Some of you may recall that I drained our batteries by keeping the dc refer cooling. I'm trying again to do the boondocking thing and ask "any ideas on how long I need to run the genset each day to keep the batteries charged to run the refer" Remember to keep it simple or your great advice will go right over my head. Thanks for any help. joe

I know nothing about your Barth so I am going to offer some wild gueses and uninformed speculation. Caveats asside I hope this gives you a place to start.

To actually work this one out we need to know how many amps the refrigerator pulls and how much your genset puts out in 12 volts.

Now let's say we don't want to do the math and we are going to do this by the seat of our pants.

1) If the batteries are charged directly by the generator then based on the set ups I've seen the generator puts out minimal amps for a direct 12 v charge and you will have to run the generator 12 or more hours a day. You might as well keep the refrigerator on 110 and just turn the generator off at night when you sleep.

1.1) If the generator powers a battery charger that puts out 20 amps (and this is a fair sized charger) then you will have to run the generator 6 to 8 hours a day. If the charger puts out less then you run the generator more. As a point of reference the alternator on the engine puts out 60 amps or more.

2) You could run the engine and charge the house batteries directly from the engine (this means no fancy share the charge boxes between the starting and house battery) you will have to run the engine about 1 to 4 hours a day. If you don't have a battery switch installed to direct the output of the alternator you can more than likely forget this approach.

Sorry about the news but that is the way it is.

Now you can:

1) Buy a propane refrigerator.

2) Install solar cells.

3) If the wind blows there are wind generators but they make noise and hence I don't like them.

Choice 1 and 2 are at least in my book costly but very nice. There are junk yards for motor homes, maybe you can find a propane refer there.

I like solar cells we can run a 12v light all night, use an inverter and run 110v florescent lights as well and run the refrigerator and on the boat, to do this we have two nice solar cells and they will keep up with things. With the charger and all this set up set us back about $600.00. WE RUN THE REFER OFF THE INVERTER AT 110V, THIS USES LESS POWER THAN RUNNIG THE 12V SYSTEM BESIDES IT GETS AND STAYS COLDER.

NOW THIS IS SEAT OF THE PANTS AND MY EXPERIENCE. DON'T GO OUT AND SPEND MONEY BEFORE YOU WORK OUT THE POWER USAGE. IN SHORT THIS IS NOT A "IT WILL WORK FOR SURE STATEMENT". It is a "well on set ups I have this is working", your mileage will be different. We have a small well insulated refrigerator on a boat and open it four or five times a day and close it up real fast, besides it opens on the top and as you know the cold just flows out of a front opening refrigerator.

I have used the propane refrigerators and had good results as long as the coach is level.

3) If you are only going to be gone a few days at a time and you only do this once in a while you can buy dry ice and after getting the refrigerator and everything inside down to a nice cold level use the dry ice to keep things cold. The bad news is the insulation on your refrigerator is more than likely not too good so the dry ice will only last a couple of days.

Don't run the power with the dry ice in the refrigerator the temperature sensor will think it is cold already, the results in a freezer are melted ice cream.

4) Buy one or two well insulated coolers. Get the food frozen use one cooler as a freezer. With the frozen stuff in the freezer cooler, use a block of ice and the dry ice inside; don't let the ice and the dry ice touch each other you now have a freezer. A good ice chest can stay frozen for a week if you are VERY CAREFUL about when and how often you open it. A space blanket over the food helps, fill in the open space with wads of newspaper.
3.1.1) Move the frozen stuff to your refrigerator or another cooler once a day that you are keeping cold with a block of ice as you need the stuff.

Hope this give you a base line to measure from.

Timothy

Now for some boat advice. I have sailed for months at a time with no refrigeration, it can be done and is not too bad. The observations in my posting above are based on a week at at time trip where we make no changes from our home living but this is not the only way.

A good spice rack helps canned stuff to no end. Everything cooks better if you add wine and or garlic. Hey it is just you out in the boonies garlic is good.

Wine can replace beer.
Milk comes in cans.

The camping stores sell various excellent coffee makers that work on the stove; ask for a backpacking espresso maker.


1) Butter will keep a room temperature for a week or more. After that there is canned butter.
2) Mayonnaise in a squeeze bottle does not have to be refrigerated, pure mayonnaise will not spoil it is when you put the knife with food on it back in the jar that you end up with a petrei dish.
3) Eggs will last two weeks or more at room tempature. Turn the egg carton over once a day, no you do not have to turn the eggs over one at a time. Some Vaseline on the outside of the eggs will make them last longer, like two months. OK after a month or so they are not fresh but it is not rotten egg time.
4) Olive oil, ketchup, mustard and the like in squeeze bottles with last for months. Honey is not just for adult fun it is great for cooking too.
5) For beer and other items that you may wish to chill a cooler with a block of ice is better than one with cubes. Use a separate cooler, taking things from room temperature down to cool eats ice. Good beer can be consumed warm, try that stuff the Belgian monks make it is sold in a bottle with a champagne cork in it. As said above there is wine and you do not have to chill good wine.
6) Spam is eatable if you put enough hot mustard on it. Or you can fry it in onions and olive oil, garlic too.
7) Go to a fancy store and get good smoked sausage it will keep for a month or more and is very tasty. Beef jerky and an orange make a nice lunch.
8) Top Romin noodles with some canned shrimp added is good. My prison experienced biker buddies tell me Top Romin and canned tuna can at times be as good as it gets. It is nice but I hope I am never able to confirm their observations.
9) Eat the frozen stuff on day two and until it is gone, move the frozen stuff to the refrigerator once at day and use the frozen stuff to keep the refrigerator down to temperature.
10) Once the frozen stuff is gone and the refrigerator is empty canned stuff is not too bad for a week or so.
11) Cabbage and onions last a long time, get a gear hammock or a hanging wire basket and put them in that. Oranges and some small mellons too.
12) You can freeze bread.
13) I can bake bread and you can too, it is very good right out of the oven.
14) Canned peaches make a nice desert.
15) You can put a canned pear into a glass with some Jägermeister this in small amounts makes a good desert too.
16) Oil lamps will provide acceptable light.
17) An Aladdin brand mantel oil lamp will heat the motor home and give out as much light as a 100 watt bulb. You can buy them on ebay for fifty bucks check out the caboose models. Warning, if it is close to the roof put in a heat shield.
18) At one time nuked meat was available in shrink-wrap, this stuff is great; very tasty and lasts for years. I am not sure if they sell it anymore even though it was not radioactive a vocal uneducated (this means they took a course of study other than the one offered in the college of engineering) political slice of our society put the slammer on this stuff in California.
19) It is my view that Ditty more stew is not eatable. Now this may be because that opening a can on the boat is guaranteed to make me sea sick and head for the rail. When a can is opened my mind tells it is made in fraternities by placing cans on the floor during drinking bouts and the cans are filled by a process we used to call blowing chunks.
20) Whole cooked chicken in a can is not only not eatable the experience of watching the wasted bones following out the detached particles or meat found in the rest of the can will kill any appetite.

Head off to the local gourmet shop to buy meat in a can. Try something different, snails in a can makes a nice dinner; just use the French name when you serve them and be sure to use lots of garlic; see span above for additional tips.

If you have a place called Trader Joes go there they have almost gourmet stuff in cans at acceptable prices.


So you really don't need a refrigerator and if it is a week trip once or twice a year coolers and dry ice is the way to go you will have ice crean for the first four days and after that you can use the last of the ice to make your own ice cream.


Happy Camping:

Timothy

quote:

Originally posted by timnlana:

It is my view that Ditty more stew is not eatable.

I will disagree, but nevermind. I had a girlfriend who was a real princess. DM was definitely beneath her. My young sons picked up on that, and whenever out in the RV, made a big point of asking for it, knowing that I wouldn't refuse. They compounded the felony by exclaiming all through the meal on how good it tasted, and asking for more.

quote:

snails in a can makes a nice dinner; just use the French name when you serve them and be sure to use lots of garlic; see span above for additional tips.

The California garden snail is considered a delicacy in France and Italy. If you can harvest them in a poison-free yard, keep them in a terarrium on cornmeal for a week. Anyone wants to try it, PM me for the recipe. Oh, yeah. It has lots of Garlic.

My reefer is only 110v/propane, but some observations might help for a dc unit.....

When boondocking, I seldom need to fire-up the LPG until about Day #4, due mainly to:

1. More insulation: there's lot's of nooks & crannies between exterior wall of refer & surrounding cabinetry - fill it with something, i.e.: fiberglas batts, polyfoam sheets, Silly-Foam (triple expanding), etc. For less than $25, I think I may have doubled my reefer's insulating capability this way.....Just be sure that you don't block any required airflow venting.

2. The day before departure, I set reefer to lowest setting while on shore power to get the interior walls cooled down as much as possible. While on the road, IF I'm running the genny for the A/C, I'll put the reefer on electric too, but with an absorption unit, I'm probably kidding myself that this has any real effect....

3. ANYTHING going in the reefer has been pre-cooled/frozen elsewhere....Drinking water has been frozen so its thawing process helps rather than hinders.....ditto for meats, cheese, etc.

4. 5 lb piece of dry ice (available here at the local grocery chain), wrapped in newspaper and set on top shelf, keeps for 2-3 days and is so much nicer to deal with than frozen H2O......

5. Door Opening Discipline: If one were to take an infared pic of the air currents when the reefer door is opened, it would probably look like Niagra Falls. I put a stop to the kid's SOP of opening the door and then contemplating what flavor of drink they might be interested in.....Reefer Rule #1 in my coach is deciding exactly what you're retrieving ahead of time and then opening door, grabbing it and shutting door as fast as possible! I may get jeered for my quirks, but the adult beverages & my steak stay cooler that way.....

6. Given a choice of equal camping spots, I'll elect to keep reefer side in the shade. (My unit is 100% unpainted exterior skin, so it's subject to the Sunbeam Toaster Syndrome in the sun....)

Obviously, none of this is rocket science, but when it's all added together, I routinely get 3-4+ days of unpowered refrigeration....Not a bad trade-off for the little extra effort required.

Many thanks for this great advice. Lessons that will last a lifetime and we will but them to the test next week. I'm out to the garden to catch some snails, getting dry ice and beer. We're on our way to Burning Man. cheers...joe

THE BURN!!!!

Darn I have to work this year. Have a great time.

My description of the two coolers is what we do at the burn.

YOU MUST HAVE A BIKE AT THE BURN. Stop at thrift stores on the way to the burn and buy a low cost 10 speed or the like; you do not need a mountian bike. Or you can buy a small childs wagon. NOW YOU CAN BRING ICE BACK to your camp, they sell ice at the burn.


FIND TRADER JOES in RENO stock up there. Water is better than beer at the burn.

When you leave RENO it will take about 1/3 of a tiank of gas to get to the burn. You may wish to buy some gas cans to carry an extra 10-15 gallons so you can run the air before you go to sleep.


Have Fun, you don't need pants or a shirt but you will need a hat; wear shoes Playa foot sucks.

Timothy

Thanks Timothy for the Burn pointers. This will be our first Burningman. We bought the bikes today. The need a "paint" job to "protect" them from the playa. Nice advice re the gas from Reno...what is one-third tank for you. We have 2 30gal gas tanks and don't want to get near to running out.I'm very ok with the optional clothes thing but, I spent so much time water sking as a kid than I must avoid letting the sun shine on any of my parts. Wish you could be there, it would be great to meet some forum members in person. joe

I am not sure what 1/3 of a tank works out too, this is based on two motor homes I rented for the burn before we got the Barth. The point is if you run the generator the pickup for the generator fuel (At least on mine, please do take a look on your coach) is a ways up the side of the tank and when the generator stops this leves me with about 1/4 of a tank just a little less than what I would need to get back to Reno. So a 5 gallon gas can means I can make it back to Reno and not wait in line at the one or two gas stations before there, more gas and you can run the generator more.

There is fuel when you get off the interstate at pyramid lake and there is ONE full time gas station in Gurlock. If you time things well, this mean arrive early in the morning the fellow at Gurlock can sell you gas, later in the day the line gets long and unless they have a new guy the reception can become interesting.

As you come into Gurlock there is a NO NAME gas station ON THE LEFT that only opens for the burn so I am not sure if the gas is good, the tank has been empty for a year.


Now meditate on the following:

Fry Electronices sells solar cells.
You will need a charger that hooks up to the cell to the batteries too.
Fry has a 15 day return policy.

So if for some reason you are not happy with the solar cells you can return them to Frys after the burn. Keep the box in perfect condition, note the packing and clean them up, Playa drit gets everywhere. Buy extra wire so you don't use the wire that came in the kit.

I stop at Home Despot and buy a rool of the brown paper used as a paint drop cloth and cover the floor of the camper, clean up is taking the paper and droping it off at the first rest stop dumpster.

I also use fabric drop cloths as a "rug" under the sun shade on the way into the camper. I put a sheet of the thinest plastic drop cloth under the cloth drop cloth as a playa dirt barier. I use "stuff" around the side to keep the wind from moving this.


I have a pump sprayer hooked up to a mister, parts from home despot too, this if it is really hot keeps things under the sun shade nice for sleeping during the day. This is a bit of a project you unless you have everything done think about this for next year, we'll do a Barth camp.

BRING EAR PLUGS, by wednesday the burn runs 24/7 and this may be the only way to sleep.

Rebar and some rope from home despot can be used to put in stakes to hold down your sun shade. Buy a 2x4 to use as a pry bar to get them out.

Do not offer to hide people in your Barth to get in for free, they search the motor homes and everyone has to buy a new ticket.

Close all the windows on the drive from the gate to camping the dust level is really something.

When you get to the camp a "right" turn takes you to the "Quite" side is the common thought. Fooie, there is no quite side, a left turn takes you to the side that does not fill up as fast and you may be able to camp closer to the playa.

Wrap all bread in saran wrap it will dry out in less than a day if you don't.


All the best:

Timothy


P.S. While Lana and I are well past this period may I suggest.

1) The cops are always looking for a good pot bust. Do not ever smoke outside the Barth. They use night scopes and can see EVERYTHING.

2) E is a bad choice for the Burn, the weather is brutal and we have seen this take a toll on people.


P.P.S.

THE ARE COWS ON THE ROAD AFTER YOU GET OFF THE INTERSATE. LET THE A.H.s PASS YOU, DRIVE SLOWLY THIS WILL ONLY ADD TWENTY MINUTES TO THE TRIP. THE CITY KIDS DRIVE AT 70, 45 TO 50 WILL GET YOU THERE ALIVE.

OH YEA DO NOT SPEED AT ANY TIME IN THE TOWNS AFTER YOU GET OFF THE INTERSTATE, 25 MEANS DRIVE 24 OR LESS. ALSO THE INDIANS HAVE THEIR OWN POLICE DO NOT SPEED IN THE INDIAN AREAS AS WELL THE SPEED IS POSTED, DRIVE AS A GUEST, WATCH OUT FOR KIDS; I MUST SAY THIS AGAIN 35 MEANS 34 OR LESS AND 25 DOES MEAN 24 OR LESS. DO STOP AND GET SOME INDIAN TACOS, GOOD STUFF.



DANCE LIKE NO ONE IS WATCHING AND APPLAUD THE SUNRISE, THE SUNSET AND THE MOON FOR US.

quote:

Originally posted by timnlana:
1) The cops are always looking for a good pot bust. Do not ever smoke outside the Barth. They use night scopes and can see EVERYTHING.

Somehow, I feel safer knowing that we will be protected from smokers of the wrong kind of cigarettes.

Hi Bill:
The cops I spoke with said there is something like a 10 year waiting list to be assigned to the Burn. 99.999 percent of the people behave like saints for the week and the idiot fringe are more or less policed by the rest of the people so there is really nothing for the police to do. The peer pressure is quite strong and belligerent drunks are not tolerated, it is for a week magic.

Now this does not stop the police from charging the event hundred of thousands of dollars for protection.

While most of the police appear to have a great time and are very nice there are some that have ridged views and make the most of their powers.


And we shall close with this, once the burn is over when the people drive out all bets are off everyone returns to city driving manners, courtesy is a distant memory, full eye contact is now accompanied by snarls, you can forget the smiles of the past week and passing on blind corners in the normal course of events.

If you leave Sunday morning after sunrise so are most of the other people. Lana and I have taken to leaving between 12:00 and 3:00 AM after the burn, we drive to a rest stop or into the outskirts of Reno and stop to sleep in the industrial area. Leaving Monday is OK Tuesday is better.


Timothy

quote:

2) E is a bad choice for the Burn, the weather is brutal and we have seen this take a toll on people.

What's E?

Hi again. Jen and I are probably over that but thanks for the warning. Nice to get your take on leaving time. We were told by friends here in San Francisco that sunup on Sunday is the best time to leave. Looks like not best time to leave. I think I know what E is but not sure. We're really excited about this adventure. Couple of artists going for some creative energy. Salud joe

Joe:

You and 2,000 others at sun up. By 9:00 A.M. it is you and 15,000 others lined up to enter the two lane country road one at a time over a deterating dirt road with an ever greater nasty lip at the edge of the pavement. Oh boy.

Dave:
E is ecstasy, a drug of some sort, new generation new drug.

I don’t know what is in it and have not tried it being at least a generation out. It was in vogue for about ten years at dance clubs I don’t know if it still is. There is lots of dancing at night at the burn and while most people appear completely sober like most things a small sub group were not.

We had one to three kids a year show up at our camp, I guess we look like mom and dad or maybe just old hippies, lost, very thirsty and a little disoriented with stories of being up for more than a day. We gave them lots of water asked that they lay down in the shade and when they woke up six or seven hours later gave them more water, some food and sent them on their way.

So whatever this E stuff is it keeps you going after you should rest, if it has other effects I don’t know about them.

Now the bad news:

1) Gentlemen, the burn is not full of nubile women who drove into the middle of nowhere because they are looking to recreate the fall of Rome with you. It is mostly couples of groups of friends. While it took some strong words, as our friends and we are of a previous generation, we were able to convince one of our campers to put the %@#%** video camera back in the camper and leave it there. Dirty old men are cute if and only if people don't know they are part of your group.
2) Concerned parents, the burn is not drug central. Kids do try things out new things it is the nature of kids but if we were to look at 1000 people at the burn and 1000 people of the same demographic and age at another social gathering from what we have seen the burn would come out as a more conservative experience.



Timothy

Joe:

I think I am going to follow some of Lee's ideas about extra insulation around the refer, just packing in fiberglass stuff for the playa run sound like an excellent idea.

Reno to GERLACH is 107 miles one way, I hope this helps you work out the gas thing. This means we would burn 11 gallons if I drive carefully; we have a 25 foot Barth with a 454.

We drive with empty water tanks to the top of the hill, I guess that is Tahoe for you folks; the water in the mountains is wonderful. It makes the climb better with less weight and then with our own hose we fill the water tanks at a gas station. We come from L.A. and fill up coming over 395, the most costly year the guy at the gas station was grumpy until we gave him a 6-pack of low rent beer, you may wish to pack one.

At the burn I wear a piece of light fabric (light cotton) by wrapping it around my waist. With full air flow it is comfortable even on the hotest day, think Lava-Lava from the south seas. I round things out with a long sleeve shirt, my doc martins or motor cycle engineers boots and a big straw hat. Like you my skin has seen enough sun.

Oh yea:

A plastic drop cloth under the engine if you drip is always good manners.

I am sure you folks will have a great time; I sincerly miss not going this year.

Timothy