Electricity or Gas--Whatcha Gonna Heat Your RV With?

If you're sitting in an RV park or other place where you pay for your electricity, you may wonder if it's cheaper to heat with propane or with electricity. This is far from an academic question, since the price of propane is shooting up--probably trying to keep pace with gasoline and diesel for some perverse reason.

A sharp RVer did some calculations to help you "do the math" easily. He observes that electricity produces 3,800 btus per kilowatt, and that LP produces 92,000 btus per gallon. How do you compare these energy apples and oranges? It's a ratio of 24:1. Soooo, as long as a gallon of propane costs you less than 24 times the cost of a kilowatt of electricity, all things being equal, the gas is cheaper.

In our part of the country (southern Arizona) RVers report paying about 17 cents per kilowatt of power in the typical RV park. Our favorite LP supplier is charging $2.29 per gallon of the precious fuel. 17 cents times 24 equals $4.08--LP is still the fuel of choice. Provided everything else is equal. But is it?

First, if you're heating with your factory equipped LP furnace, a great deal of heat is "going up the chimney" or rather, out the vent on the side of your rig. Let's say it was 40% of the burned energy. By my calculations, once LP reaches $2.45 it might be time to think about running an electric space heater. But for those who use a non-vented heater efficiencies are MUCH higher--see our story on these hunky-dory heaters here, you'll still find LP a great saver.

Of course, other factors come into play: If you buy your LP 'in the park' or delivered, you'll probably pay a lot more money. But if your back disagrees with the idea of lifting and tossing a big, heavy LP container, electricity may be better for heating--and less needed for the heating pad.

Photo: hokkey on flickr.com

Keeping Track of the Details: RVer's Notebook

As RVers--and particularly as fulltimers--keeping track of the details is both necessary, but time and space consuming. For years RVers have been carrying notebooks in the cab of the tow vehicle, writing down such necessary information as fuel costs, trip distances, expenses for maintenance and repairs. On the road it's nice to know how to project your living expenses, particularly when oil prices are volatile, we've all got to pinch here and there to maintain the lifestyle.

Enter "RVer's Notebook," a handy little Windows or Vista computer program that keeps track of all those little details, and adds a lot of other valuable RV features as well. Imagine weighing in your roving home and discovering you're a wee bit heavy on one side, and a little light elsewhere. Enter the wheel weights, capacities and locations of fluids, etc, and this nifty program will help you nail down how to move a few things around to keep a balanced and safe weight. It'll also suggest tire pressures based on your axle weights and the specific tires you use.

Trip logs? Campground details? Where you been? Where you wanna go? Digital photos stored and ready to use? All these and a lot of other 'RVer Stuff' can be kept at hand and orderly in one location. Lots of fulltimers talk about writing spreadsheets and complex routines for their computers, but hey, sorry, our lives are so busy now the thought of trying to sit down and just think of the fields for a spreadsheet are not on our agenda. For $40 and a 30-day money back guarantee, this may be program of choice for you.

Vacuum Cleaning the RV Doesn't Have to Suck

Vacuuming the old RV carpets can be a real drag. As fulltimers know, it's often hard to find a place to store a "full size" vacuum cleaner. So we "go small" and deal with machines that often don't have enough muscle or fall apart after a few short months.

We got a news release from interVac, a vac' manufacturing company who claims they know how to help us. Their "H" model unit can be surface mounted where you want it (with four screws or velcro) or if you have a "dead space" in a cabinet area, a cutout can be made and the whole unit flush mounted. From there, the factory provided hose is said to get you around a thousand square feet of living space--"depending on configuration" reads the fine print.

Since most of us living in less than a thousand square feet, that old hose ought to reach out and touch whatever is needed. And, sez the company, their "H" unit provides "100 feet of water lift" which in vacuumspeak means you could probably suck up the cat if you aimed the hose incorrectly. No, this is NOT a "wet n dry vac" but that "water lift" is an industry measurement of how much suck power a unit provides. The big promo is that with the actual vacuum unit left in one place, the machine will last much longer--no banging around furniture and baseboards. Easier for you, easier for the machinery.

While this is "like" a central vac idea, there's no "plumbing" involved, which is certainly a plus. How much will you spend? A whole lot less than one of those fancy yellow machines you've seen touted on the tele: The SRP for the "H" unit is a mere (?) $250. But wait! There's more! After a closer look you'll find that the $250 pays for the vac unit. You'll probably want a hose, some nozzles, maybe a few bags? Well, run that price up to $329 with the goodies. That may be an attractive price over the long haul, after all, you probably won't be replacing an upright every six months.

By the way, the interVac operates on shore power; boondockers might not appreciate having to set aside the nearly 1500 watts it requires to run on. But if you're still interested, trot on over to the interVac web site and check out the full specs and an interesting video on installing one of these units.

To Have and To Hold? Or Sell That House and Go Fulltiming

It's a question that a lot of fulltime wannabees have: Should we sell the house and go fulltiming, or fulltime and still "hold onto" the house. Well, maybe the answer lies in crunching numbers.

Rick and Orinda, who participate in the Escapees Club RV forum put together a clever spreadsheet that you can download an stick your own numbers into. By taking into account variables like the cost of insurance, maintenance, and all those other goodies that stix-n-brix owners have to deal with. But what about "appreciation"? Is there such a thing in today's bloated, foreclosure-infested real estate market? Rick's taken that into account as well.

Check out Rick and Orinda's thinking--and you can download the spreadsheet and crunch the numbers yourself. Click here.

Wannabees Wanna Know: Staying Warm In Winter

An RV forum recently had the question posed: Can you live full time in your RV on $1,000 a month? We know some that do. While that question is too multifaceted to tackle in just one little blog, we thought it might be good to talk about one aspect: Heating your rig.

Being a fulltimer allows you the freedom to 'travel with the sun.' Sure enough, you'll find lots of fulltimers heading south as winter rolls in. Mexico for some--that's a lovely place; but for those who must (or want) to stay stateside, those sunbelt states are a good place to 'hole up' when the geese start flying.

But staying warm is important. Even in Quartzsite, you can wake up with below the freezing mark temps in the deep end of winter. Happily as Sol tracks across the sky, daytime temperatures rise up. But you've seen the news lately--those nasty fuel prices aren't going to hit just our tow vehicles--you can expect the price of ALL heating fuels will increase. What's to be done?

Many RVers have found that the efficiency of their factory provided RV furnaces is far from wallet friendly. If you fire up that RV furnace and stick your hand anywhere close to the outside breather port, you'll know an awful lot of your heating budget is flying outside. That's just the nature of the beast. So consider retiring your furnace and using a localized heat source in your rig--either a catalytic or 'blue flame' style heater.

"Cat" heaters use a specially treated catalytic "bed" or mat that allows heat to be produced from propane flamelessly. They're highly efficient, and most are equipped with a sensor that shuts them off if the oxygen levels in the RV become low enough to be of safety concern. They use no electricity--a real plus for boondockers. However, most cat heaters are adjustable only to the degree of "high, medium, and low," meaning you set them and they run continuously--they can be too hot or too cold.

"Blue flame" style heaters don't have a catalytic bed, but have a burner, the flames of which can usually be seen, kind of like a mini-fireplace. Some of these have a completely adjustable thermostat that will "turn off and on" to accommodate a steady room temperature. A close cousin, "brick" heaters don't have burners, per se, but have one or more ceramic blocks with tiny orifices. Some are completely adjustable, others like cat heaters are high, medium, low guys. You pay your money and take your choice.

In any event, all these fellows are "air breathers." Always follow the safety instructions that come with the product. That usually means cracking a window to provide plenty of ventilation. And since these are not 'outside vented' they will put humidity into your RV. If you're staying in high-humidity country, you'll have to take actions to contend with this. Down in the desert areas, the added humidity to some is a side benefit.

Photo courtesy US Catalytic

No problem with voting rights for New Hampshire full-time RVers

New Hampshire residents and visitors to the state who live full time in RVs can vote there under most circumstances.

Nationally, the U.S. Census says more than 100,000 Americans live full time in RVs, and many of them are uncertain about where they can vote or have had their voting rights taken taken away. In some states, election officials have purged RV residents from their voting rolls if their only official address is a post office box.

But in New Hampshire, Deputy Secretary of State David Scanlan says that full-time RV residents who sell their New Hampshire homes and head off on the road full time can vote, as long as they haven't established a legal residence elsewhere.

RV owners who come to New Hampshire also can vote, says Scanla, as long as they establish a permanent residence by renting a space, buying a piece of land or setting up their RV on a family member's land, or doing something similar.