VIDEO: Gear to Get with Brian Brawdy - Xantrex PROwatt SW Inverter Series

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our E-mail Digest or RSS Feed. We will then send you the stories that are posted each day in an e-mail digest. We use a service called Feedburner for delivery of these emails. You will receive an e-mail from Feedburner after you subscribe and you must click on that email to activate your subscription. Thanks for visiting and enjoy all the information! RV.Net Blog AdminStarting my second year as a full time RVer and boondocker, I needed to find a better way of accessing power. In that I’ve used my six solar panels and wind turbine to capture those natural enegies and store it in my six 100 AMP Kinetik Power Cells, I needed to learn how to let the genie out of the bottle. In searching for an affordable soultion to supply portable AC power for all my electric devices including video and still cameras, computers, cellphones, Duracell backup batteries and iPods, I turned to Xantrex. I first learned of Xantrex when I installed the RS3000 Sine Wave Inverter/Charger and C Series Charge Controller on the Green RV. In this video you will learn about the new Xantrex PROwatt SW Sine-Wave Inverter Series. _______ To learn more about Conservation thru Exploration and Greening your RV, visit BrianBrawdy.com Tell a Friend Read More →

RV Cooking Show Celebrates Dad Grillside

Hello campers, In honor of fathers everywhere I must say that this is the “manliest” RV Cooking Show to date. Our travels take us to the North Dakota Badlands and Theodore Roosevelt National Park. To this day, its harsh beauty continues to inspire. TR arrived in North Dakota ready for big game hunting. Instead, what he found near the Little Missouri River was a buffalo herd decimated by commercial interests. His experiences in the wilderness began to solidify in his mind the need for conservation, which he pursued notably in his Presidential years.  The National Park named in his honor is remarkable and not-to-be missed. When we return from a busy day of exploring we’ll make an unbelievable meal fit for an outdoor-loving president and especially Dad. The not-your-average-backyard Grilled Panini Burger and steak fries in this RV Cooking Show episode will make you swoon. Red pepper aioli, prosciutto ham, and manchego cheese make this burger so flavorful. The crispy, grill-marked fries add a special touch to this delicious dinner. Do Dad a favor, pick up the ingredients and make him a Father’s Day meal that he can sink his teeth into! Have a look-see for yourself… And there’s more…we’ve gussied up the recipe section of the RV Cooking Show website (where you can print all of our delish recipes) - I think you’ll like it, posted some terrific articles on our RV Cooking Show blog, and have been Tweeting and Facebooking like... Read more

Step One in an RV Makeover

For over 16 months now I have lived full-time in my Lance Camper. 48 States and an odometer pushing 70,000 miles gave me a personal best. With a wee bit of celebration in mind, and to kick off the Summer of ’09, I wanted to treat myself right so I turned to Thetford. There is something about a porcelain toilet. Now, if you’ve never spent a year and a half on a factory installed plastic one, you’re probably thinking, “it’s not all that big of a deal.” Well, for me it was time for an upgrade, and a state-of-the-art one at that. Now when Nature calls I’ll be answering with a new toilet. Read more Tell a Friend Read More →

Installing a 3″ dump valve in a blue tote, life made easy.

This blog pretty much goes hand in hand with my last blog titled “Boondocking and Dry Camping Solutions here. A real money saver and effortless dumping! Dry camping has become such a breeze for me with the purchase and use of the macerator pump as I simply pump my tanks into my two blue boy totes. I have a 22 and 15 gallon type giving me a total of 37 gallons I can dump each trip to a dump station. Of course the benefit of this is you never have to hitch up go to a dump station, return and re-setup the trailer, and so easy. My problem was when at the dump station I would have to get up into the bed of the truck and lift the heavy totes up to dump them. With my bad wrist this was becoming a chore. I had decided to invest the money ($250 or more) to buy a 32 gallon tote with the dump valve on it so all I had to do is hook the hose to it, pull the valve and done! Rinsing with the same method this also eliminates you having to tow the totes through a campground to the dump station as well and especially if the dump station was off site and a mile or two away. After speaking to a Rob, owner of Morro Bay RV and Marine he suggested I just put the valves in my 2 totes instead of spending all that money on a new tote. $45 worth of parts and a little time saved me about $200 or more! Some people ask why my totes are in the back of my truck in the first place. Hey to me it’s all about making life on the road as easy as possible. Here’s a pic of my 22 gallon tote before... Read more

Young Fulltime RVers - Too much “together” time?

Hello campers, Fulltime RVers live in small spaces and are together a lot. How best to cope? Video host Evanne Schmarder shares a few of her tips and tricks on this topic in this episode of Young Full-time RVers. Read more Tell a Friend Read More →

Woodall Sales Teams hit the road

Woodall’s 25 Rep Teams have begun working in the field visiting RV parks, campgrounds, RV dealers and Travel & Tourism locations. During this spring & summer, these teams are traveling throughout a specific territory, gathering information and selling advertising into Woodall’s printed pubs and on its website www.woodalls.com. If you would like information about becoming a Woodall Rep couple, email Vheikes@affinitygroup.com or visit the Woodall’s website page titled “Becoming a Woodall’s Rep Team”.   Tell a Friend Read More →

Extended run time fuel tank for generators!

Super money saving tip! Extended run time fuel tank for Honda 2000 generators (and others) Here’s en excerpt from my RV Tech Tip book of one of my many tech tips…..While dry camping I got tired of fueling the Honda 2000 once or more times a day depending on use. I decided enough of that and after a little surfing on the web decided to make my own extended run time fuel tank. I found these on line for $100 or more + shipping. The exact same thing and cost me a whopping $36! All that is needed is…. A 6 gallon marine fuel tank. Mine is an Atwood marine tank from Wal-Mart ($15!) A Honda mower gas cap. Make sure the one you get fits the generator you’re using! They make different sizes with different type threads! You may also use the stock generator cap. (see below). 6′ or so of fuel line A 1/4″ bulkhead fitting of some kind (or suitable item), usually found at marine shops. All for under $40 or less! The fuel line simply is ran from the marine fuel tank which has a 1/4″ pickup tube in it and then connect the other end of the fuel line to the 1/4″ nipple on the gas cap. Everyone asks what about venting since the original 2000 gas cap comes with a ventable cap. Well the 6 gallon Atwood marine fuel tank (which can be bought at Wal-Mart for $15) is vented so it accomplishes the same thing as the original cap with the ventilation knob. The fuel line and stock Honda mower gas cap was bought at a local Honda and mower shop. Talk about extended... Read more

Finally, Sensible and Achievable Mileage Standards

By Bob Difley This was a big week for environmentalists,the auto companies, and foes of foreign oil addiction. The Obama administration announced new CAFÉ mileage standards for American built cars and light trucks. Beginning in 2016—four years earlier than the 2007 energy bill–passenger cars will have to attain 39 mpg (a 30% increase) and light trucks 30 mpg for a combined mpg of 35.5. This is a huge increase over current CAFÉ (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) standards. The bill will also regulate tailpipe emissions of carbon dioxide. Much of credit for pushing these standards goes to the West coast states and the northeastern states for pushing tougher standards than the Federal Government had required. Since about 45% of the population lives in these progressive states, the car makers knew that the more stringent standards were inevitable and jumped on board. In fact, one of the original complaints of the car companies was that it would be impossible to manufacture vehicles that had to comply with different standards in every state. So they were ready to accept the a mileage standard (after fighting higher mileage standards for the last 15 years or so). What this means to the environment and global climate change is that there will be far less CO2 emissions from vehicles (currently about one-quarter of total greenhouse gas emissions in the US) due to the reduced amount of gasoline burned, as well as an improvement in air quality. The new standards will reduce our... Read more

Escapees to Escapade

Next Sunday, May 24, begins the annual gathering of the Escapees club, called the Escapade – in Sedalia, Missouri. If you’re going, stop by the Geeks on Tour booth and say Hi! We hope you also take in one of our seminars, High Speed Internet on Tuesday May 26 at 8:30am or Managing Digital Photos with Picasa on Wednesday May 27 at 1pm. The Escapades are known for their emphasis on seminars, next week’s event has over 80 sessions scheduled. In case you don’t know about the Escapees, it is an organization of RVers that was formed by Kay and Joe Peterson in 1978. It has grown to over 32,000 members and is probably best known for it’s mail-forwarding service at its headquarters in Livingston, Texas. If you ever see an RVer’s address shown as Livingston, TX, odds are that they are a fulltimer, an Escapees member, and use the Livingston address as their legal residence. Texas is one of the states with no income tax and is a desirable home base. Hope to see you in Sedalia! Chris and Jim Guld, Geeks on Tour Tell a Friend Read More →

The Boondocker’s Air-Conditioning System

By Bob Difley Spring suddenly blossomed into an early indication of the summer to come, with temps soaring this weekend in Northern California to the mid-eighties along the coast, and high 90s inland. Desert temps are driving the last of the snowbirds onto their northerly migration as temps soar over 105 degrees. When that kind of weather hits suddenly, without much time to acclimate, many RVers fire up their air-conditioners and stay inside, hoping the heat will not last for too many days. Boondockers are different, though, heading up in altitude rather than in latitude because of what is known in weather circles as “lapse rate,” the increase or decrease in temperature with the change of altitude. To complicate things, the rate of change varies with the moisture in the air–the humidity, just as the temperature spread between day and night at the same altitude varies with the humidity. You’ve all noticed that in humid areas, the mid-west and south for instance, in summer the variance between day and night is minimal. Remember trying to sleep after a 90-degree day when it cooled off to only 80 degrees overnight. Or how nice it was in the desert after a 90-degree day to have the night cool down into the 60s. In dealing with altitude, though, the amount of change for desert–or dry–air is called the “dry adiabatic lapse rate” and is equivalent to 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit (3 degrees Celsius) for every thousand feet of altitude. What... Read more

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