Technical Reviews and Geek Toys

Like many other families across this great land of ours, we faced the reality last fall of either selling our home or losing it to foreclosure. We decided we were going to sacrifice a little comfort and pay off some bills. So we put 99.9% of our belongings into storage and moved our home office and ourselves into our Zeppelin Z271 travel trailer. When we purchased the trailer the year before we were looking for a trailer to take camping and this model met our needs nicely. We were a little unsure how it would fair as a full-time abode.

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The first thing that I had to do was replace the queen size 'trailer grade' mattress with our more comfortable pillow-top mattress. In the bedroom area there is a fold-up TV shelf with just enough room for a DVD player. We had a 12" B&W TV which was too heavy for the shelf. So we purchased a Samsung 21" TV/Monitor to replace that and discovered that by using the TV antenna we are able to pick up 2 PBS HD channels, one local HD channel and one regular channel. We spend much of our down time watching DVDs so a few TV channels is nice.

Next, I pulled the fold-down sofa out to make room for a 6' folding table that would serve as our office space. We have 2 workstations as well as a server with associated peripherals that lives on and under the table. Above the table is a small cabinet for storage. Each of us started out with 17" monitors so I replaced those with a Samsung 22" monitor on a KVM switch. This has recently been changed a little as Bella bought me a new PC for Father's day. So now I have a 24" monitor on my machine and beside it sits the Samsung monitor used by Bella's machine and the server via the KVM switch. On the other end of the table sits a HP2600N laser printer.

Since this is a travel trailer and not really constructed for year-around living, I knew some modifications would have to be made to protect the plumbing from freezing temperatures. There are three storage tanks, black water, grey water, and fresh water. I discovered the fresh water tank is installed above the axles and is enclosed with a furnace duct to help keep it warm. There was, however plumbing that exited the enclosed space and traveled around 6' to re-enter the trailer to feed the bathroom. This is plastic pipe and very vulnerable. I wrapped each pipe with a molded foam pipe insulation made for the purpose of insulating pipe and wrapped with a heat tape. Next I installed 1' foam insulation under the floor wherever I could to increase the insulation underneath. To help protect the black and grey water tanks, I then installed 6" fiberglass insulation from the front of the grey tank to the back of the black tank. The fresh water into the trailer comes in via a garden hose connecting the faucet to a connection on the side of the trailer. This is protected by the same pipe insulation mentioned above wrapped with heat tape. We also placed shrink-to-fit plastic storm windows on all of the windows to try to insulate them.

The next obstacle was deciding what we could and couldn't live without as storage space is very limited. There is a small closet on either side of the bed with some storage under the bed inside and pass-thru storage under the bed accessed from the outside. In the hall there is a closet with a couple of shelves below. There is a fairly deep but very narrow pantry and a couple of fairly small cabinets in the galley area. Under the sink there is also limited storage.... no drawers anywhere. We purchased some plastic stacking drawers and have 4 of them stuck under the end of the bed for socks & such. Some small stacking drawers live under the sink for kitchen stuff with a silverware tray living on top of these. And we have 6 plastic totes filled with various things living in the pass-thru storage. Everything has to have a place and everything has to be in it's place or it rapidly gets very cluttered.

It was a crazy time.... we had to make quite a few improvements to the house in order to get it sold. Bella was packing and I was loading up the borrowed trailer and taking stuff to storage. In between I was working on the trailer trying to figure out where everything was going to go as well as deciding what had to be done to prepare it for winter. We moved into the trailer a few days before we closed as the house was getting empty and .... well it is all a blur as we were pretty exhausted by days end. We found a very small RV park (I think there are 12 spaces) close to the San Juan River with a lot of open space. On the day of closing, we moved the trailer there and left our home behind.

So, how did we fair? I think we did quite well. We had an unusually wet winter with a couple of snowfalls of around 8 inches. The temperature may have fallen below zero a couple of times and I remember around a week when the temperature stayed below freezing. The trailer comes equipped with two 60lb propane tanks and we averaged a tank a week costing around $12.50 a week. We had a small ceramic bathroom heater with a thermostat that kept us very comfortable during the day. The slide out where the dinette table lives has a large window that pulled in some solar heat mid-day and there was the heat generated by the computers. We tried to use the ceramic heater all of the time but when the temperature went below freezing we had to use the furnace at night to keep the water from freezing.

For proper operation the black water tank gate has to remain closed and needs to be dumped one a week. The grey water tank, however, can remain open all of the time. I constructed a drain pipe which will enable the hose that drains the black tank as well as the drain for the grey tank to be connected all of the time. Then to drain the black tank all we have to do is pull the gate and close it when we are done. I have an adapter for the grey tank which enables a garden hose to be connected when the tank is draining all of the time. One morning we got up to find water on the floor. The garden hose had froze up which caused the grey tank to fill up and water overflowed the bathtub. So I removed the adapter and connected the drain pipe directly to the outlet for the grey tank which resolved that issue. The gate on the black tank however was another matter. As it was outside the protection of the added on insulation, it constantly froze up just enough that it wouldn't open. It was only a minor issue as I could place a heater below the gate to thaw it out so it could be opened to drain the black tank.

With such a small space, our biggest problem was condensation. The walls are only around 3" thick with a aluminum frame. The windows are also aluminum so at night condensation formed everywhere. We purchased some moisture traps and placed them in the closets and around which helped a little. Every morning we had to get up and wipe down the windows and walls. I considered buying a dehumidifier, but just didn't have a place to put it. Then this spring I noticed there is a "Dry" setting on the furnace. This turns on the air conditioner compressor to draw moisture out of the air when the furnace is operating. I'll give that a try this winter.

On a more personal note.... we have now lived in the trailer for nine months. I am not as claustrophobic as Bella. In the process of our day-to-day business we have hardware to assemble and configure, I bring in computers to work on, and sometimes the space gets very crowded. There are times when Bella needs to get on her machine when I am on mine and as there is only room for one at the desk, one of us has to either wait or remote in to our machine from the laptop. (Oh, that makes 5 computers in the house. And I have just ordered another laptop.) Bella has walked into the house when I have had boxes stacked around so that there is hardly any room to get by and she has gone into a panic. We bought a screened in gazebo which lives to the side of the trailer and we have the awning out so she can spend some time outside. The fridge is small with a freezer about the size of a large shoe box. We have a small chest freezer sitting outside the front door to give us some extra storage for food. The oven is very small and not very usable. Bella has tried to bake pizza and brownies and neither one came out well. The temperature outside has reached the lower 90s so using the stove to cook on just adds to the heat in the house. We took our propane grill out of storage which helps there. There is a vent towards the front of the trailer above our office space. I bought a personal fan and have it stuck up in the vent to try to vent the heat generated by the computers and that works pretty well. In the evening we open up all of the windows and doors and enjoy the outside air. In the morning I have to close everything up and turn on the air conditioner so it will kick on when the temperature hits the high 70s inside.

I am very pleased with the construction and performance of the trailer. It was designed to be a summer camping trailer so we are really pushing the limits and it has performed well.