Joyce went to Lo and Linley’s last night. While I’m very happy she found a home, I found myself more sad than I expected. I don’t have to worry about her being out in the cold, unless she wants to be as they have a doggo door.
Bottlecap has a new, more slim automatic litterbox coming for the RV and I believe I’ll use the crystals instead of the dusty litter to keep dust down. There is some cat proofing I need to do as delicate RV materials are not a match for sharp kitty claws. We were in an RV together before, I hope she adjusts well again.
I had a better day yesterday, even if only running on ~5 hours of sleep. I’m currently up now due to having heartburn and being cold due to accidentally managing to turn the heater off in my sleep; must have rolled over on the remote. Thankfully it’s around 50F outside at the moment, so not awfully chilly.
It’s supposed to get down in the 20’s tomorrow/tomorrow night after being 60 and very windy today, hello early Winter in the Midwest.
I’ve decided to remove the stock propane stove in the RV and go with something much better, an induction cooktop plus a 10-1 convection oven/air dryer.
New 2x 15A outlet installed
I found a Ninja XL unit that’ll fit the space just about perfectly and ends up being a larger oven than the stock RV oven, which is embarrassing for the shitty propane RV oven. I agonized over the Cyber Monday $199 unit or the $349 unit with automatic cooking in temperature probe mode, I decided to use $55 in Best Buy certificates and get the more expensive one, feeling a bit more protected with the “Total Tech” bullshit two year warranty with accidental damage protection that was included with my BB membership (yes, I eventually caved in).
Ha, the RV is rocking a bit due to the wind at the moment.
I bought some wood and other materials to fill the hole in the countertop so it’s flat. I’m going to 3D print some legs for the oven so it sits higher in the cavity so baking sheets, pans, whatever can nest under the unit. I even bought a square dowel to follow the contours of the countertop so it looks nice, some stain, urethane water based sealant.
The propane line is capped off! That’s two less propane appliances in here and only two remaining, which I’ll keep for backup; the water heater, which can run off of electricity and I have set to dump excess solar panel power to, and the propane heater who’s job has been taken over by the heat pump and diesel heater.
Propane is expensive and has always been a pain in the ass to get filled as it’s not like you can swap out the tanks in this unit as it has a permanent tank installed. You can go through a whole $30-40 fill in a weekend running the propane furnace and then you have to find a place that can fill the tank. Diesel is expensive, but easy to refill and $40 will last you more like a week or two, depending on outside temps with a diesel heater.
I am so very happy that the heat pump kicks so much ass, though! When temps are mild outside, like 40-50F it’ll draw around 500W to maintain temps in here. At around 19F outside, it’ll run at around 1.000-1,200W. When in cooling mode it’s more efficient and will draw around 500-700W even when 80-90F outside.
The duct mod I did is SO FUCKING AWESOME. I pretty much nailed it with how much airflow gets directed to the front of the RV and the bedroom on the first try. I can even just close the curtain in the bedroom and just use the unit to heat the bedroom if it gets really cold or hot outside; that’ll come in a lot of use in the summer when running off of solar only to conserve energy.
My little cardboard duct will end up being more permanent for now until I can get around to 3D printing something nicer. I’m leaving myself plenty to do for sitting in an RV at my mom’s, in the country this winter. I have both some shows to watch and some little projects to do.
More wind gusts gently rocking the RV, there were tornadoes in The South yesterday which is nuts for December. I think it’s the only real downside to the RV and being mobile, having to do more work to ensure you are safe in case of bad weather, have a plan in case the sirens go off as you don’t wanna be caught in an RV.
I do feel well prepared in most other situations, though. I have 4 heat sources in the RV, of which use 4 different fuel sources (propane, diesel, gasoline, and solar/electric). The solar is backed up by a generator and when we travel, the Jeep will be towed behind us, not only giving us a pretty extreme off road vehicle, but another engine/heat source.
For air conditioning, I have 3 sources, 4 with the Jeep, which can run off of solar/electric and gasoline generator. I can also start the RV or Jeep and use the aircon provided by the vehicles.
All of these are independent sources, normally we’d be plugged in somewhere but in case of grid failure, such as what happened in Texas awhile back, we’d be sitting pretty for a few weeks and practically indefinitely with good sunlight.
The only real blockers, same as in a submarine, is water and food. We have water bottles that afford us to drink out of streams and the like; the big ass water filter for the RV can also be used to fill the tanks in the RV from a clear running water source or rainwater. I do keep some freeze dried food onboard, some Huel, and our normal foodstuffs.
It’s more likely that security would be a bigger concern in case of societal collapse, people seeing the big solar panels on the roof and the aircon running. It’s also not very defensible in case of zombie apocalypse.
But practically speaking, it does allow us to be flexible as we don’t have to rely on only camping where there are hookups which opens a whole ton of options for us. State parks, people’s driveways, campgrounds that allow dry camping. The RV and what it has become is very cool.
I suddenly got tired so I’ll go back to sleep, goodnight!
Ross Fisher 