Living in an RV full time has been a never ending series of system failures and repairs. Our experience jumping from a stationary home to the RV has been exhausting and nothing prepared me for just how emotionally destabilizing it can feel over time. Perhaps if I hadn’t been trying to work a full-time job while developing the land or if had more experience with RV systems, it would have been easier.
I expected a certain amount of maintenance after following the lives of sailors, vanlifers, and RV full-timers on YouTube for the past couple years. The constant motion of a sailboat in the ocean, for example, accelerates wear and tear faster than a typical home on land. This leads to frequent breakdowns even with regular maintenance.
Our situation is not as critical as a sailboat crossing the Pacific, though it sometimes seems just as delicate. We bought 20 acres of vacant land back in June, 2022 and moved into our trailer to live while developing structures to protect us from the high summer heat and the low winter cold.
We left our home in San Diego where everything just worked, including us. We still work from home and I don’t mean we’re travel bloggers, farming our land, or ghostwriters, and we’re not in the gig economy.
Both Levy and I work full-time jobs where we are online constantly interacting with co-workers, customers, and systems. I spend at least 6 hours a day on Zoom calls, often in bigger group meetings of 6 or more people where I am actively contributing if not leading. There is hardly a time to grab a bite to eat or use the restroom in between. Levy is taking and making calls where constant, consistent reachability is a must.
Working from home is difficult, however, when the systems that power life here fail. And it’s noticeable! It becomes pretty obvious when you’re on camera and the whole RV starts to shake from the strong winds. It’s hard not to be distracted when the power goes out and I scramble mid-call to troubleshoot and restore power to my second and third monitors.
This has been a pretty challenging and new experience for me since I was never into working with my hands like my dad or brother, or even my mom who took on more than her share of remodeling and furniture refinishing projects. They were always doing something and learning as they went. I picked up a few things, fortunately, but my projects were more focused on taking apart a vacuum or putting together a robot on the living room floor in front of the TV.
As an adult, fixing something around the house after work or spending a Saturday cleaning gutters has been something I do begrudgingly when procrastination was no longer an option. With Levy’s encouragement, though, I grew to take pride in fixing things after watching a video on YouTube and ordering a part from Amazon.
I’ve fixed our dishwasher several times, replaced the garbage disposer, demolished our kitchen and bathroom, and installed the wiring and lighting in a new closet wall in our oversized bedroom. It was Levy, though, who remodeled the bathroom and built the new wall from scratch in our bedroom. I still gravitate towards fixing the electronics stuff, like replacing the failed circuit board in our 55″ LED TV or replacing the air conditioning relay in our 2009 Ford Escape SUV. I do enjoy using my soldering iron, after all.
Here on our new property and in our little trailer, never have we had a day where the chores weren’t significant, a development project wasn’t on the docket, and no systems failed. We’ve been in the RV continuously for 6 months now. You would think I would have a good handle on how everything works. I don’t, though.
My own ignorance became clear to me when we plugged in the washing machine and popped a GFCI socket breaker. I can troubleshoot an AC breaker issue, but why didn’t my DC accessories work?! I still don’t know, but I reset all the breakers and GFCI sockets and jiggled enough wires to finally get it all working again. In hindsight, I think my understanding of what systems here use DC power was incomplete on that one. Until you think it through, the interplay between DC and AC systems in the RV seems a total mystery. Convoluted as it is, it makes sense when you realize the goal is to camp off-grid.
The variety of failures has been perplexing, but what has been the most tiring is the near daily frequency and sometimes multiple system failures simultaneously. Anyway, without further adieu, I’m going to keep track of what breaks for a while to give everyone a sense of just what goes on in here. The insights for myself could be useful too. Let’s find out!
| Date | Issue | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Pre-Sep-2022 | So. Many. Issues. | I didn’t take detailed notes before September 16th, but plenty of things had gone wrong which prompted me to keep track. 1. The water heater pilot light went out with increasing frequency. 2. We lost grid power in the height of the work day possibly due to an overheating extension cord when it was nearly 100º F with relentless sun for weeks on end and the air conditioner running non-stop. 3. My 4000W inverter would shutdown and restart for 10 seconds at a time for no reason during a live meeting. 4. We lost the cover to one roof vent. 5. A stray dog arrived then three more. We had packs of dogs cross our property a couple times, but these four were with us more than a month and all were very loving. 6. A stolen water truck was parked outside our property and I thought there might be a dead body inside. 7. The massive Fairview Fire consumed 30,000 acres and we had to evacuate. |
| 16-Sep-2022 | Harold was killed | There aren’t really enough words to say all the good things about Harold or all the sad things about his untimely passing. Unfortunately, the stray dogs did what animals do and killed Harold. Maybe someday I’ll write more when it hurts less. |
| 21-Sep-2022 | No lights and refrigerator out | Levy was home alone while I was on a business trip when the lights and refrigerator stopped working. I talked her through some troubleshooting and the next morning she hooked up the solar panels. The solar charger didn’t seem to work and eventually the cell modem stopped. We never were able to fix it remotely, but when I got home, I confirmed that one of the battery’s built-in battery management system (BMS) had gone into a protection state, refusing to produce power or take a charge. The A/C battery charger had stopped working weeks earlier and I hadn’t fixed it, so the solar power hadn’t been enough to keep them charged that night. To get them charging again, I had to trick the one battery back into operational mode using a car jump starter battery pack. Connecting 2 lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO) batteries in parallel can trick an automatic charger into sending current when it won’t if it detects that the battery is not taking a charge. Receiving a charge resets the BMS back into operational mode…and solar charge the next day carried us along until January. |
| 2-Oct-2022 | Keyboard | Carmen the cat threw up on my keyboard. I tried to wash it out and left the power off while I let it dry. Now it won’t stay connected (Bluetooth). |
| 6-Oct-2022 | Kumar was out all night #2 | Phew. My heart rate is coming down. My 2nd cat was out all night, chased and surrounded by the dogs under the crackhouse. My wife couldn’t sleep and was walking around at all hours of the night. I got up before 6am to look and she didn’t really work at all distracted, walking, calling for him, and finally crawling under the dilapidated mobile home. She got me excited at 2pm saying she found him only to have not seen him, only heard him. Then finally saw him. I spent 2 hours digging holes to get under more of the crack shack while she waded through garbage, mouse or rat droppings, and God knows what under there. My wife scared the dogs away with pepper spray and I lured them away with food. When Kumar, our cat, came out next to my head (I was laying on my stomach wearing only shoes and underwear to keep my clothes clean), my favorite dog came cuddling up to me. Shit! I had to quietly escort her away. With his favorite smelly food in my hand, I coaxed him into coming down from the flooring of the marijuana grow house one more but he got scared away by thunder from the dark clouds that had appeared from nowhere. Third time’s a charm, though, and he cautiously walked out paused and walked the 20 feet to our open trailer door. Dirty paws and stuff sticking to his tail, but he’s eating like he hasn’t eaten in days. I hope he learned his lesson. His brother Harold was unfortunately killed by the dogs just a few weeks ago.I’m gonna go drink the rest of the night, but will be more attentive tomorrow. Sorry to Michael on my team at work since I had to cancel our 1:1 at the last minute when the fun really began. Never a boring day here on the hill. |
| 13-Oct-2022 | First Dog Taken Away | I can’t really bring myself to write much about this event or Harold’s passing. We had called the county animal control officer previously and even had the first stray dog loaded (before the other three ever arrived) until we found out that they will definitely kill the animals. We had been under the assumption they wouldn’t based on our experience with San Diego Animal Control. When the officer said they would, Levy and I couldn’t send her with him. We let her out with the intent of keeping her, but after Harold’s death and having four dogs, it became clear we didn’t need the extra responsibility and distraction. We didn’t have a safe, warm place to keep them out of the rain, cold, or away from other animals. It was a very, very difficult decision to call animal control again. It was very emotional to trap them and load them up to be taken away. It was not easy for them or us. The first one to go was the first to arrive. We called her Dr. Gray as in Gray’s Anatomy. |
| 14-Oct-2022 | Two More Dogs Taken | Just as emotional as the first one. We called these two Dr. Shepherd (another Gray’s Anatomy reference) and Baby Mama. |
| 17-Oct-2022 | Fourth and Final Dog Taken | This was really sad because this last dog was the baby of one that was taken away a few days earlier. She just paced around our property looking for her mama and her friends who had all disappeared. We called her Baby Dog. |
| 25-Oct-2022 | Low Water Pressure | Our water pipes froze…or became frozen-like until it warmed up. I walked around outside in my underwear troubleshooting for 10 minutes, checking the various other faucets to confirm it’s not just our filter or indoor plumbing. It affected all the hoses (all above-ground) from the well head, including to the trailer. |
| 3-Dec-2022 | Fresh Water Tank Dropped | Fresh water tank supports broke. The welded “cage” supports the weight of the fresh water tank broken under the weight, perhaps exacerbated by the cold temperature? Anyway, I propped it up with the small jack from our Toyota Prius. Gotta get that thing fixed… |
| 7-Dec-2022 | Water Hose Froze | We had already removed the in-line filter that seemed permanently damaged from a previous freeze, but the narrow metal-clad hose and even the thick rubber farm hose seemed to freeze tonight somewhere around 32 degrees (the car said 29 and my iPhone says it’s 35–can’t wait to get a little Internet-connected weather station hooked up). |
| 13-Dec-2022 | No DC Power | It snowed the day before, so we ran out of battery capacity without any sun to generate power from our solar panels. Incidentally, the A/C to D/C battery charger failed months ago and I didn’t replace it. So, we also couldn’t charge the batteries from the grid power we have. Nice. |
| 15-Dec-2022 | Water Pipe | For no specific reason, I decided as I was walking by that I would just look at the water pressure gauge. It read 0. It never reads 0. It’s usually like 40 or 50 depending on the amount of water in the pressure tanks. So, I checked the water flow from a nearby valve and the water came out…also from the side of the valve that had apparently burst by the freezing of the water during our recent freezing snow day. |
| 16-Dec-2022 | Water Pipe | Another water valve was discovered to be busted open from the side as I was shutting off the water for our month-long vacation. Luckily, these both should be easy to replace myself at the lowest possible cost due to their accessibility and (sadly) their recent replacement which leaves no rusty threads to unseal. |
| 6-Jan-2023 | Batteries are Dead | Once again, the solar power wasn’t enough to keep the batteries charged. We had left on a long drive to Houston for Christmas and then to Peoria, IL for New Years Eve. Without an A/C charger, with a few rainy days, and with the heat on consuming D/C power on the fan, the batteries finally ran down 3 weeks after we left. The biggest concern this created for me was that we lost security camera feeds and Internet access. The Wi-Fi lightbulbs and sockets had also been turning lamps on to dissuade would-be burglars. Interestingly, the batteries did not recharge the next sunny day either due to a cascade of conditions that kept them drained. Assuming the BMS hadn’t disabled a battery, the load from the furnace fan, cellular modem, cameras, and assorted devices kept them drained despite any power from the solar charge controller. Perhaps on a really sunny day, the panels could have generated enough power to feed all the demands, but as soon as enough power was present to turn on the thermostat the furnace fan immediately drained it all and the cycle just repeated until the sun went down. I was fortunate enough to have a good friend named Chris drive out to the country from San Diego a couple days later and reset the BMS. It worked great until the sun went down. It never worked again until we got home a week later when I could charge it manually. |
| 24-Feb-2023 | Prius Battery Died | The Prius has been a retreat for Jaizel while Levy and I have endless Zoom meetings all day. Unfortunately, the Prius has a very unexpected behavior where it keeps the headlights or interior lights on. For example, the lights stay on if you stop driving and stay in the car without opening the doors, even if you use the remote to lock the car. Unbeknownst to the driver, the lights stay on the battery drains. Jump starting the Prius is easy enough, but a pain. Glad I have a small portable battery pack to jump start each of my cars. |
| 27-Feb-2023 | Toilet Clogged and Water All Over the Floor | The toilet in the camper has a lever to flush that also opens a cover to the waste tank. Below the opening, before the tube down to the tank, is a bit of a shelf (no idea why). The “shelf” is an unfortunate spot where waste get get held up before heading down the tube to the tank. The clog caused water to get backup and flow out over the bathroom floor. |
| 16-Mar-2023 | Ran Out of Propane | One tank was unusable recently due to a bad valve, so we have been living on a single tank. After a night away for work, we didn’t have time to get a refill before bed when we got back home. So, around 1am we ran out of propane and started getting really cold. The electric heaters were in the shed too, so we spent the morning freezing until the sun came up. Using the electric heaters with the microwave also popped the circuit breaker, so we had to deal with a variety of issues on top of not having hot water for a shower. What a great start to the day! |
| 16-Apr-2023 | Truck Won’t Start | Just when things are going fine, the truck died. It took longer and longer to start beginning on Friday and by Sunday it died after a stop for gas. We had to take an Uber to AutoZone to get some starting fluid which fortunately worked. We were able to start the car by spraying the starting fluid into the air intake. It got us a few miles before it died one more time in the middle of traffic at a stop sign on the way home. Fortunately, I was quick on the starting fluid and got it running again in a minute. That week, we scrambled to get a rental car then go look at a used car. By Wednesday we had a new-to-us used car. A 2017 Subaru Outback. Our dirt roads and winter weather require 4×4, so this was a good choice for a second car. |
| 17-May-2023 | Killed a Rattlesnake | Casually talking in front of our trailer, I noticed a strange shape out of the corner of my eye. Mid-sentence I decide to let my mind wander. Lo and behold, it was a snake. It wasn’t angry or aggressive, but it was a rattlesnake and we agreed that we could not let it continue to hang around our property. I was genuinely sad to kill it. It wasn’t threatening us and it didn’t have to die, but it was the only way we could feel safe for ourselves, the cats, and our guests. Rest in peace, rattlesnake. |
| 24-May-2023 | Dumpster Delivery Torn Down Our Gate | To dispose of the melted metal that was a double-wide mobile home on the top pad, we ordered a very large bin. It was delivered on a big, big truck from a metal recycler out of Oceanside. Our interior road to the top pad had been blocked a week earlier by a load of gravel we had delivered for another project, so the only way up to the drop-off point was out our side gate and back into the top gate. The truck was so tall that the top of the bin hit the very large circumference wooden telephone pole that formed the top crossing beam of our entrance (like you might go under as you enter a fancy ranch). The driver stopped while the pole rested across the bin and I just shrugged it off and gave him the signal to proceed, damage to the gate be damned. It knocked over one of the vertical poles holding it up along with the crossing beam, so now I gotta fix that. We always seem to make more work for ourselves… |
| 30-May-2023 | Tried to Repair a Road | After we spend two days loading up the metal meticulously into the bin with a number of scratches, bumps, and back aches, we called to have them pick up the bin. It was only then that the dispatcher told us the driver wasn’t sure it could haul the full bin out because of a very uneven section of the main dirt road to our property. The even took a screenshot from Google Maps and drew a big red arrow identifying the hazard. If we didn’t fix it, they said we would have to unload it! I CANNOT believe they wouldn’t have told us that the very same or next day when the driver had come to this conclusion, rather than waiting for us to fill the bin! So, Levy and I went out after work (we’re always busy after work) and used our shovels, pickaxe, hoe, rake, gravel, and water to try to repair the road. 3 hours later and called on account of darkness, it’s still not good enough. We delayed the pickup and now are going to have to hire someone with a tractor and a load of gravel or dirt to do more work at more cost to us. |
| 26-Apr-2024 | Robbed and Truck Stolen | There will have to be a much longer post about this shit. I’ve got some pictures and video, but disappointingly few due to the nature of how they broke in. I’ll update this page with a link as soon as I can get the whole story written down. There will be extensive lessons learned. |
| 14-May-2024 | Squirrel in Trailer! | I’m sitting in a meeting, out of town, when my camera inside the trailer sends a notification. I’m notified there is a pet detected–on the inside camera! Little bugger snuck up an opening on the bottom of the trailer where plumbing and wires enter. Got himself up on top of the cabinet and found my Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. |
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