We Got The Power! Keeping Gracie's Lights On

My husband spent what seemed a ridiculous amount of time & effort calculating just what our wattage needs were for popup life. The tediousness of this made me crazy just to watch. But I've been repeatedly grateful in the 6 months since when our electrical needs were met, especially in harsh conditions for a popup. 

We both have CPAP machines for sleep apnea so we knew we'd at least need a small battery bank for those. He bought 1 deep cycle marine battery and an 800 watt inverter. We later added another battery because one wouldn't run the CPAP's for a full night.

He also bought a 4000 watt gas powered generator. It was enough to run the air conditioner on high as well as the CPAP's, a couple of dehumidifiers and lights. I found I struggled to sleep with it running so when it wasn't super cold we ran silent on batteries at night and then turn the generator on during the day to recharge the batteries.

Then when it was cold we were on the generator all night and frankly when I was cold it was calming do you have the sound of that motor running knowing that it would be keeping me warm.

There is the sense in popup life that you're always on the edge of peril when it comes to weather. Of course you can always just get out of the popup and go sit in the truck and turn it on and run it but this is not really what you want to do in the middle of the night when you're cold and tired.

I do think that we gain something as far as in eight coping skills by experiencing the weather more personally. But part of my illness and part of Walt's too actually, is that we will struggle with chronic pain. Mine is severely affected by weather especially barometer changes that drop below 30. 

The basic messages that all of the legwork that Walt did before we left on our pilgrimage turned out to be the best time spent investing in planning. Moreso really than anything else that we did.

Our '93 Coleman Newport popup is a not quite 30 amp bus. 

Get busy living or get busy dying.

Copyright - (c) - Chardale Irvine - 2014. All rights reserved.