Full Time Living in an RV
My work as a contract designer could take me where ever I wished to go and the local job market for my services was drying up rapidly. It was October so I decided we should head South for the winter. This was the beginning of living out of our motorhome for 11 months of the year for the next 12 years. I would take the month of December off each year and we would drive home from where ever we happened to be. We would not bring the motorhome with us, just my wife and I and what ever dog we had at the time.
We had Christmas dinner at our house since about the second year we were married and wanted to continue the tradition.
My wife had worked for the same lawyer for over 26 years and he was not a happy camper (no pun intended) when she gave her notice. I don’t think he really thought she was leaving because he never looked for a replacement before we left. Each December for a few years he would hear she was in town and call her to come in when she could.
Our first road job was located in Huntsville, AL. I worked at General Electric and my wife stayed around the motorhome and met the neighbors. We stayed in a campground that was part of the Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville. It was just a short walk to the Center from the motorhome and we bought a yearly pass so we could just wander over and walk through any time we felt like it. Some of their exhibits changed frequently so it was always interesting. When the SR-80 spy plane was retired from active duty, I watched them assemble one that was donated to the Center. They have a space shuttle mounted on the large fuel tank with the booster rockets and and an Atlas rocket standing on end on the grounds outside of the Center building. At night they are lit up and you can see them as you approach the campground area. An impressive sight.
In June 1991 they closed the GE plant in Huntsville, AL and moved it to their facilities located in Daytona Beach, FL. We had never been to FL so we packed up the motorhome and went with them. We stayed in a campground just on the edge of Daytona Beach and right across the street from the large Flea Market located there. The GE plant was located across the street from the Daytona Race track. My wife was getting bored just hanging around the motorhome so she started looking for some kind of work to get her out of the motorhome for awhile. Unfortunately, I needed the only vehicle we had to drive to work and there was no one in easy walking distance hiring any help. She spent a lot of time at the Flea Market.
While living in a motorhome there in is a minimum of house cleaning to do but you do have to take care of the laundry. We saved our quarters and we had a 2 wheeled basket that my wife would use to go to the laundromat in the campground. Later she found she preferred going on weekends to a commercial laundromat because they had better machines and more of them.
Taking care of the motorhome holding tanks was my chore. There are two different holding tanks on a motorhome. Gray water, which is the water from the sinks and shower. That tank you leave open if you are connected full time to a septic system. The water runs into the septic tank as you use it. The other holding tank is the black water tank. This is where your toilet empties into the septic system. This tank you always leave closed until it fills up or fills enough that you want to empty it. It has to remain closed so the liquids stay in the tanks with the solids and can flush everything into the septic tank when you open the valve to empty it.
This is not as distasteful as it sounds. Just be sure your sewer line is connected properly and nothing will spill out. You use a deodorizer and waste digester in the black water tank to dissolve the paper and solids between emptying times. If everything is in proper working order there is no odor. You can also put just a deodorizer in the gray tanks if you want to assure there is no odor coming up the sink drains. I never had a problem as they have a trap the same as a household sink.
These systems work the same in a pull behind camping trailer or a motorhome. The rest of the equipment, stove, sinks, furnace, etc. are also the same in either type of camper.
A word of caution about motorhome refrigerators. They have improved over the years but I would still park your motorhome as level as possible before turning on the refrigerator. They work on a heat source, either electric or gas flame heating a liquid that is turned into a gas and works to cool down the refrigerator. If the refrigerator is not level the liquid runs to the side and can’t be heated enough to turn to a gas. It will crystallize and your refrigerator will no longer cool. This cannot be reversed. New refrigerator time. I had to replace one in 1993 or 1994 and it cost $1150 way back then for a regular size refrigerator.
Some refrigerators operate on 110vac, 12vdc and propane gas. I would avoid using the propane gas unless the motorhome is parked. If you have the propane gas lit and pull up to the pumps at a gas station you could be in big trouble. I always found that I could leave the refrigerator off when traveling during the day and not turn it on until I was parked for the night and it always stayed cool enough.
We lived in this motorhome while working on jobs in MA, NY, AL, FL and TX.
In 2000 we traded the Winnebago Brave in on a new 30 foot Holiday Rambler motorhome. This motorhome had a generator which we never had before. The only time we used it was if we had other people with us and we wanted to run the rooftop air conditioner or when we parked it along the way for a short while and wanted to keep the motorhome cool for our dog.
We didn’t get the expanded room or tip-out with our motorhome because we thought it would just be one more thing to go wrong. If I did it over again I would get the tip-out just for the resale value of the motorhome.
As I said in an earlier article I would highly recommend this lifestyle for anyone who’s work takes them out of town for long periods of time.
