RV Living for Two Months

“Thinking, “Here goes nothing!” could be the start of everything.”
~ Drew Wagner

Austyn and I did it! We moved our family of three girls under four, two dogs, and a cat into our two bedroom fifth wheel. We live on 4.65 acres of land outside city limits where our next door neighbors are farm critters, deer, coyotes, and a bald eagle (yes, an actual bald eagle). How’s it going? Well, pretty much everything that could go wrong has gone wrong. About a month before we moved in we realized the battery on the fifth wheel was not going to be able to keep up with the amount of electricity necessary for a home. We put in a solar panel to supply extra power but it still wasn’t enough. Two weeks before moving in we managed to hook up to the electrical pole already on the land. Avril and BriBri ended up spending the first almost two months of camper living camped out on the floor of our room at night while we used a small space heater and let the rest of the house be cold (sorry puppies). Then during the day I would move the space heater to the main living space. We finally figured out all the delicate idiosyncrasies of this pellet stove, however, and we are very pleased with the results. We still use the space heater for the girls’ room, since it’s the least insulated room in the house, but everywhere else gets nice and toasty through day and night. Our water comes from the city, but we have yet to get consistent running water in the camper. We think the previous owners of this fifth wheel attempted to winterize the camper by putting pipes leading out of the water tank to the ground below. We aren’t sure why they did this, because these pipes constantly gush water when the water is on. We have tried capping the lines but even with teflon tape and PVC glue the pressure is too much. Austyn then tried to put a tube leading from one pipe to the other, to create a flow that hopefully would decrease the amount of pressure those pipes had and stop the gushing leak. It did not work. We then bought some rubber sealant spray and sprayed the crap out of everything, but still no dice. Once we are sure the water is working, though, we can turn on our hot water heater and have hot running water. We need to build a wind blocker for the outside entrance to the water heater too. The high winds we get in this area blow out the pilot light. Our camper toilet was a pain in the butt to get to work even when we had the water on. It was constantly clogging; a literal crappy situation. After a particularly gruesome fight with the toilet where Austyn and I discovered one of our children put a wet wipe down the toilet and clogged it beyond what we could repair, Austyn agreed to getting a compost toilet. Currently we have the toilet gone from the camper and the black tank plugged. It’s a beautiful sight after weeks of dealing with the nightmare commode. By the end of the week we should have our composting toilet complete, and I will update you then! Other than all that, we’ve been settling in rather well. We completely redid the girls’ bedroom to make it a more manageable space for them, and our working our way out from there. Adding shelves here and there, redoing the dining and living space, all with the goal of making this camper a home. We couldn’t have done any of this on our own. Austyn’s dad came out several times to help put in things like the water, electricity, help us move, and fix things like the pellet stove and water leaks. We are so grateful to all our friends and family who helped us along this journey into homesteading and camper life. Thank you all for reading and, as always, God Bless.