You would not BELIEVE the ridiculous amount (and caliber) of
people that stalk me in my little Toyota motor home. I’ve had people approach me in coffee shops,
grocery stores, bathrooms (you heard it right, bathrooms), restaurants, bars, and
even park outside my rig at 1:30a.m. waiting for my return. Most of them ask “Do you have a wood stove in
there???” And I say… “Oh shit! My house is on FIRE???? HELP!!!!.......................... just kidding!!!” All jokes aside, yes, I do “have a wood stove
in there” and that tiny wood stove is the primary reason I’m surviving my first
Alaskan winter in an RV. Oh, I didn't have a chance to take any good winter pictures yet, I'll get on that!
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| Quantifying the efficiency of my Kimberly wood stove by weighing & measuring firewood. |
I’ve had a lot of requests for an update on this blog… wish
granted. Many folks have emailed and
asked if I have abandoned the motor home and fled to the warmth and creature
comforts an apartment or house… and I say to them… “Nay, here I hold my mobile
ground!” The recent temperatures in
Alaska have been unseasonably cold, hovering between -10 and 0 degrees F in the
Anchorage area over the past few months. Not only have I made it this far into
the winter and been put to the test by the extremely cold temperatures, I have
actually enjoyed myself, and have become addicted to the un-conventionalism
that has become a way life! To tell the
truth, I can’t see myself renting or purchasing a house anytime soon. The way of life on the road is just too much
fun and has led me to unique opportunities, people, and experiences, that I otherwise
never would have known if I lived in conventional housing.
So… how can I sum up my experience of living full-time,
completely off-grid in an RV the past 9 months, through the 1st half
of the Alaskan winter??? MOST EXCELLENT!
Sure, it’s cold as hell when I wake up in the morning (if I don’t keep
my tiny wood stove stoked with firewood all night). Yes, I have to thaw out the ice on the INSIDE
of the windows every morning. No, I no
longer have running water because I have no reasonable means of keeping my
pipes thawed out. And sometimes I get
scared in bed and hit my head on the roof at 3:30a.m. when a shotgun randomly
goes off inside my camper… except it’s not a shotgun, it’s an exploding can of
soda because it’s SO cold that pressurized cans explode.
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| Tobias the wolf dog joining his human counterparts on a backcountry ski session in Turnagain Pass, AK. |
Here’s a quick list
of my recent (significant) challenges:
1) No running water?
“How does he wash himself and not smell like a dead skunk?”
Solution: Purchase a membership to a local gym. I simply take showers at the gym every day
and fill my 4 gallon drinking/cooking/dish water jug there once a week. Yes, I only use 4 gallons of water a
week. Embarrassing? No way… I feel good
about it. People don’t realize the
resources they waste when they take those resources for granted every day.
2)
What
about a bathroom?
Solution: After my RV’s blackwater tank (toilet wastewater
holding tank) froze solid with a 15 gallon poop-sickle (despite heat tape &
a heat pad, -50F antifreeze, and rock salt in the tank), I removed the RV
toilet and purchased and installed a miniature flushing porta-potty (Camco 5.3
gallon from Sportsmans Warehouse) in the RV toilets place. It holds 5 gallons of waste, the tank won’t
freeze because it’s completely inside the RV and I flush with RV antifreeze,
and the porta-potty can be dumped very easily.
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| My new & improved winter throne. |
3)
How
do you stay warm?
Solution: My Kimberly wood stove! With these cold
temperatures, I would quite literally be dead (or preserved if you believe in
cryogenic freezing), however this little wood stove provides all of my
life-giving heat. Sure, I have to keep
the tiny firebox stoked with miniature pieces of firewood every 3 hours, but it
burns a relatively miniscule amount of wood, it eliminates the condensation
from cooking and breathing, and it provides a cozy 80 degree temperature difference
(it was -10 F outside and 70 F inside one night). I do have a propane furnace, but propane
produces too much condensation inside the camper and it is expensive, whereas I split and
collected my firewood for free. Not to
mention, since I am completely off-grid with no electrical plug-in, the
propane furnace would drain my 12 volt battery within 8 hours of use. My Kimberly wood stove will run non-stop,
24-7, as long as I clean out the ash from the firewood every 14 hours.
4) How do you keep your batteries charged?
Solution: I simply use my RV as my daily driver… driving to
and from school, work, running errands, weekend adventures with friends, and
looking for a “parking spot” for the night.
This daily driving habit charges my battery by utilizing the Toyota engine's
alternator (it typically takes about 30 minutes to 1 hour of driving to fully
charge my battery). I also have two
30-watt solar panels (for a total of 60 watts) that provide a good bit of
charge to my batteries on days that I don’t drive. For instance, my 19” flat screen TV consumes
35 watts and my LED light bulbs consume 4 watts, so I can basically watch a movie and
run all of my lights strictly from the power provided from the sun. Pretty cool.
I will soon have a thermo-electric generator that uses the heat from the
wood stove to create an additional 50 watts of electricity.
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| How hot does the Kimberly stove get on "full throttle?" How about this hot... |
Advice for the
curious or those wanting to live off-grid in an RV throughout a cold winter…
1) Get
a Kimberly wood stove! Check out the link at the top of my webpage for more
information!
2) Buy
imitation (or real if you can afford it) sheepskin blankets to use instead of
sheets. These fur blankets do not get
cold like cotton sheets and make your bed much more inviting;^)
3) Get
a small 12 volt fan to recirculate the warm air from the ceiling down to the
floor of your RV… if not, your floor area will cooler by 20 degrees F or more than your ceiling area. I placed my 12
volt fan directly above my wood stove and blow the hot air directly back
towards the floor to circulate heat.
4) Drain
your water and live in a “dry home” to avoid major tank freezing, pipe-bursting
problems… Get a gym membership to take
showers and fill your drinking water jugs there. Get a flushable porta-potty to use as a
bathroom (because you DON’T want to go outside or try to find a bathroom at
3:00a.m. when it’s -10 F outside), and you sure as hell don’t want a 15 gallon
frozen block of piss & poo stuck inside your blackwater tank.
5) Purchase
solar panels to help recharge your batteries! Despite the lack of daylight
hours in the winter, my solar panels significantly contribute to keeping my
batteries charged every day.
6) Replace
all of your lights and appliances with extremely efficient, low-draw products!
Replace your incandescent light bulbs with 4 watt LED light bulbs and use a fan
to recirculate air that has a low amp draw (hopefully 4.0 amps per hour or
less). For instance, most deep cycle RV
batteries have about 80 amp hours, so if you have a fan that draws 4.0 amps per
hour, you have about 12 hours of battery time before you’ll need to recharge
(because you don’t want your battery to get much below 50% depleted to lengthen
battery life).
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Besides the RV life, what have I been up to? Maybe you don’t care, but I’ll speak a bit
for those who do care or might be bored at this moment… I've been talking with an executive film producer from National Geographic and I’ll be applying to be
on a new and upcoming reality TV show where 10 contestants are placed in the
Alaska bush and have to survive with absolutely nothing for several weeks… it’s
due to be filmed this coming spring… keeping my fingers crossed! I’ll be heading to New Zealand to go
whitewater kayaking in a few months with three good Alaskan kayaking buddies, so
that will be a horribly good time.
In attempt to serenade people with my tone-deaf voice, a
motion has been made to start up a band (of an un-defined genre of music) with
a mutual banjo-playin’ & singin' companion, this should be SO good! My master’s thesis work (where I’m creating a
river and lake water isoscape for Southcentral Alaska) is rolling along fairly
well, and I expect to graduate this coming April. Lots of skiing and speed flying (with new
videos) are soon to come… and maybe, just maybe, some sleep would be nice! Someone once said “There’s no one but
yourself to blame,” and this quote holds true for how busy I feel right now,
but busy ain’t bad when you're enjoyin' yo self!!! Rock
on and happy holidays to all you folks…
Timmy
Timmy
