I have experienced enough cold weather to suit me for life. I can see the romantic and novelty factor of frost on the windows once or twice a year. After that, it’s time to move on.
However, if the weather does drop below freezing, the Airstream is not intimidated. I get a lot of queries from people about how we “deal with freezing,” or asking how cold a night we can survive. Really, it’s a non-issue for most Airstreams, because the trailers are reasonably well-insulated against a cold night. There are a few inches of pink fiberglass insulation in the belly pan (under the floor) and the walls and ceiling contain about two inches of insulation as well. All of the essential ductwork and plumbing runs in the insulated space, and of course we have a furnace, which sends some of the heated air to the holding tanks to keep them from freezing.
Last night it was close to freezing here in Cody. We usually set the nighttime temperature at 62, and at that setting the furnace ran several times during the night. Perfectly comfortable. Even at temperatures down into the teens, we won’t have any trouble staying warm inside the Airstream and nothing in the trailer will freeze. Our only precaution would be to disconnect the outside water line, so it doesn’t freeze solid.
A windy night makes it much harder to keep the trailer warm. RV’s are not air-tight, and between air leaks and cooling from the aluminum skin, it’s much harder to keep warm on a windy 30-degree night than on a still 20-degree night.
The real challenge occurs when we are camped without an electrical connection, because the furnace is a big hog of 12v electric power. This is going to be an issue in Yellowstone, since only one campground in all of Yellowstone offers RV hookups and we’re not going to that one.
The furnace chews up about 7 DC amps when it runs, mostly to power a blower. Our battery bank is about 300 DC amp-hours, but we regard only half of that as “useful” power since we are trying to be gentle on the batteries (for long life). In a very cold night, the furnace can cycle on and off every few minutes, consuming 25-40 DC amp-hours by breakfast. Add to that our normal daily power usage and we might drain our batteries by 80-100 amp-hours per day. That means, without careful conservation, we can use up our useful battery capacity in two days.
Keep in mind also that we have four batteries, whereas most newer trailers have two (smaller trailers have just one). Others in this situation will wake up to find their batteries completely flat. They’ll also find they need to replace their batteries every year or two.
Of course, our two solar panels help us out. This time of year, with full sun, we can probably generate 40-50 DC amp-hours per day, which makes up half of our projected use. This means we can boondock in Yellowstone for four nights without draining the batteries below the safe threshold.
However, I’ve booked five nights in Yellowstone, and it will be freezing every night. That means we’ll have to conserve power. We do that by using light and laptops minimally, and setting the thermostat lower than usual at night. I think we’ll be able to keep our daily power budget under 60 amps per day. That’s going to be important, because if we blow the budget we’ll be reduced to borrowing the Gildart’s generator to make it through the last couple of cold nights. That would probably appear in Bert’s blog, and I can’t have that!
Speaking of which, there will probably be no blog entries from Wednesday night through Monday night, unless we happen to get lucky and park near someone who has a satellite Internet dish. The only place I can get online in Yellowstone is at Old Faithful, and I doubt I will be toting my laptop there. I’ll write daily entries while we are in the park and post them all when we exit the park in Montana on Monday night.
May 12, 2006 at 11:12 pm · Filed under Tips & Ideas
It has been a long day at Roger Williams Airstream but a rewarding one. I am more impressed than ever with these guys. David and Denver work hard and do great stuff.
Yesterday afternoon they weren’t able to install a solar panel, but the hard work on the Vista View window was done and it was a real pleasure to wake up to all the cheery morning light coming in through it. Because we need to get going on Saturday, I asked them to get on the solar panel install rather than doing the second Vista View.
In case you are wondering how it works, having guys tear up our home while we are living in it, I’ll explain the process. Eleanor and I have been getting up around 7 a.m. this week, and getting ourselves ready for the day. When we’ve finished with showers and dressing, we open the door and let Denver know we are ready to go. They hitch the trailer to their forklift and slowly tow it into the shop. Emma sleeps right through this process and wakes up later to the sound of air tools.
Today the guys got right on the solar panel job, but it took a long time. David likes to fabricate a mounting for each panel that will survive the hurricane-force winds it will encounter during towing. The aluminum mounting frames he made are riveted and screwed, as well as thoroughly caulked. These mountings get the solar panels off the roof for better cooling, which improves their efficiency.
One of the reasons it took all day was that there was a snafu involving the solar pre-wiring installed by Airstream. The wires weren’t where we expected them to be (in the refrigerator cabinet). David, Denver, and Bob were tearing out their hair trying to deduce where those wires were, when Eleanor suddenly volunteered that she’d seen them buried in a lower cabinet during one of her periodic searches for more storage space. That saved the day, because we were about to concede defeat and start running new wires, which would have made it impossible to complete the job today.
In the midst of installation
So the solar system is now operational. It was 7:30 by the time we wheeled the trailer back out into the parking lot, too late for good testing, but the system seems to be working. Even with the sun nearly set, it generated 0.4 amps.
For the record, we installed two Evergreen Solar 115 watt panels, each measuring about 63″ long. The rear one had to be installed sideways, which looks a bit odd, but it will work just the same. With the Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) Blue Sky controller we installed previously, we are hoping for up to 20 amps of power in ideal conditions. This ties into the four Optima batteries and the Tri-Metric. The next step is to take it out west and test it in a National Park!
Rich C got a bit of service today too. His rear window was leaking, and in between tasks on our solar panels David got over there to replace the seal. Rich also got a power hitch jack and some accessories. He’s a happy camper now. We just have to throw a gadget his way every once in a while.
If you’re wondering what Emma does while all this is going on, here’s an example.
So we’ve completed almost everything we came for. The second Vista View will have to wait until we come back again, but otherwise we have completed quite a list: disc brakes, two windows, two solar panels. David will come back to the shop tomorrow to tie up a few loose ends and then we plan to head off to west Texas. We’re going to meet Rich C at Caprock Canyon State Park. There won’t be any Internet service there — probably no phone either — so I may have to catch up on the blog from the highway later.
May 11, 2006 at 3:58 pm · Filed under Tips & Ideas
We broke for lunch and a break for everyone, after the new window was installed. Emma, Eleanor, David, and I all piled into Rich C’s trailer and had a lively discussion about pretty much everything. Then Eleanor, Emma, and Rich played Uno while I caught up on some email.
If yesterday’s window installation wasn’t enough to curdle my blood, you should have seen me watching the process of installing the Vista View windows. Denver and David believe in “measure twice, cut once” but still it was disconcerting to see Denver finally take an air-powered tool to the pristine skin of our Airstream and slice it open.
In fact, you can see some of my reaction on Rich C’s video blog. Click on the “VIDEO MOV” link on Rich’s post if you have broadband. Denver pulled away a piece of the aluminum and found he’d sliced right through the TV antenna cable. Rich caught the whole thing on video. Oh well, the antenna cable is fixable.
Right now they are just about done cutting. The first Vista View should be going in shortly. Meanwhile, David is working on the mounts for the solar panels. Hopefully one of them will go up on the roof before the end of the working day.
Blog reader Mark W asked for a photo of our flagpole holder. It’s made of 4″ PVC Schedule 40 pipe with female screw-threaded couplings and screw-in caps on each end. It is big enough to hold all three of the 1.5″ diameter collapsable flagpoles we carry.
We used plastic “plumbers tape” (vinyl strapping) double-riveted to the frame, to mount it. Since it could wiggle a bit even with the strapping tight, I also bonded it to the belly pan with Sikaflex caulk. Now it does not move at all. If you do this, be sure to clean the belly pan beforehand.
In the photo you can see a hole drilled in the cap. The threads on these plastic caps tend to stick in place, so the hole is there to allow me to insert a tool (the same one I use for the Rotochoks) and get leverage to remove the caps.
This is an easy do-it-yourself project if you have the rivet tools, drill, jack, and materials. My total cost was about $35 for materials (pipe, pipe cement & primer, rivets, misc).
May 11, 2006 at 11:47 am · Filed under Tips & Ideas
Literally. The guys spent all day yesterday working out the details of how to install the new “International-style” window over our dinette table. As you may know, late-model Airstream Safaris come with Hehr windows that are, shall we say, lacking when it comes to ventilation. We have long planned to replace one or more of them with the far-superior windows that come on Airstream International and Classic models.
To do this particular window, we had to remove the double overhead locker above the dinette, which necessitated disconnecting my Internet In Motion box, so I’ve been borrowing Rich C’s Internet connection ever since.
Then we ran into a snag. Even though the new window is almost exactly the same size as the one it replaced, the corner radiuses are different. This required some careful work to put extra aluminum in behind the existing exterior sheet, in such a way that it would be hidden by the caulk when finished. David and Denver figured it out and their solution is guaranteed watertight.
The new window is frankly AWESOME. It is huge, opens completely, and looks great. Compare it to the weeny vent window to the left that it replaced.
I didn’t post to the blog last night because I left my computer in Rich’s trailer, and then we went out to have dinner with Paul and Annie Mayeux at their house. Emma adores their two daughters, having met them at the HOTC campout in Cleburne State Park last February. So while Eleanor and I toured their fascinating self-built home, Emma wore herself out keeping up with a 9 and 12-year-old. By the time we got back to the Airstream, it was 10:30 and Rich had gone to bed.
This morning David and Denver have finalized the window installation and put our overhead bin back together. I was underneath the trailer half the morning mounting up a flagpole carrier made from some PVC pipe — this will hold the three flagpoles Fred Ettline gave me back in Charleston, instead of having them ride on the bed.
Denver is already working on our first Vista View and I expect to post again tonight with pictures of that. We are going to stay through Saturday morning so there’s time to get the solar panels on, too, and hopefully Rich can get some work done on his rig as well before the weekend. Then, we’ll head west and try out all the new goodies.
May 9, 2006 at 7:48 pm · Filed under Tips & Ideas
HOT hot hot …. over 100 degrees today as Denver valiantly completed the disc brake installation. Eleanor and Emma went off to do laundry and ended up in a non-air conditioned laundromat, which was certainly a mistake. But we had no idea it was going to get this hot.
Even though the trailer was plugged in and the air was running, the best we could do was keep the interior in the low 80s because people were coming in and out all day. I was rushing in to check email and then rushing out to discuss Airstream stuff with Rich C, David Tidmore, Denver, and Paul Mayeux, so it was a sweaty day.
The Kodiak disc brakes were on both sides of the trailer at the end of the day yesterday, so today’s task was to install the Actibrake hydraulic actuator, the hydraulic lines, and the electrical connections. We decided to put the Actibrake in my bedroom closet. It was mounted up on the wall in a dead space. This keeps it clean and out of the weather, although the device is totally weatherproof so it doesn’t matter much.
The Actibrake is the thing that actually puts pressure in the hydraulic lines to activate the disc brakes. It connects to the brake wire from the tow vehicle just like the old drum brakes did. So we can keep the Prodigy brake controller we have always used. Even though the Prodigy instructions say it is not designed for hydraulic disc systems, the Actibrake people have designed it to work with the Prodigy and a number of other brake controllers.
Just when Denver was wrapping up the installation, Tootie showed up from Centramatic. Centramatic makes a very cool product. They are aluminum discs that balance the wheel/tire/brake assembly of your trailer. See, you can balance the wheels but it doesn’t do much good if the brake hub is out of balance. The Centramatic fixes that. You just drop it behind the wheel, and it automatically balances the assembly constantly as it is in motion. So, you never need to balance your wheels again!
You can see the Centramatic on the left wheel above. It’s the big aluminum disc that is blocking the view of our new brakes. A bunch of fine beads in a special lubricant spin around from centrifugal force and automatically compensate for unbalanced wheels. It’s so simple. What a great idea.
So now our disc brake installation is done and we’re looking forward to tomorrow’s upgrades. We’ll adjust and test the disc brakes on Thursday or Friday. I can’t wait to see how they perform.
Tomorrow, the plan is to start on the solar panels and windows. Tonight, I’ll be firing up the grill again for another dinner in the back lot of Roger Williams Airstream. (What strange places we find ourselves living!)
May 8, 2006 at 9:05 pm · Filed under Tips & Ideas
Finally, we’re at Roger Williams Airstream in Weatherford, TX, getting our long-awaited upgrades. We pulled in around 11 this morning and it wasn’t long before work began.
Pulling off the old drum brakes and replacing them went pretty quickly. We found the cause of some issues we’ve been having lately, too. Twice in the past week our brake controller intermittently indicated a short in the wiring. It also has been pushing the Armada to the one side when we brake hard, which is an unsafe condition. If we hadn’t already been heading to the nearest Airstream dealer for a brake job, I would have immediately begun doing so.
Sure enough, the front left brake wiring had come loose inside the drum and got pinched. A spot of bare wire was visible, which caused the intermittent short. It also may have caused that brake to work intermittently.
With the new Kodiak disc brakes, wiring failures will be a thing of the past. It’s a hydraulic system, like your car. Our friend Paul Mayeux came by today to visit and told us that since he upgraded to discs on his Caravel, he can’t imagine having anything else.
I’ll have more pics of the installation tomorrow.
Rich Charpentier also caught up with us today. If you follow his blog, you know he’s been driving down from Massachusetts to meet us here in Texas. He’s in an Airstream Safari 25. We’ll be caravanning together, off and on, for the next couple of months. We’re all looking forward to heading into the desert as a caravan in a week or so.
Tonight we are both parked behind the dealership. Eleanor bought a disposable barbecue grill and we cooked up some steaks, and now she, Emma, and Rich are playing Uno in Rich’s trailer. I have a feeling everyone is going to get along just fine….
May 5, 2006 at 1:22 pm · Filed under Tips & Ideas
Courtesy parking is great, and we love to do it. It saves money, it’s usually fun, and we often get a local tour guide in the package. But if you plan to courtesy park your RV, keep in mind a few things we’ve learned over the past couple of years.
First off, unless your host has a similar RV to yours (particularly in terms of length), they will probably underestimate the amount of space you need to park. Several times when planning to courtesy park at homes of people who don’t own an RV themselves, we’ve heard “Oh, no problem, we have plenty of space for you.” Then we get there and find (a) low overhanging trees that would rip off the roof air conditioner; (b) an impossible turn in the driveway flanked by brick pillars; (c) no turn-around, so we’d have to back in for a long distance; (d) a wildly unlevel spot — or, (e) all of the above!
It’s hard for non-RV’ers to appreciate that a 30-foot trailer and tow vehicle amounts to a train nearly fifty feet long, and turning such a beast requires a LOT of space. You can’t expect them to be able to visualize what you need, so the burden is on you to ask specific questions — and be ready to go to Plan B if you get there and find an unsurmountable obstacle.
We’ve had people break out the pruning shears to trim back a bush so we could get in. In California we had to have three people to keep the Airstream from falling into a ditch while simultaneously passing under a massive branch with about 1 inch to spare. In Massachusetts we had to dodge old stone walls. In Connecticut, we had to borrow boards and blocks to lift the tongue four feet just to get close to level. In Michigan we had to back up 200 feet of S-turning driveway, in the dark!
My rule now is simple: if it doesn’t look good, don’t try to get in. After all, nobody’s guaranteeing you’ll be able to get back out again without damage.
Another thing your hosts may not understand is the need for hookups, if you are staying more than one night. We often courtesy park for several nights, which means we prefer to plug in to electricity and connect to the water, too. Murphy’s Law says that most of the time, the garden hose bibb will be on the other side of the house. Your host may not mention that until you arrive. Since it’s not a good idea to get your drinking water through their standard green garden hose, you’ve either got to have a lot of spare white hose with you, or do without a water connection. Best to arrive with a full fresh water tank, just in case.
Electric is easier, since everyone has a garage outlet or an exterior power outlet. Then you just need 50-100 feet of ordinary electric cord. We don’t bother with a 30-amp extension cord, since hardly anyone has a 30-amp outlet available.
You’re really lucky if your courtesy parking host has a place for you to dispose of graywater. More often, your gray capacity will be the limiting factor to your visit. If our host offers a way to get rid of it, that’s great, but we don’t like to put them on the spot by asking. The last thing we want to do is have a neighbor complain after we’re gone, and ruin the courtesy parking opportunity for everyone.
Speaking of neighbors, one of the first things we ask people who don’t own an RV is whether they have zoning or neighborhood deed restrictions that prohibit or restrict RV storage. This is for our protection as well as theirs. Nobody wants to get a call from an authority saying, “You’ve got to move that thing or be fined.”
Good courtesy parking etiquette means that the host is not obligated to provide anything other than a parking space. We don’t expect hookups, but we appreciate them when available. Most people will offer right away. Some will even offer dinner, and want to have us visit for a while. This is what we like, but we always stress that our hosts are under no obligation at all. They shouldn’t feel like they have houseguests to entertain, feed, or keep company. We don’t ask to use the shower, borrow the telephone, or get a ride into town.
On the other hand, when a host offers a nice bonus, like high speed Internet access, we usually accept. If they have wireless Internet in their house, you can often pick up the signal outside without coming in to bother them. I now carry a Linksys WRE54G “wireless extender” that I can plug in outside to repeat the wifi signal — which means I can pick it up easily from inside the aluminum skin of the trailer.
The last tip is to bring little gifts with you. We travel with tiny boxes of chocolates, “nips” of maple syrup, special Vermont cookies, Airstream Life magazines, Macadamia nuts, coffee, and other things to give our hosts. Hosts don’t usually expect anything except your company, so they are always pleased to get a little symbol of appreciation. If we stay for a long time, we usually take our host out to dinner, too. The money saved by not getting a campground at $20-30 per night can make for a very nice meal at a local restaurant.
Finally, when you are looking for courtesy parking, the easiest thing to do is just ask people you meet. Many people will say they don’t have space, but once in a while you’ll score a nice spot to stay and end up seeing things you would never have seen otherwise.
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