Month: December 2016

Hitting the road soon!

For a little over a year, I’ve been researching and preparing to move into an RV full-time. I’ve since bought a truck and a trailer, and with my apartment lease about to end, it’s finally about to happen!

I’ve set up Money for Gasoline as a separate blog just for RV stuff. I want to keep this blog for more general stuff. Go check it out! The introductory post has more information about the rig I’m starting with; it’s sure to evolve as I learn and get settled.

I’m still trying to figure out how much I want to do in written format, and how much to do on other networks. YouTube videos seem like a good idea, but YouTube comments do not.

Full-Time RVing and Carbon Footprints

Today I did some back-of-napkin math comparing carbon impact of RV life versus sticks-and-bricks life. I also found tons of really helpful details on Where-RV-Now?, which others will likely find more useful than what I’ve written here.

The Bad:

17231566026_d82eef7069_z.jpg
Perhaps a more efficient combination. (flickr: Andrew Bone)
  • I didn’t know trucks have worse CO₂ emissions per passenger-mile than jet airliners.*
  • Add the trailer and it’s about twice as bad.
  • Replacement tires add a lot more to the carbon footprint than they would for an urban commuter.
  • A Class C motorhome (the kind with a van cab and a bed over the cab) towing a small car might have been smarter in hindsight.
* This changes if you have a big family in a heavy-duty diesel truck. I’m not going to put Athena’s paws on the scale to make this look better.

The Good:

  • No commuting!
  • RVers tend to use less day-to-day energy than traditional households.

The Great:

  • Any energy I avoid getting from the grid, be it from propane, a cheap generator, or an expensive solar rig, emits far less CO₂ than Colorado’s majority-coal grid.
  • Most of my appliances can run off of propane. (The propane heater also needs some electricity for the blower fan.) The only obvious consumption monster is the air conditioner.
  • I currently can charge all my gadgets except my laptop off of solar, and the next laptop will be able to charge off solar via USB-C.
 
It looks like I’m on target for a significantly lower overall carbon footprint unless I’m moving locations all the time. Again, this is back-of-napkin, and my qualified engineer friends will know a zillion inefficiencies that complicate this.
Also, the napkin is made from hemp.