Living full time & long term in an RV or motor home is a challenging existence. It's not like an RV vacation, where you either rent an RV/Motor home that is maintained by someone else or you own one but just use it a few times a year and then store it the rest of the time. There are always ongoing maintenance and repair issues that require deliberate and conscious attention. Either you need to have a bottomless trust fund if your going to want to take your RV/Motor home in for services and repairs or your going to need to be willing to learn how to take care of these things yourself. We have opted for the latter since our primary goal in all our endeavors is increased self reliance. We headed South last fall from Maine because we knew our motor home was not prepared to handle the extreme winter freezing of the northeast. Little did we realize then that the winter in the southeast would be much colder and snowier than it usually is. Still not as much so as the northeast we are so accustomed to, but we had to take some last minute preventative measures to protect our plumbing from the freezing temps and had to add a small electric space heater to help us stay warm since we are low on LP and need to reserve what we have for cooking. Extra insulation around the plumbing that was exposed, opening cupboard doors at night to let some of the heat underneath keep them from freezing, a heating pad we fortunately brought with us that we placed around the plumbing in the back corner under the cupboard at the foot of the bed, where we knew not much heat could get without the use of the LP furnace. We got in the routine of emptying the waterlines at night and shutting off the water pump to reduce the risk of pipes bursting if they did freeze. It all worked and we had no major plumbing freeze issues. But the nights when it dipped into the low teens were cold...even all wrapped up in our fleece blankets it was still chilly in here. We were certainly grateful we had come this far south and not stayed in the northeast, it would have been far more challenging of a winter. Winter in NC only lasts for a couple of months really, nothing compared with the 6-8 months of winter in Vermont! lol Over the summer we will try and collect the proper insulation for the plumbing and hopefully we will find an opportunity to get some insulation board to make a skirting for the motor home before the next winter season is upon us. Skirting would have helped alot. We also have one small leak in the back of the roof that we need to repair. It's a stubborn spot that we have always had some problems resolving, this summer will be the summer Ram resolves that leak once and for all! We did get a newer battery for the engine as well. The one we had just died when it got really cold and there was no bringing it back. We couldn't go without starting the engine at least every couple of weeks, but Ram was having to charge it on the battery charger to get it enough juice to turn over and then after a while even that was not enough. The burden of getting down here to NC and then the cold snap was just too much for the battery that was in it and we were fortuante to find someone with a newer one they could spare and they gifted it to us, very generous indeed. I am also planning on making, either sewing or crocheting, insulation covers for all the windows since we learned that the addition of blankets over the curtains on the windows made a lot of different in keeping the heat in and the cold out. Same with covering the entry door. On a more positive note, the cockpit faces the sunrise each morning and the roomy dash board happens to make an excellent little greenhouse for our seed starts this early in the year. With two sewing machines at my disposal now plus access to a serging machine, I am considering recovering the foams on the dinette seating this summer as well as making a cover for the couch and matching curtains to redo the interior of the motor home, if i can find a suitable fabric on craigslist. We shall see how much I can get accomplished around farm chores. I am noticing that there is a lot more talk of people adopting similar full time, long term RV/Motor home existences these days. I find it a wonderfully liberating, free and self reliant existence. However, without any young children, other than our beloved Leo, the reality of living full time and long term in a 10' X 27' box is somewhat simpler. Still it has been no small challenge to become and remain as self reliant as we have managed thus far. Increasing that self reliance is a daily challenge too, but I thrive on a challenge and we have no regrets in adopting this existence reality. We love that the Black Walnut is our home, that we have the freedom to travel at will as suits us & that we answer to no one but ourselves.
Welcome to The Black Walnut Forum. Owning & maintaining a motor home is no small responsibility, especially when your a first timer! In the blog above we will document our experiences in owning and maintaining our motor home, the black Walnut. We encourage and welcome ...
