When boondocking, you need to be able to generate your own electricity, fill up the freshwater tanks from time to time, and dump your greywater and blackwater. For the uninitiated (and I was just a few weeks ago), greywater is the water from your galley sink and shower, and blackwater is the waste from your toilet (a mix of #1, #2, water used to flush, and toilet paper). The other main power source in a campber van or RV is propane used for the stove and water heater, as well as perhaps a heater to keep warm in the cold weather.
Let's tackle these one by one. There are three main ways to generate electricity. The first is by using the alternator in the engine to charge the house battery. This is OK if you're driving a lot, but not so good if you're boondocking. Not sure that I'd want to put all those extra hours on my engine by running it for hours while parked. The second is by using a gas-powered generator. The Roadtrek I'm planning on buying comes with an on-board generator. I believe many RV's do (still new at this.) Downsides to using a generator are the noise and the expense. I understand that this can be quite an expensive way to make electricity. The third, and to me the most attractive, is using solar panels mounted on the roof to charge the house batteries. The main downside is the inital expense to buy and install the system. After that though, it's completely quiet and free. Don't think about operating an a/c unit from a solar system though, unless you have 500 watts or more of panels with a small a/c unit , and even then, you'll have to limit your hours of operation. If, like me, you have or are planning to get a conversion van or camper van, you won't have room for much more than 200 watts of panels, so running an a/c is out of the question unless you're hooked up to shore power. When boondocking, if you shun the a/c, and stay away from other high-consumption devices like desktop computers (laptops are OK) and power tools, you should be be able to find a way to make 200 watts of panels work. Bear in mind that this is all theory for me at this point - I'll report back on this when I'm in the field and living the dream!
Getting freshwater is up to your own ingenuity - perhaps you can find an errant faucet somewhere? For some reason, I remember the location of a faucet outside a business on Sunset Blvd in Hollywood. I used to see homeless folk using it to drink and bathe early in the morning. If I were boondocking in Hollywood, I'd sidle up to this faucet early in the day to fill up the freshwater tank. Perhaps you can fill up plastic jugs from restaurant bathrooms, ask friends in the area - use your ingenuity!
Dumping greywater is a topic that opinions differ on. Some feel that it's OK to dump it on the ground if you're in a sparsely populated area and it will soak into the ground. Others think that even greywater can harbor dangerous bacteria, germs etc and should be disposed of in a dump tank. I'll give you my opinion once I've been on the road for a while, but I don't think this is going to be a significant problem for me.
This leaves us with the issue of dumping the blackwater. Obviously, you can't just go pumping this stuff out wherever you want. Many RV'ers use dump stations, which occasionally are free, or may be included as a service when using a campground. There is often a fee for dumping your blackwater though. If you're on a short trip, you can pump it out into your own toilet when you get home, or if still on the road, talk a gas station attendant into letting you do the same with their public restroom (perhaps). This isn't always too convenient if you're boondocking though. To my mind, getting rid of my poo and pee is the main issue that stands in the way of happy boondocking.
Which brings me to composting toilets. I'd previously thought of these as being somewhat undesirable. I figured they were probably a bit on the smelly side and just didn't like the idea of my poop hanging around in the area for a long time. The reading I've been doing over the last few days informs me that much of the smell of sewage comes from the urine. Nature's Head make a composting toilet designed for boats and RV's that separates the urine from the solids and stores it in a separate container that can be easily dumped into a regular toilet when necessary. This is brilliant for two reasons. Firstly, most other composting toilets don't separate urine from solids, and consume much more electricity, as they make use of a permanently-on heater for evaporating the urine. The heater in one such unit is 120 watts, which is a significant amount to come from a battery continuously. Secondly, the urine makes up much of the volume and weight in your blackwater tank. By separating this into a detachable container, you can easily dump it when necessary. The tray that holds the mixture of peat moss and decomposing poop doesn't need to be dumped very often. In fact, the longer you leave it, the more the poop composts and becomes less noxious. When you do dump the tray, it isn't even necessary to clean it out, as anything left over will only aid in the decomposition process. I'll leave you to read all about it on their website.
I'm sure that to begin with, I'll most likely be using the regular toilet and blackwater tank in my rig, but I'll be doing a lot of research into composting toilets with a view to installing one. It's a shame that companies like Roadtrek and Pleasure-Way don't put these kinds of toilets in their conversion vans.
No comments:
Post a Comment