Rain

I actually slept in this morning, that felt good. Supposed to rain till the afternoon and then the sun is coming out. Good day to stay inside and relax, watch some tv and surf the net.

We have been in this shop for two months now and it is starting to feel like home. Customers are starting to come in and the word is getting around that we are here. The workload has been steady but slower than what we are used to. I am thinking that we are going to have a slow year, a year to just survive.

We will move the trailer to our seasonal site in Acton at the end of April, we will stay there till the end of October. We used to travel to Northern Ontario for many weekend getaways, but last year we did not and this year we may go for one week or ten days, depending if friends of ours want to go with us. I am okay with not travelling, we can go boating at Bellwood Lake which is only 20 minutes from our campsite.

Once I have the trailer at the campsite, we go on full hookups, so all this roughing it will come to a end for the summer months. I have to load water again today as the wife is doing laundry. This coming winter I will move the big water tank to inside the shop and mount a proper pump and run the water direct into the trailer.

Roughing it in the middle of the city. Were still only on a 15 amp circuit that I ran out of the shop. Which is kinda good as it is training the family to watch what they use for power.

The water delivery guy was here the other day and I asked him how much the average family uses for water. He said that when they build a new subdivision, they figure on 4 people per family and 1200 gallons per week water use. I was shocked as we get by with around 200 gallons per week. It was concern for me with property up north and a water system. Would I have to dig a well or be close to a body of water.

Alot of the properties that I looked at had power at the lot line, telephone too in alot of cases. After talking with other people, it could be quite a bit of money to bring the power into your land, one guy told me close to 100 grand. He is going with solar, you can buy alot of solar power for that kind of money. I like solar and want to get into it, but I want a hybrid system meaning for my heavy loads I would run the Honda.

As it works now, I have 4 6 volt batteries on board, they are charged by two Iota three stage converter chargers. Total power of charging is 90 amps. I can recharge my batteries in roughly 2 to 3 hours. I have a 1000 watt inverter that is wired into the bedroom receptacles where I have my bedroom tv and dvd player plugged into. Generally at night, I watch a movie or the news and shut down the Honda around 900 pm. We usually run the Honda from about 500 pm to 900 pm, this allows the wife to have full power for cooking, and we can run the living room tv too. That 4 hours gives plenty of time to recharge and float the batteries.

The batteries run the whole rig in the dead of winter no problem for a whole day. The furnace is pretty much running 65 % of the time, and we try to turn off lights when not needed. It is a very simple system and it seems to work very well. I have had more complicated systems, but in reality we did not need all the glitz. If I add solar, I don't want to mount to the roof of the rig, I really don't like the idea on holes drilled plus where ever I park I like to be out of the sun, so am thinking a portable solar array would be the ticket. I could move it as required for taking full advantage of the sun. Thought tow of mounting the panels on the truck.

The temperature extremes has taught me that in the summer, have the trailer positioned under shade, this will help keep the trailer cool and if I run the air conditioning it will not work as hard. In the winter, keep the trailer out of the wind but in the sun. Wind in the winter time, makes a huge difference in whether your comforable or not. Skirting the trailer so that wind does not blow under the trailer is critical.