sherpa

I think we have a failure to see sarcasm.

Its all free. Solar.....Free. Wood....Free. Propane....Free. Putting some piece of junk on land you don't own.....Free. I am amazed that someone didn't think about this already. Maybe they wanted to have a life that included others. Fools. In your case, the RV would be fatal.

Put that baby under a window and you've got a "solar system." It would help your cause if you wrote sentences like an educated human. But.... The question about what is "cheaper" was never the issue. The issue is your ridiculous claims, and total ignorance of anything related to this. If you want cheap, just go the full homeless route. By the way. There is another "settled" item in this thread. You may not be able to figure that out, but everyone else has.

If you are telling the truth about buying an RV and becoming a full timer, I cannot more strongly advise you to spend a lot of time reading what others have posted on at least these two forums: http://www.rvforum.net/SMF_forum/index.php http://www.irv2.com/forums/ Based on what you have posted here, you don't stand a chance of making informed decisions without a lot of additional education, and I don't say that in a mean spirited way. Based on what you have posted here, I could sell you a cheap skylight and tell you it was a "solar system." Just learning what suits you and is a good value is way beyond what you seem to understand here, and frankly, for a guy who claims to have just wrapped 20 years of active duty but seems to have not thought about life afterwards, I'm not hopeful. Anyway, if you read those forums, you will find out a great deal about the efficacy and expense of solar. Simple things- like they have to be portable because permanent mounted ones will last about 20 miles bolted to a roof that isn't built for that weight going 60 mph with stuff hitting them and being constantly rattled. Portable ones are much less efficient, and ever speaking in terms of one is preposterous. Additionally, most sane people park in shaded areas for obvious reasons. You will also find that most people don't burn wood in an RV. That is a really, really bad idea. If you have 20 amp service, you can use a relatively small space heater that costs about $80. That's what I use, and it works great. And you know what else you don't seem to understand? Wood is not cheap at all, and really stupid to haul it around. That's why nobody does it. RV parks won't let you bring in your own for bug purposes and buying it there is quite expensive. There's always a small amount for camp fires etc. If you stay outside an RV park I doubt you are going to be able to cut it, and burning wet wood is silly. I don't use the thermostatically controlled propane heating system because propane is expensive. The only thing I use my propane system for is heating water or cooking when I need it, but the microwave is usually a better idea. My RV is quite small, and I use it maybe four times a year for three day trips, but I spent a lot of time reading those forums before I did anything, and it is mandatory to do so. You can get yourself in a whole lot of trouble very quickly unless you know what you're doing, and you are grossly uninformed about this issue. You know literally nothing about energy value. If its all about saving money, you couldn't be more off course. Truth be told, based on what you have posted in this thread, if you bought some rig now and marched off into the wild, I would pay big money for the movie rights to that adventure, and pay the burial expenses. If you did something in a permanent location, that would be different, but understand those are usually very undesirable locations and there is zero resale value.

I've got free pizza for life from a place in Detroit, if anyone's interested.

And way too much shade by the river.

You know, calling people "dumbass" and "retard," which you have done in this thread, all the while providing an enormous amount of evidence that you have no idea what you are talking about doesn't serve your purpose. A reasonable person makes decisions based on knowledge and facts. I'm guessing you have no idea about anything electric. No...I'm sure of it. When you watch this video, which, by inference, seems to make your point, are you listening to what is being said? The thing is putting out 7 amps. Go into any house and look at the circuit breaker panel. Look at the ratings for each circuit. They are noted on each circuit breaker. The normal minimum is 15 amps. So....What this guy is getting is roughly one half of one circuit in any normal house. About what you would use to power one half of one room. If he was in a house, he would have one circuit breaker delivering one half of what any normal single circuit would have. I don't even have a circuit in my RV that is that small. He is using it to power an extremely small pump, and top off his batteries. I guarantee you that if he is using his batteries, which he absolutely must if he doesn't have another source, ie., regular power, this thing isn't going to put out near enough power to keep him alive. Based on what you have posted in this thread, you would be a true sucker for some moron trying to sell something useless to someone stupid. I have an electrical service monitor in my small rv. It displays voltage, freqs and amps. Using any two items with of any power is going to be over 7 amps. Bang/crash/ burn. I would never consider doing anything in any structure I intended to put anyone I loved in unless I had 20 amps, roughly three times what his little thing is putting out. Cease this video link nonsense and admit you have no idea what you are talking about. Still waiting for you to show me how our travelling girl has any solar in her "tiny house."

So now "solar is free energy," kind of like rv fees aren't rent. There are no fees to purchase and install a solar system which includes panels, an inverter, a monitor and installation. Then, of course there's that nasty little requirement to place the panel(s) in the sun, which in your non air conditioned "free" dwelling is going to heat up like Auschwitz. In three days the dog rams a hole in the wall to escape. In five days your incinerated, mummified remains are discovered. The coroner comments "Just another sad, dead, tiny houser saving a few bucks a month." For the same price, Could have joined in with a couple of roomates and lived like a human.

This no electricity tiny house on wheels is actually better than Section 8 housing. You stand under your skylight in front of your coffee maker on the left, with its plug in your left hand. You place your toaster on your right, with its plug in your right hand. Then you command: "Make coffee and toast." The appliances say, "How." You say it doesn't matter and get more free batteries which you aren't charging, knowing there is no chance you will ever have a wife, kids, visitors, friends, or a comfortable environment.

This gets more ridiculous as you try harder to explain it. The problem is, you aren't capable of explaining it. If you ever intend to try this "lifestyle," you need to acquire a ton of knowledge you evidently don't have. I have no idea what she is paying, but if we use your number of $500/month, that is hardly what you characterized as "virtual non cost." Do you know what a solar panel looks like? Do you know what a skylight looks like? They aren't the same thing. She has a skylight which she uses as a hatch to get to her roof. It shows up many times in the video. There is no solar panel, nor any mention of one. Know why? Because she doesn't have one, and one wouldn't come anywhere close to supplying her needs. Not close and not cheap.. Your theory of what it would be like if she were to "go off the rv lot" is equally ignorant. She has no electricity, so she would need to either run a generator or use a DC system charged by her tow vehicle, which by the way would have to be huge because this is one ridiculously heavy piece of... In addition, you seem to think propane is some magically cheap, efficient fuel. It isn't. It is considerably more expensive and less efficient than either electricity or nat gas. That's why people never choose it if they have a choice. She would need a water supply, and a place to dump her gray water system, something she has to do at her rv park as well, but she never mentions. You probably don't know this, but you can't simply dump them out. Worse, where the hell would she put this thing other than an rv park, and from my experience, most decent rv parks would never allow that thing in their boundaries? Put it at a "friends house" per your suggestion? Not a chance in hell anyone would let that thing sit around outside their house for long, and let's not even talk about code issues.

I have an RV. A Starcraft AR 16bh. I am extremely familiar with this "lifestyle," as you put it. The difference between you and I is that I understand what she has and what is going on, and you don't. Fees for RV lots vary, but I usually stay at Virginia state parks, and the cost is $30/night for what she is doing. That's $900/month. She is probably getting some kind of monthly rate and a mortgage or rent may be more expensive, but your characterization that it is a "virtual non cost" is ridiculous. In case you doubt it, at the 2:46 mark of the video she states: "I am staying at an RV park in Oregon." At the beginning of the video where she shows the construction, she is using a trailer chassis. That's what RV's use, and that's what people who make their own RV's use. You and she can call it a "tiny house" till the cows come home, but it's an RV. It has a hitch for towing and it has wheels. The bad part is that it is a grossly overweight RV for what she has. RV's are a lot nicer. I expect the "partner" she mentioned at the beginning, who is no longer with her figured that out early on and fled the thing. You claim: "U do realize her tiny house is self sufficient?" Again, completely false. It is hard for me to find a way to explain to someone that when you have hookups for water and electricity, you are not self sufficient at all. The hookups are there because she needs them. You claim: "She uses solar and propane for energy." No she doesn't. She has no solar other than windows. She uses an ac hookup for energy. If you consider windows solar energy, that's your business. She certainly uses propane and wood. Anyway, if people want to live that way, its their business, but be honest about it. To be self sufficient, if you want electricity you have two choices. You can put up a lot of solar capacity to charge batteries, or you can use your vehicles charging system to charge the batteries. Otherwise, pull up to at least a 20 amp ac source and plug in, which is what this woman is doing. There are no great secrets to this.

The story speaks often of that extremely suspicious Tehran-Damascus-Caracas flight originated by Iran Air in about 2007, then dropped by them and picked up by Venezuelan state owned airline Conviasa. I remember Chavez announcing the start and when asked why the hell anyone would think this was a sound business decision he stated that there were lots of Iranians who wanted to visit Venezuela. Absurd. Started out as a once/week flight. When they landed, they wouldn't go to the terminal and have passengers go through the normal customs/immigration process. They would park at a remote spot on the north side of the ramp. Nobody know who was on, and you could not buy a ticket. Evidently, passenger reservation calls were routed to cell phone in Argentina. Same when they left. Passengers bused to the plane. Never went through the terminal like everyone else. Everybody thought there was something untoward going on. I tried to find out where the crew was staying, but nobody knew. One night I was going south and I heard the flight check in on a South American air traffic control frequency. I called them and asked them to call me on air-air freq/. which we all monitored. Of course they never answered. Lot more to the story, but it was speculation by folks who lived down there.

A "camper fee" is renting the space. It is "rent." That's how she has those electrical and water hookups. They are provided for fee RV parks, which is where she is. Her "tiny house" is an RV. You can call it whatever you want. It has wheels. She tows it, and it has inputs for electrical and water. The video is from an RV park. She may have built it, but it is an RV. Lots of people do.

Maybe you haven't figured this out, but between the two of us, that lady is the only one paying rent, and I don't buy oil either.

No sweat.

No, nothing obvious. The com is a pilot and his backseater talking to each other. There are two inaudible words, and I can't make them out. But the best way to figure out what this is would be to talk to them, because again, FLIR targets are usually really distored.

Regarding that F18 HUD video, for what it's worth..... When watching or tracking something in FLIR mode, you are not actually seeing the object. You are seeing processed heat source data. Often times objects are greatly distorted.

The cost has nothing to do with whether it is green or not. Propane is not nearly as efficient as natgas, and it certainly isn't "green" nor sustainable. Burning wood is absolutely not "green," and it's an uncomfortable heat. What you have "discovered," and misnamed it minimalist, is the RV lifestyle, and it has been around for a century. The travelling woman, (the one with "Ventura Highway" in the background), is literally living in an rv in an rv park with rv electrical and water hookups. Thousands of people do it, and with far more efficient rigs than that thing she is towing around. If she was not in a park, and totally self contained, it would be called "boondocking," but she isn't. Go to http://www.irv2.com/forums and see if you recognize anything. Nothing you have ever posted in this thread backs up the claims you made in the third post of this thread, regarding how cheap green energy is. Your claim that someone threw up a solar panel and collects rain water and therefore has "no utilities" is crazy, and repeatedly throwing up links to wood burning propane users is meaningless, not green, not efficient, not comfortable and certainly not for a family. And by the way, you mentioned in your post with that link that she has "eliminated her rent." That is absolutely not true. She is paying for those RV water and 20 amp service hookups in any RV park she stays in. Guaranteed. She just didn't tell you about it. Done with this nonsense.

Do you have friends who can help you? This is another link to someone who has nothing to do with green, sustainable energy. Do you actually understand what those terms mean? Again, as your other link, she is using propane and wood. Do you get that? The void between what you post and what reality is, is vast, but here is a start. Reducing the amount of square footage you use is not "green," when you are using propane and wood to solve your heat issues. Evidently, since you've made that claim twice, this concept exceeds you. Good luck.

An absolutely bizarre post; the massive blanks between sentences notwithstanding. Way too much to comment on, but as a start, this nonsense of a one unit solar panel indicates gross ignorance, and it isn't the first time. As a guy who has looked at this for a long time, and it takes just a second, you don't get any kind of efficiency with a solar panel. It takes a lot of solar panels and a lot of storage capacity to hold what is realized potential. Evidently, you don't know that.

And when you ever come up with any reasonable proof that it is "is so much cheaper," those who follow this stuff may listen. Your claim, so far, seems to be that those who do pay attention to this this issue are not smart enough to interpret the existing data. I doubt you have ever made these decisions. I have, more than once, and you are foolish.

Nobody needs any videos on green energy. Everybody knows about it. But.....If anybody wants to know what is really going on on a day to day basis on home energy considerations, http://www.greenbuildingtalk.com does a pretty good job.

And you're totally wrong. I had a geothermal in my last house, and this one framed in a manner that if solar became cost effective I would be ready.

Is this a joke? You don't need anyone's talking points. You simply need to know what is available, what it costs. and what output it provides. It's all out there in completely objective reality. This couple isn't "green" at all. They are burning propane and wood. But, what a couple! She's referencing their propane tank and she asks if it's a 1 or 5 gallon tank, and he corrects her that it's 20 pounds. He tells how much he prefers "land" to a house then complains about how much it was costing him to take care of the land. About mid video he abruptly corrects his clueless estimate on land size. They tell us their regular house got so filthy that they went through a vacuum a month or something, then the genius goes off on a Dyson commercial. I quite watching when she pulled that slimy growth on his chin and claimed that their "paradigm shifted." What a couple of dopes.

I'll suggest two. I have spent a lot of time outside this country, roughly half my professional life. Nashville and Munich. If you took the Buffalo attitude and lived in some kind of Nashville/Munich combination, you'd have everything.