What is sufficient RV? What is the best RV? Is it RV at all?
Please read and let me know Your Opinion!
In here RV means some transportable pod or box providing basic shelter. It may be attached to a vehicle or transported as such.
My objective is to design the best possible RV by developing in box form factor answering to the definition found by the thorough study. This means I'm not happy with current situation.
I wrap here what is my understanding of the scene today:
Market, Demand, and Offer:
Currently, the U.S. market has a duopoly, manufacturing 83% of all RV:s - causing poor quality, bad customer experience, concentrating on eye candy, ignoring durability and long life. To manufacturer making money means as many sold units as possible. Making quality contravenes the goal. The faster they rot away, the sooner they leave the market and make way for new units. The quantity of RV:s on the road has not changed in 25 years, regardless of the sold units per year have multiplied. This must mean they rot away faster. Very seldom RV lasts up to 20 years. Those who survive are usually simple, robust and well built (apparently), or just well cared.
The buyer:
- The buyer buys what the market offers. Most of us have no competence to understand what is needed. Last year 500000 new RV:s were sold in the U.S. only by salesmen who offer what manufacturers make. Bling and shine dazzle buyers and masks what is essential on the road - functionality.
The Design:
- Nothing new under the sun, only small tweaks here and there. Most RV:s are still trying to look and feel like a house on the wheels. It is not a lack of effort; it is more lack of vision.
In pursuit of a solution, making the right questions is vital.
Let's think this over for a while. I have never owned a trailer or RV. They seem to me too complicated, defying the purpose with over-engineering. I have had no real need, and hotels are affordable in places I travel. The interest over this issue comes from the news. I see us heading to a future where demand for a mobile living unit is under high demand.
Learning solutions from those who know is the cheapest way to gain understanding.
RV:s available provide a lot of excesses and unnecessary, like most houses. Many solutions offered are serving some other purpose than common utility or basic need. Social status and place in society are also shown.
I see the search for the ultimate solution could also be a social experiment that can change the way we think by pointing out how little we need.
In the current paradigm, there is loads of quiet information about our society. Expecting everyone has the same style of life. The market is teaching to newcomers what we should want. This way nothing changes.
I have studied the scene by watching countless conversion videos over YouTube, followed vlogs and blogs all around the globe. I have registered in many forums. I have tried to learn from the mistakes made by others. I also have studied the latest new technology. What there is that is not applied to RV:s so far? I am also trying to reason out the train of thought behind applied solutions. It is not always easy.
I feel like trying to question the very way of life. If you reside in a regular home, have you ever wondered why most of our buildings are rectangles? It has not been like this always. For example, the ancient buildings were small and usually round.
Everything in our civilization is more or less box or rectangle. Machines processing minerals from the ground mostly end up making plates or sheets. Making sheets is the most efficient way to refine something from the earth by automated tools. If you have sheets of material, you end up making what easily comes out of it - boxes and rectangles. The tooling paradigm is built around that. And rest of the material world follows suit.
I mention all this to point out the world is all but ready. It can be built in countless ways by questioning the underlying paradigm. That is what I try to do.
What is RV not compared to the house?
RV is never going to be a house on the wheels. Let's accept that. It has no concrete foundation, no limitless water supply or electricity. It offers no abundance of utilities like the house does. There is no security provided by thick walls or fence circling property with no trespassing signs. In many ways, it is quite the opposite. You can not carry countless things into it; it has mass and size limitations.
House has fixed surroundings. Known neighbors. The Sun always raises from a specific direction and sets to its opposite.
Because of all this, why are we trying to make RV a house on the wheels? It is impossible. Instead, should we try to find the essential? Maybe re-invent old nomad way of being and remarry it with current civilization?
What is RV then?
RV should satisfy basic needs for shelter in a mobile form. It is for most of us temporary accommodation. For that reason, I think, it is not taken seriously enough. I think it should be good enough to be the primary accommodation.
Level of basic needs requires clarification. For some, basics mean shelter, a place to lay down at night, to consume a meal, provide some security. For most, it also implies a lot more: Warmth and sanitation; heat, water, light, electricity. It also could mean providing all that average house can with all sorts of appliances - needed or not.
From History, I have discovered many extremely functional solutions. Those that are developed under stress to survive and prosper with limited means and technology. Those sometimes forgotten innovations are still viable in many ways, especially in exceptional circumstances. Many of them are refined with the latest knowledge to provide new solutions (i.e., rocket stove or Bedouin way to cool the house with heat wall).
I also spend a lot of time following possible trajectories in the future. I am trying to project inertia of today to decades to come. There are loads of reasons (overpopulation, mass migration, climate change) that increase the demand for highly functional, affordable, secure and straightforward RV. One question that pops to my mind is, how much of RV sales growth comes already from areas that have met some disaster where people lose their homes?
Technology
Like a house, RV should be well understood by the owner. Ability to track reasons for failures and problems and also to fix them. Buying RV requires no deep understanding of the unit, just like living in an apartment. The overhaul and upkeep are mostly made by someone else.
If you build your house yourself, you very likely understand it all the way, from foundation to chimney. The same applies to RV.
Common problems
- Water seeps in. Either it comes above, below or condenses from within. It is always present.
- Most RV:s are loaded with wood in many forms.
- Water reacts with wood and causes delamination, mold, rot and countless other issues because water is ignored for "better" reasons.
- Established Basic Design (e. what it supposed to look alike) ignores the laws of physics and causes most of the problems. In RV water comes from all directions. Temperature and air pressure are either ignored or not recognized to contribute to the water problem.
- The basic paradigm has not changed for decades; what was good 50 years ago, is still what it looks like. Walls and roof must have windows. Period. The result is in many cases fancy looking dysfunctional franken-home-alike. This is not a lack of effort. It is a lack of vision. Maybe some study would be good too.
- Devil is in details. Every chassis and many parts are made one by one - by hand, causing variation in quality.
What is off-grid?
Off-grid means what it says; no or limited electricity or water. Should we have no water or electricity at all? Should it be like ships, re-equip and refill at "berth"? Does it mean self-sufficiency at some level? How is it achieved? Should we have condensers making water with sunlight from the air?
What forms of solar do we need? Air heaters? Water heaters? Photovoltaic? Air coolers (directed heated airflow doing cooling)?
Solutions?
What is the best RV?
My objective is to find a design for the best possible RV and fit it in a truck box chassis. Why? The structure is not married with just one vehicle. It can be lifted onto new wheels if/when necessary. Truck box is standard size, under well-established regulation and a myriad of cars can house it. A truck as a platform is mechanically extremely simple, easy to fix and modify.
Design principle
- Expect problems and have a plan. Use readily available parts and components when possible.
- We have actuators.
- 3D design and simulation exist, why not use them?
- Use rot-free materials developed to extreme conditions.
- Using commonly available ingredients makes maintenance easy.
- Study airplanes, ships, yachts, military, and space equipment for durability.
- PU Spray foam insulation and PU sheets as insulation. They ingest no water.
- Nip out extra weight whenever possible. Lighter structure means more functionality.
- Accept water in places it should not be, using, i.e., aluminum honeycomb panels instead of wood fibers. Concentrate guiding water instead of blocking it. Honeycomb board for 20mm cost the same as plywood.
- Furniture and cardboards should have air channels to let air flow through them. This avoids closets freezing in the winter and molding in the summer. Free airflow means less moisture.
- Double floor structure. Water tanks, batteries, propane/LNG tanks should be in the heated midsole. This reduces draft in living quarters and keeps equipment in better shape.
- The shower should have a propane/solar heater and sufficient spacing. If there is a shower, there must be adequate water supply, 4gal (15Litres) per minute.
- Photovoltaic solar collectors at the roof, at least one panel to heat water.
- Windmill to generate electricity. When building on a truck, this can be attached to cab or frame, not to box/trunk/trailer due to noise and vibrations.
- Battery from Leaf, Tesla or some hybrid. Used Leaf batteries (20-30kWh) are available at eBay for less than $5K. Average house consumption is around 20Kw per day. In RV it is easily a fraction of that. The battery can be charged at charging station if solar is not sufficient. Tesla batteries have up to 120kWh if the price is not too high. Weigh price ratio better than in lead-acid batteries.
- No windows on the walls, in most cases there is nothing to see (except dumpster, parking lot or some industrial building). Most of the RV:s spend most of their time somewhere else than that abandoned beach or prairie depicted in the sales ad.
- Extendable roof with light windows, letting natural light in when desired, but also reducing drag when moving. Volvo has large freight trailers made this way.
- Aluminum honeycomb blackout curtains to all windows. Readily available from China, made to measure. Very affordable, even with motors. Works also horizontally.
- Heat pump to cool or warm if Leaf or Tesla battery is installed. This also should be attached to cab or frame on the truck due to noise and vibrations.
- Upgrade bus alternator to truck motor instead of an external generator. Simplifies structure, no multiple engines of fuels to carry around. For example, Delco 50Dn belt alternator provides up to 10.8kW at 27.8V. With 1500 rpm it gives 3.6kW, at 2400rpm around 8.8kW. It fills up Leaf battery in 2.5-4 hours. Takes max 15kW from the truck engine at 2400rpm.
Cheaper alternators from 370-560A 28V are widely available as military surplus (CE Niehoff N1602, N1603, N1609, but unfortunately under export restrictions by DoD).
- Small Rocket Stove to provide heat.
- Bedouin heat covers, meaning detached panels to form air flow between panel and chassis. Can also be used to warm. Separated from wheel wells not forming oven to bake tires.
