Boondocking

Boondocking: a term used by RVers to describe RVing without being connected to water, electric, or sewer.

Essentially, we go “boondocking” every weekend we head out to the race track. Since Rachel and I bought our Motorhome last summer it has been a whole new experience to maintain and get the most out of our RV. Now that we have had a bunch more free time for the last few weeks/months, I have spent a lot of time on YouTube watching different channels with people who live in their coaches and call themselves “RVers”.

For this blog I am going to share with you some of the best tips and ideas I have found to this point!

First, and this will be the topic for one of my own videos on the BracketLife Brand YouTube channel. The Micro-Air EasyStart 364 Soft Starter for your AC. When running an AC unit there will be a spike in amperage when the AC compressor turns on to start cooling the air. This is usually what will trip the breaker on your generator in your RV. So, what I have found is the idea of using the EasyStart on your motorhome AC is it will replace the capacitor that starts your AC compressor which saves your unit from having a spike in amperage. If you did not follow that whole train of thought the final plan for this is if I put an EasyStart on each AC unit I should be able to run the front and rear AC off my 3000w generator. This may not be very exciting for you, but I am really excited to see if this works and I will have updates for everyone once I get the units mounted!

Next, I have been looking at the use of a residential fridge in your RV. I have seen this a fair amount where the fridge that comes with your RV will fail then instead of spending the large sum of money to replace it with an exact replacement people will use a residential one instead. The only real difference is that a residential unit only runs on house electricity, where an RV fridge could run on electricity from your generator, your inverter, or could run on propane as well. When going on long road trips to the track you always need to make sure you keep all your food cold in the fridge, and it is very convenient to just switch the fridge to propane or inverter power and it will stay running the whole trip with no worries about staying cold. Now for a residential fridge you will need to make sure you do not leave it very long without power or you could get into trouble. Whether this means running your generator while driving down the road or keeping everything packed in coolers. Both options have pros and cons to look at but for right now our RV fridge works for us and maybe if it decides to quit on us one day, we will need to decide which direction to go with a replacement.

Finally, the idea of solar panels to power your RV is a growing phenomenon with solar power improving over the years. For the same reasons that you would use solar energy to power your house is why you would use it to power your RV. Running a generator all week or weekend long to power things such as the lights, fridge, TV, and outlets uses up a lot of fuel and can be noisy. So, what I have been learning about solar panels is 1, their effectiveness to charge batteries or run an inverter and 2, how to best store energy from the day to use at night or when there might not be as much sunlight to produce energy.

I will have my 2 EasyStart units here in the next few days and can start on that, as for the fridge and solar panels we will see what the future holds but I hope to keep learning and trying to get the most out of my RV.

Hopefully, this sparked some ideas for you or gave a different look at what you can do in your motorhome!

See you next time, 

Brandon Barker