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RV-Dreams.com Home -> RV-Dreams Community Forum -> Community Chat -> NEW to this - Advice/Opinions/HELP! (long)
Post Info TOPIC: NEW to this - Advice/Opinions/HELP! (long)
CMM187


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NEW to this - Advice/Opinions/HELP! (long)
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Hi Everyone,

I'm new to this site...actually, I'm new to the whole RV thing. Opinions and ideas needed!

My boyfriend and I just bought a 2004 Heritage Franklin. Its 42 ft long and has 3 slides. We recently found out that we need to move within the next few months...Tossed around the option to continue renting, did the whole "Let's buy a house!" thing, looked at a few houses up for auction, talked to a family member about remodeling their basement into an apartment, and even considered buying a mobile home and getting set up on my family's farm... All of these sound like decent options, but after looking into each one, their downfalls outweighed the good things about them...at this point in our life, anyway...

So, here we are now... We made the decision to buy the 5th wheel and live in it full time for a year(s).. IN OHIO.. After the winter we just had, I'm surprised I'm not the one telling me I'm crazy disbelief Either way, I need opinions, ideas, advice..anything you all can tell me!

 

LOCATION: My family has a 90 acre farm in Ohio. We are allowed to put it on my parents or grandparents land. Looked around yesterday at possible places on each property. It needs a 220 hookup, which my grandparents have in their garage. They also have a water hookup coming up from the basement. Option 1: put it on the side or behind the house to be close to the hookups. Option 2: Put it down by the barn (about 100 ft from house) and run the hookups to us.. My parents house does not have a 220 hookup, but their house is newer and capable of having more things running off of the electric at once. They also have water hookups inside the basement and garage. Option 3: put it at the side of their house, use the water hookup from the basement and have a 220 hookup installed. Option 4: put it beside the barn (on an actual driveway) and run water to us..and have the 220 installed. Which one of these sounds like the best, safest, or smartest plan?

WEATHER: Because we live in Ohio, the summer will be fine.. (I've shown horses forever and have lived out of horse trailers on and off for years), but the winters will be a whole new ball game! What all needs to go into this to make sure we're warm and the pipes wont freeze? Ive looked up a lot of stuff, and everyone seems to have a different way with a different combination to keep things running in the winter. What are the safest and best options? Are there ways to do it and not have it cost as much as the 5th wheel, itself, did? What exactly is a heated RV basement, and can one be added if it does not have one? Heated hoses: do they really work? Or is heated tape the way to go? Propane heating at a lower temp will be used to, hopefully, help with the freezing..but we're not wanting to heat with propane. Space heaters? Solar panels? Install a wood stove? Other options? ...Water: opinions on using the water holding tank or having the water line hooked up at all times? ...Grey & Black Water - There is no place to run a line for a run off, but we have a few dumping stations fairly close by. What is our best option here? If at all possible, I'd like to avoid having to thaw yesterdays digested lunch with a hairdryer confuse ...Skirting: we plan to add a skirt around the bottom - best insulated option? The original plan was to put it inside the barn for the winter, but the measurement info we received was a little off. Needless to say, the barn doors arent tall enough to get this bad boy inside there. Do we NEED to build some kind of full enclosure, or will we survive outside? Does anything need to be done to the slides in the winter?

Also, any information on average cost (monthly) during warm and cold weather would be greatly appreciated! I know the initial winterizing project could get pricey, but not factoring that in... Approximately, what are we looking at? Hoping the average cost monthly should be considerably less than $800-$1000?

Any tips, tricks, DIY projects, etc are welcomed for anything and everything... We have until November/December before the winter will hit, but would love to have a plan and get a set up going now.

Sorry this was so long...but thank you for reading! biggrin



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Lucky Mike


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first thing!!!...............Your RV is not 220 , if you plug it into 220 you will severely damage most of the components within the 5ver.......it requires a special outlet for RV's with proper voltage.you must inform the electrician that the outlet is for RV use.

costs of propane for the winter are going to be high........

your coach is not 4 season..(low insulation).. it will not fair well using it during the winter months in the snow belt...

you will need some sort of septic system or your going to have problems dumping during the winter...

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MarkS


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I think all residential 220v outlets are actually two 110 volt legs.

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53 Merc


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MarkS wrote:

I think all residential 220v outlets are actually two 110 volt legs.

 Very true, only problem is the household 220 receptacle is not the same one as the RV cord uses.  Different configuration of the blade contacts.  Make sure the electrician KNOWS it is to service an RV.



-- Edited by 53 Merc on Monday 2nd of June 2014 01:32:07 PM

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Barbaraok


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MarkS wrote:

I think all residential 220v outlets are actually two 110 volt legs.

 But the legs aren't 180 degrees out of phase.  At the breaker panel in the RV the two legs are separated into two 120 branches That power your RV.  Everything is 110-120, nothing is 220-240.

 

barb



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tigercx1


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Might be more trouble than it is worth in my opinion to live in RV in the winter where it gets real cold.

Mark

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kb0zke


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The electrician ought to be able to hook up the electrical connection. Lucky Mike pointed out the real problem - your rig isn't designed for cold weather. I'd give some serious thought to trying to enlarge the barn doors. If you can get the rig inside you will cut down the wind chill factor. You will still need to provide additional insulation, but that will be easier to manage if you don't have to contend with the wind.

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MarkS


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There are two different plugs used in houses. One has an L shaped leg. This is a 30 amp plug for a dryer. The other is all three straight blades. This is 50 amp typically used for the range. This is the same plug used for RVs. The 50 amp is four wire. Two 110s, a neutral, and a ground. They say you can't use the ground for a neutral but they both go to the same place in the breaker box. The two 110 volt legs on all 50 amp service is 180 degrees out of phase. That's how the power company delivers it to you. There is no such thing as 220v in this country unless you add the two 110s together.

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bjoyce


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MarkS: From http://www.nojolt.com/Understanding_240_volt_circuits.shtml

"I previously mentioned "straight" 240 volt appliances, but there is another class of 240 volt equipment; some appliances (such as clothes dryers and ranges) use 240 volt current to power their main function (drying clothes or cooking food) but use 120 volt current to power accessories such as the clock on your stove or the light inside the oven, or the digital readout on your dryer controls. That is why some 240 volt circuits have four wires:


1) A black wire which is often known as the "hot" wire, which carries the current in to the fixture.
2) Another "hot" wire which is red, which also carries current in to the fixture.
3) A white wire called the neutral which completes the electrical circuit for the 120 volt accessories only.
4) A bare copper wire called the ground, the sole function of which is to enhance user safety."

You can often convert a 4-wire 240 volt to an RV outlet, but you have to do it right.  With an RV you are very unlikely to have any 240 volt appliances, but both hots go to neutral and should be 180 degrees out of phase.  Sometimes they are 120 degrees out of phase, 208 volts, when dealing with incoming 3-phase. 

A couple other nice articles are http://www.noshockzone.org/accidentally-plugging-into-240-volt-outlet/ and http://www.rvdoctor.com/2001/07/friends-of-gary-mike.html.  Bottom line is it is easy to mess this stuff up.



-- Edited by bjoyce on Monday 2nd of June 2014 09:23:19 PM



-- Edited by bjoyce on Monday 2nd of June 2014 09:26:14 PM

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suse1023


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welcome! I spent several years camping our of my horse trailer too, I miss those riding trips.
I cannot speak to the electric or sewer, but agree that if you can get your rig into the barn you stand a chance of being more comfortable.
In Vermont many mobile and older homes are poorly insulated and people stack bags of leaves or bales of straw all around the foundation to help with heat loss. I've seen bales of straw on roofs held down with tires in more than a few places there.
You might also invest in an rv size plastic garage and set that up around the rig inside the barn and pack all around the rv with insulation of some sort.
Of course straw and leaves will attract critters also trying to stay warm, you'll need to have a cat and/or jack russels or rat terriers to control that situation.
Good luck, it can be done if you are very determined---be extra careful of fire danger above all though.




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Terry and Jo


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Even if you can get the RV into the barn, you will still have the issue of disposing of black and grey tank contents.  Thus, you would have to regularly tow the trailer to somewhere that they could be dumped, or you could put in a septic system and plumb to it.  But, then the plumbing might get in the way of the normal "barn functions."

Terry



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