JosephGrey
Member
- Joined
- Jan 11, 2018
- Posts
- 15
Hello everyone. I have posted in a couple of other areas of this forum already but never got around to posting here.
A little over two years ago I suffered a job change. I had been a long time tele-worker for over eighteen years. Every morning I would go from my bed to my coffee pot to my desk and work my day. But an influx of middle managers from the banking industry changed how my office worked. Telecommuters were suddenly lazy bums who watched TV all day. The only way to tell if an employee was working was to walk by his/her cubical every day. Everyone had to be in the office five days a week.
I live ninety miles away from my office and I try hard to be an environmentalist. A daily commute just seemed wrong. I have a few friends in the big city and I found a few more via couchsurfing.com. I can be mildly entertaining once a month or so, I had a few weekly couches and a revolving few others and I made it work.
But you can all imagine how much fun this all was. After a year I started looking into more permanent options for living cheap in a big city. The answer came when I discovered Stealth Camping. Taking the most common vehicle a city has, which is the white cargo van, and turning the inside into a camper.
I am blogging this whole adventure as well, so if you are interested in more, follow the link in my signature at the bottom of this post.
It has really been an amazing experience. I feel like some of the stuff I have learned could be of benefit to all of you if you are thinking of remodeling your RVs. I have been living in my camper four nights a week since about March. I am in a cold climate... Some would say brutal once I told them it got to -19F the other night.
The most common questions;
Have you got a bathroom in there?
I have a composting toilet. It separates urine into a container that gets about 1/4 full in a week of use.
What about fresh water and gray water?
I have an eight gallon fresh water tank. Currently I have no gray water tank. Normally I just drain gray water on to the ground. --oh and normal is the amount of water to brush teeth and wash one fork. I don't cook much in the van while stealth camping, I re-heat.
No shower?
I don't have a shower. There are shower facilities at my employer and I am getting by. By luck of the gene pool I am not a very sweaty guy.
You are parking in a city? Are you crazy?! What about crime?
My mental sanity has been questioned before. But no, I don't believe I am crazy. Certainly not to the point where I should be institutionalized anyway. The world is actually a much safer place than the TV news would have you believe.
Where do you park?
You know what, I park it anywhere I want to. Around plumbing or electrical shops I fit right in. Little industrial parks inside of residential neighborhoods are perfect. They are quite after hours and the police protection is great! If I want to go out some nights to catch some live entertainment at a bar or something I check for a hardware store close by. Usually I find something and my hotel awaits after too many beers. (Sadly that is only three these days :-( )
How do you heat it?
I have a 16,000 BTU Suburban RV furnace running on propane.
Lights and other electronic stuff?
I have four Trojan T-105 deep cycle 6v batteries wired in series parallel to provide 450a/h of power. A 1500 watt inverter and 540 watts of solar panels on the roof.
So there are the low hanging fruit anyway. If you have more questions ask them below or check out the blog for the whole story. When you get there scroll back to January 2017 if you want to start at the beginning. Otherwise you can pick up in the narrative where I am at which is building the frame to hold/disguise the solar panels.
--jg
A little over two years ago I suffered a job change. I had been a long time tele-worker for over eighteen years. Every morning I would go from my bed to my coffee pot to my desk and work my day. But an influx of middle managers from the banking industry changed how my office worked. Telecommuters were suddenly lazy bums who watched TV all day. The only way to tell if an employee was working was to walk by his/her cubical every day. Everyone had to be in the office five days a week.
I live ninety miles away from my office and I try hard to be an environmentalist. A daily commute just seemed wrong. I have a few friends in the big city and I found a few more via couchsurfing.com. I can be mildly entertaining once a month or so, I had a few weekly couches and a revolving few others and I made it work.
But you can all imagine how much fun this all was. After a year I started looking into more permanent options for living cheap in a big city. The answer came when I discovered Stealth Camping. Taking the most common vehicle a city has, which is the white cargo van, and turning the inside into a camper.
I am blogging this whole adventure as well, so if you are interested in more, follow the link in my signature at the bottom of this post.
It has really been an amazing experience. I feel like some of the stuff I have learned could be of benefit to all of you if you are thinking of remodeling your RVs. I have been living in my camper four nights a week since about March. I am in a cold climate... Some would say brutal once I told them it got to -19F the other night.
The most common questions;
Have you got a bathroom in there?
I have a composting toilet. It separates urine into a container that gets about 1/4 full in a week of use.
What about fresh water and gray water?
I have an eight gallon fresh water tank. Currently I have no gray water tank. Normally I just drain gray water on to the ground. --oh and normal is the amount of water to brush teeth and wash one fork. I don't cook much in the van while stealth camping, I re-heat.
No shower?
I don't have a shower. There are shower facilities at my employer and I am getting by. By luck of the gene pool I am not a very sweaty guy.
You are parking in a city? Are you crazy?! What about crime?
My mental sanity has been questioned before. But no, I don't believe I am crazy. Certainly not to the point where I should be institutionalized anyway. The world is actually a much safer place than the TV news would have you believe.
Where do you park?
You know what, I park it anywhere I want to. Around plumbing or electrical shops I fit right in. Little industrial parks inside of residential neighborhoods are perfect. They are quite after hours and the police protection is great! If I want to go out some nights to catch some live entertainment at a bar or something I check for a hardware store close by. Usually I find something and my hotel awaits after too many beers. (Sadly that is only three these days :-( )
How do you heat it?
I have a 16,000 BTU Suburban RV furnace running on propane.
Lights and other electronic stuff?
I have four Trojan T-105 deep cycle 6v batteries wired in series parallel to provide 450a/h of power. A 1500 watt inverter and 540 watts of solar panels on the roof.
So there are the low hanging fruit anyway. If you have more questions ask them below or check out the blog for the whole story. When you get there scroll back to January 2017 if you want to start at the beginning. Otherwise you can pick up in the narrative where I am at which is building the frame to hold/disguise the solar panels.
--jg