Although the Airstream has been experiencing round after round of renovations, modifications, and revisions since March 2020, I have for the most part been living in it. During times of life support system changes/fixes (HVAC, water, electricity, etc), the girlfriend has been gracious to share her small north Austin space with me, which has pretty much kept me alive through the blistering Texan summer.
During this time I’ve lived in two RV parks, experienced living in a continuous construction zone, and navigated the less-than-ideal COVID-19 job market. I wouldn’t say I felt like the most stable person during this time, but I was still highly motivated to make progress on the grand vision that the girlfriend and I were dreaming up: a zero-propane travel trailer that generates, stores, and consumes it’s own electricity.
To make that happen, we had to rethink our systems in terms of electrical efficiency and compatibility. This presented several unique challenges for us in terms of HVAC, refrigeration, hot water, and cooking capabilities, as the majority of campers use propane to meet these purposes. As far as we can tell (as people who scour through the Internet for knowledge at every turn), we are the first people to ever create a recreational vehicle with these attributes. We may in fact, be creating the world’s most self-sustaining, eco-friendly RV to date! This becomes even cooler of an idea knowing that the Tesla Cybertruck arrives in a couple years; imagine being able to charge your towing truck with the energy your travel trailer generates and stores 🙂
So this is what caused us some of the most pain – our own requirements and desires… Buddha was right.
Alright, so this is what we’re up to. But why?
- To embody and promote minimalism
- To reduce our impact on the planet
- To create something new and exciting
- To participate in new communities
- To experience, to learn, and to share
Well that’s really cool, but how? TECHNOLOGY, that’s how! Here’s the dream build:
- Tesla Powerwall 2 (planned)
- Eight 160W Flexible Solar Panels (two units installed and working)
- Tesla Starlink (planned)
- Two Senville 9000 BTU Heating/Cooling Mini Split Units (One unit installed and working)
- Energy Efficient Refrigerator/Freezer (done)
- Induction Cooktop (done)
- Point-of-Use Hot Water Heater/Tank (done)
- Tesla Cybertruck (planned)
As the majority of our time is currently spent working and saving up money, we make most of our progress on the weekends, with little improvements/optimizations snuck in during the week. Overall, the project has been really fun! We get to be creative, learn new things, and test out ideas on something that will eventually become our land-crawling spaceship.
If you have any ideas on how to take some of these systems to the next level – please share!
Life + Travel + Passion 