Hey Vic, thanks for the feedback! I have included my responses below.
Ugh, sorry about the green font... in hindsight I see it is super hard to read....
- Is this your first camping rig? Pretty much. Wife and I did a fair share of car camping out west prior to the kid arriving. Borrowed a pop up a handful of times from a relative when I was younger.
- Great!
- How old are you, wife, son? Young (by the WTW standards I would guess ). My wife and I are in our 30's, child is 2 years old possible the family grows in the future.
- growing family changes everything periodically!
- Will you be camping in established campgrounds with AC/water hookups or off the grid? I'd ideally like to be more off grid. If I had to guess, I'd say something like 80/20 off grid vs campgrounds.
- so less likely to need AC/DC charging, more solar and DCDC
- If off grid, for how long between driving/sunny days? I'd say we are fairly mobile most days. We tend to hike/sightsee for a few hours a day which typically necessitates some sort of driving. I can only think of one time we stayed put for 2 days without driving was when we were in Mt. Rainier NP and had a really great campsite with trails attached to the campground.
- Loved Rainier when we were there. It was even sunny, but the trees shaded most of the campsites. DCDC charging came in really handy! And if you drive to a trailhead, the solar on the roof can take over the charging while you are out hiking. You can likely bet on getting a full recharge daily that way... some DCDC, some solar.
- What appliances do you plan to power? Some folks run super minimal, others run induction cooktops... I'm partial to cooking outside, so since I'm already committed to hauling propane that eliminates the need for electrical for cooking.
OK, that's good. I build my kitchen in the PUMA so I could put my Camp Chef Everest on the counter, or use it outside (which is what we normally do)
Other than that, some sort of furnace,
I've installed two Propex furnaces in my builds. Still noisier than a catalytic heater, but pretty darn efficient and way less condensation. The Dometic/Attwood furnaces used to be good and simple, but lately they are having some issues.
I'm thinking a Fan but part of me just says to keep it simple and use the normal vent.
- Get a fan. Maxxair is more $$$ but people seem to like them. Fantastic Fan really benefits from modification to allow more speed adjustments
I think we could get buy charging phones and such in the truck while driving.
Yup
Fresh food is a high priority and I'd like to be able to go 3-4 days between grocery trips for 3-4 active people so I'm thinking I need a 80L or larger refrigerator?
We eat a lot of fresh ourselves, and the 130L TruckFridge (normal front opening style) is wonderful. It is tall enough that getting it to fit is tricky.
- Water system- Go back and forth here. Really want to be able to cook/was dishes, but we do a lot of camping in shoulder seasons and worrying about freezing/winterizing just doesn't sound fun. Anyone have a simple hand pump/jerry can system with a built in sink?
Lots of people here use water jugs, either with electric or manual pumps, or just gravity feed. Sink can be as simple as a plastic dishpan that drops into a hole in the countertop. That said, we have a 30 gal tank with dual water filters, a sink and I pressurized the drain line, so the normal "drain" for the water tank becomes an outside water source, which is great for outdoor cooking.