Dry Camping - Best Design

[Doug1968]

Fellows,

I would like to have my coach setup so that two people can go out for two weeks and not hook to anything.

Here are some questions I would like to get your thoughts on:

1) Propane or Webasto for heat and hot water?

2) Propane or electric for cook top?

3) Propane or electric for refrigerator?

4) If I use propane, how much will I need? If I go with propane I would use a 42,000 btu furnace.

I have a 12kw diesel generator and have not purchased or installed the electrical system as of yet. I have an 80 gal gray tank and an 80 gal black tank. Also plan on 160 gal water capacity.

I would like some thoughts from you experienced busers and especially those that dry camp frequently.

Thanks,

Doug

[lostagain]

From my experience:

Webasto. There is one on the S60 on the hockey team's bus. The cat's @$#. I would spend the extra $ if I were building a bus.

Propane for everything else. So you're not using batteries while dry camping. Unless you have lots of solar panels, or don't mind running the genset.

Your propane storage should be in portable cylinders, (20 or 30 pounders). So you can take them to get refilled with the towed, rather than having to take the bus to the gas station.

Solar panels are nice to have too. They work really well this time of year with lots of sun. They are expensive but will recharge your batteries without running the generator. Not so good in the winter parked under a tree, depending how far South you are.

I would  plumb the grey water tank to be able to overflow into the black tank, so you get full use of the combined capacity.

JC

[luvrbus]

Doug, man you know how to open a can of worms LOL you open the can so I'll help you stir it up I have had both for camping propane

1  a Primus or other propane systems Aqua Hot has propane system now for heat and hot water they will use less than a gal per day

2  propane for a cook top (I have a Gaggenau 2 burner top set aside for you)  

3  propane for the fridge don't buy a Rv type use one of the good Amish type like Miller or other brands

4 A 40 gal tank will last you a month or more

5 diesel is going to get higher in price and most Webasto or Aqua Hot will use 5 gals of fuel a day you can get that info from the AquaHot web site and then you have the generator to charge the batteries if using a electric fridge it is going to cost for fuel.Folks will tell you a diesel unit will use .5 or less per hour but when they cycle for 50% of the time in a 24 hour period do the math.


6 you need a larger gray water a 60 gal black is more than enough  


that's all folks good luck Doug we are head northwest see you soon but this should get it going lol

[Tenor]

Good info here so far!  I think you mentioned 42K btu furnace?  If you go propane for a furnace, don't go for the big ones!  They REALLY use the fuel.  Go for 2 smaller units.  They use less fuel, and you don't have to heat the whole bus just to warm part of it!  Additionally, you have a back up furnace if one goes bad!  I've got 2 19.5K suburbans and it works great.  I really wanted to be able to dry camp, so I went for flexible.  I am using an RV fridge (never had a problem) so that I can run on propane or electric.  Invest in a Xantrex 4024 inverter with the automatic generator start function.  You can run 2 roof air conditioners off of your original 225 amp alternator.  Saves running that generator while you are driving.  Do a search here for MUCH more details about that piece of equipment. 

Spray foam insulation or equivilant  is a must!

Full size awnings on each side of the bus for automatic shade is a very cheap way to cut down on the heat if you are in the open.

Great questions!

Glenn

[Eagle Andy]

Hi Doug , sounds like your getting some great advice. My Eagle was set up for dry camping by the PO . It has 135 gal fresh 135 gal gray and 140 black. 12 kw wrightco gen three solor panels on the roof and before they froze it had 8  6 volt golf cart battries. We have two 20 # propane bottles and three cat heaters one in the passinger area one in the kitchen and one in the bedroom. It works well for us however we don't do much dry camping but I can if I want . hope this helps

Good luck Andy

[BobBoyce]

As far as the fridge goes, it's not that hard to power a fridge full time with solar power. If you shop smart, a 400W solar PV array, moderate battery bank, and a decent sinewave inverter is more than enough to keep it happy 24/7. The array going on my conversion is 1640W, but I plan to run more than just a fridge.

Here is a little primer I wrote for a solar power thread on another site.

"If shopping for a fridge...

You could go and buy a solar powered SunDanzer DCR225 8 Cu.Ft. chest for $1150, and be secure in the knowledge that it has been measured to consume as little as 90 Wh/day @ 70F average ambient, on up to 393 Wh/day @ 110F average ambient. Beside the obvious placement difficulties of installing a chest fridge, then wanting to be able to use it, it might suprise you to know that those power consumption figures are not accounting for the fridge actually being opened! I'm not knocking the SunDanzer by any means, it is well designed for what it is, but it is not very practical for most RV uses.

The small tri-power or dual-power special purpose RV fridges are not so very efficient either. The mfrs spend so much effort making them small and multi-powered, that energy efficiency takes a back seat. So, what do you do? You shop smart.

Measure the space that you have, and see just how much room you can spare. Take a good look at the big box stores, like Home Depot or Lowes. Measure and compare, look at the energy star ratings. You might find that you may be able to plan for enough room to fit a 16.6 Cu.Ft. Hotpoint HTS17CBT upright top-freezer refrigerator. Sure, it's not an RV fridge, but even with the energy waste of "frost free", the average daily energy consumption is still under 900 Wh/day. I have measured (using a "kill-a-watt" meter) several typical RV fridges daily power consumption on 120VAC to be nearly double that. If you cannot fit a larger fridge, find the most efficient fridge that you can, that will fit in the space that you have.

No matter which fridge you end up with, here are some tips. Wrap the hidden portion of a fridge cabinet (excluding air vents of course) with 1/8" thick aluminum/foam/aluminum radiant barrier insulation. This can cut the average daily energy consumption by 1/3rd or more. Be sure to allow for plenty of convection airflow into the air inlet from down low, and out of the air outlet as high as you can. The better the fridge can "breathe", the more efficient it will be."

HTH

Bob

[JohnEd]

Doug,

I envy you the good advice at a time when you really need it.

Clifford beat me to the punch with the propane Aqua Hot suggestion.  There is also a Sperry propane boiler that is dirt cheap and can be found used.  It was compact and whisper quiet and efficient and the Knut from Vancouver, Canada was really pleased with it even after years of service.

Get a much smaller generator.  You have way too much and I am told that the big ones do badly in terms of efficiency.  You get more bang for your buck if you connect yours to three other buses and split the fuel cost.  Goofy idea huh?

You need to get more advice on this as my data is strictly experience.  I found that my furnace had an exhaust temp something near the surface of the sun.  Dumped a huge amt of BTU's into the outdoors.  The gas was way to hot and traveled way to fast thru the heat exchanger chamber in the furnace to give up  a large percentage of it's heat to the interior.  I cut down the gas supplied to the furnace till it operated well and exchanged the heat to the interior where it was needed.  I couldn't get different sized jets for the furnace so I just cut down the gas pressure for the coach till I had the furnace where I wanted it which was lotsa heat and an exhaust temp that wasn't scary if you happened to walk by.  Of course, the stove burners were just a fraction of what was needed.  Given that the burners adjust, I just drilled the jet out and that was that.  The water heater had scads of different jet sizes available and I quickly had that working just fine on the new pressure.  The refer seemed to do fine on the smaller flame so I left it and it worked great for ten years.  I felt that my propane consumption was miserly and I let the water heater run and I kept the interior toasty.

You need carbon monoxide sensors and alarms.  With all the propane in there that is a must.  Also, you need propane sensors. Need I mention smoke detectors.  The ones that false alarm the least are the optical sensors for the kitchen and bath.

100 gal grey tank and a way to pump it off 100 feet thru a garden hose using a macerater.  Use two waste tanks but incorporate a valve in the design that allows letting them fill together for emergency capacity bump in either.

Master electrical cutoff switch for bats and AC.  Master gas cut off.  I don't know why but the electrical gas cutoff is hard to find.

White roof and double pane windows with UV filter. Thermo controlled roof vents that close in rain....2.

OTR air and house air.  You might strip out that massive AC system that is OEM but you should replace it with an stout automotive compressor or two for a front back two zone affair.

Two 2000W inverters instead of one 40.  Split your load and allow in the design for switching the inverters from one circuit to the other.

Propane powered genney??

John

[ccbmster]

I dry camp at least 95% of the time and full time ten or eleven months of the year most years.  I am all electric (including an 8.8cf ref/freezer) with four huge solar panels and 600 amp hours of battery storage.   I end up running my 3k portable gas generator about two to three hours in the evening to top off my batteries before I go to bed at night in the middle of the winter and probably would not really have to run them that much if I weren't always leery of getting behind on charging.  In summer I often don't have to run the generator at all for days at a time if I don't want to.

Of course all of this is in sunny (mostly sunny at least) California.

In my opinion there is no one best design because climates and owners needs vary so widely but I personally would start any system with Solar and a good battery bank and then go from there.

[TomC]

One of the first things I did with my bus was to have 2.25" of insulation sprayed in.  I have a single 35,000btu propane furnace that easily keeps the bus warm in down to 27 degrees (coldest I've been in).  If you have a 12,000kw genset, then use it! I have a Norcold 6.3 cu ft all electric (12vdc/120vac compressor type) that pulls 5.5 amps (@12vdc) when running-figure 50% run time.  And a 2.1 cu ft Norcold chest refrigerator/freezer.  We used it as a freezer this time at 15 degrees and worked very well.  Also, I have two 10gal electric water heaters (no engine coolant help) with one feeding into the next with the final water heater wired through the inverter for hot water going down the road.  My stove (with oven) is propane.  The only propane I use is the furnace and the stove.  I can dry camp with running my genset 2-3 hours a day (if I don't need A/C).  In the 16 years since I've bought all my appliances, the only one I've replaced is my furnace since I left it on for two weeks and the motor burned out from continuous running.  I don't think anyone with a AquaHot or Webasto can say that with their almost monthly servicing they require.  I like this setup so much, I'm repeating it now in my truck conversion. Good Luck, TomC

[oldmansax]

Climate will make some difference in how you build you bus. Obviously, insulation works well in both cold and warm situations. but solar arrays work better in Arizona than in Maine.

Take a look at Sean's site: http://ourodyssey.us/  He probably dry camps as much as any of us & has documented  the building of his bus very nicely. I expect him to chime in here with what he would have done differently. I know he was going to change out his generator because it was too big.

Give us some idea on where you intend to be most of the time & the suggestions may be more helpful.

TOM

[kyle4501]

My opinion is the best design will start with modifying the mindset of the users. The less you need, the longer you can go with a fixed amount of supplies.
Read up on how the people who live off the power grid do things - you'll find some really good ideas there.

Something as simple as your choice of menu can have a huge impact on energy & water requirements.

If you plan your activities according to what is available - IE: read vs. watch TV, sleep at night vs. during the day, read with natural light, etc.
If you minimize water useage - then, there is less you have to carry/ allocate space for.

Propane works well for heating - just be sure to follow the manufacturers installation instructions. (Someone mentioned turning down the gas pressure & drilling out orifices - don't do this lightly, if done wrong, you could have a backfire in the burner which is never good & sometimes can cause a gas leak or uncontrolled combustion.)

LED lighting is getting cheaper every day, it is the most efficient & if you use 12v, you reduce the load on the inverter.
If you add insulation to the refrigerator, you will reduce the power required for cooling. Some have added thermal mass inside the fridge so it can maintain a safe temp for longer periods of time with the compressor off.
If you provide a way to block out the summer solar heating, you will reduce the load on your AC & if you take advantage of it in the winter, you will reduce daytime heating needs.

There is more to it than many realize, have fun & good luck

[JohnEd]

Propane works well for heating - just be sure to follow the manufacturers installation instructions. (Someone mentioned turning down the gas pressure & drilling out orifices - don't do this lightly, if done wrong, you could have a backfire in the burner which is never good & sometimes can cause a gas leak or uncontrolled combustion.)


That was Me.  I did that.  IT was MY idea.  Me....it was Me.  I signed my name to it, also.  I also followed instructions from factory auth dealer/service types. I gave you bare bones on this "item" cause I figured you would get detailed advice when the time came.  And, actually, I do think I was rather resourceful and inventive.

Furnace:  It is a 48K BTU biggie that cost a bunch to replace so I wanted to "fix" it rather than get a new one.  AND, my plan was to junk the Winnie in 92 or 3 after I finished my walkabout.  I still have that 73 Winnie and she is being brought back to life.  37 years young with dry rot all over and slightly bent but proud and unbroken.  In 90 I was told that the furnace was discontinued and not supported.  NO JET!  The fire box was eaten thru with rust and I got the last one that Hydraflame had at theplant to replace it.  The factory answered my "Oh, by the way" question thusly.  "That loud WHUMMMMP you hear when the furnace starts up is caused by over jetting/high gas pressure and is why your furnace seems to put out sooo much heat and also why your fire box burned out".  Thank you SIR!! I built a "manometer" and found that my gas pressure was actually a tad low so turning it up would only have made the problem worse.  The furnace main jet was the controlling factor  as I couldn't rejet. I have since learned that I can have the jet welded and redrilled. $$$

Stove:  The shop tech said that was what he would do when I told him of my plan.  Use a precision set of jet drills and find the actual size and ten take a step up.(?)  Tiny, baby steps, if you will.  I don't go to a wood bore.   The holes I ended up with are more than twice the size I started out with and that explained the puny flames on the stove.  I later learned I could have bought replacements for all 4 stove/oven jets.  I would still drill.

Water heater:  They made jets for the pressure I set my system up to operate on so my pressure wasn't all that far out of the ball park.

Refer: Worked for years till I ran it off level.

Don't do gas work lightly is solid advice by Kyle.  Heed it!  Talk to service reps and especially Knuts.  Kyle's instinct is more on than off, though.  I am rather Cavalier as swordsmen go.  No matter what yo do you will be condemned by a certain minority.....regardless.
 
Enjoy you journey,

John