BURNING MAN - How Do You Do It??

[CallDon]

I posted this at another forum but wanted to see how the variety of FG owners here did this. Have any of you taken your FG trailer to Burning Man?
How many days did you stay?
Was electricity provided at all or did you not use electricity? Solar?
With the small tanks of fiberglass trailers, how did you do it?
How did you make the freshwater last for so many days? Showers?
And what about dumping tanks?

I would love to go to Burning Man sometime, but I'm not sure about how you deal with all of that!

Any info is helpful from folks who have been there, done that in their tiny trailers.

Thanks,

Don

[Johnny B]

Don, check out these folks, they have taken their Oliver to Burning Man, I'm sure they would know. There is a picture of their Oliver at Burning Man about mid-way down the page.

Technomadia at Burning Man

[honda03842]

You can purchase dump services for your RV at Burning Man. This doesn't seem to be the case for water though I haven't read the whole guide.
There is a link at the end of the post for the guide and Burning Man.

One of the weaknessess of the Scamp and Casita is the small water tank. We have managed to make it for 5 days on 25 gallons of water. Both the Black and grey tanks are adequate for 5 days if you're careful with the grey.

One of next year's projects is to replace my water tank with a larger tank for those out of the way places.

Water tanks are inexpensive and relatively easy to install.

http://www.burningman.com/first_timers/

[Cherie Ve Ard]

Hi there... I'm Cherie of Technomadia, referenced above.

We did take our Oliver to the Burn for all three years we owned it, and prior to that we went in our 16' T@b teardrop trailer. It's entirely possible to thrive at Burning Man with limited resources... heck, folks go in tents.

We typically stay 10-20 days when we go (we usually get early entry for projects we're in, and stay late to help with clean-up) and have not yet run out of resources.

As we full timed in all of these trailers, we were ultra in tune with our usage and capacities. (We've been on the road full time for over 5 years now).

With the T@b, we had just a 5 gallon water tank and no gray, and just a little portable chem toilet (yes, we full timed in it for a year). We used water jugs for our drinking and washing water, and collected & evaporated in. We used a camping solar shower over an evap pond for very brief showers a couple times a week (and baby wipe cleaning the rest of the time). We used the port-potties (supplemented by a pee bottle for late night use) that year for black needs.

In the Oliver, we had 38.5 gallons of fresh, and an equal size grey tank - which was just about enough for our time there with conservative use. But we always carried a couple of 2.5 gallon water jugs - just in case. Usually our campmates 'gifted' us several more gallons of water that we just didn't need and became a hassle to cart off the playa. Our black tank was 18 gallons, so we used that for overnight use, and porta-potties the rest of the time.

Yes, you can flag down a tank pump service and drain your grey & black tanks. However, it costs $50, and unless you happen to catch them -can mean spending your entire day waiting for one. It's much better to know your capacities, and utilize the public toilets for what you can't provide. External holding tanks can also be useful if you want to lug them out there and back.

For electricity, BM does not provide any (unless you are staff or part of center camp).So anything you need - you bring. Both of our travel trailers were outfitted with solar, which allowed us to run our satellite dish & modem, computers (we work online), lights, water pump, lights for the camp shade structure, etc. For the few times we needed A/C in the Oliver, we had a Honda 2000 generator plumbed to run off propane that we turned on when needed.

We sold our Oliver a few months ago, and have now moved into a 35' vintage bus conversion. We just did the burn again, and it was a complete luxury to have 90 gallons of fresh water, and gray/black tanks to match! Daily showers and no porta-potties for the win!!! We don't yet have solar installed (will soon), but we do have a nifty 500 amp hour Lithium Ion battery bank that is massively awesome for living off grid (we only need to run our genset a couple times the entire week, and were able to run our induction cooktop, lights, computers, etc. Heck, we even ran our neighbors coach!).

Burning Man is an incredible experience, and a lot of fiberglass RVs out there of all shapes and sizes.

Best wishes,
- Cherie
Technomadia

[Carol H]

Cherie, Luv your website and all the info you provide!
Wonder if you did anything special to prep your Oliver for Burning Man - was thinking in regards to the sand & window issues or anything else.

[Cherie Ve Ard]

Here's our general tips for preparing an RV for Burning Man:

12 Tips for Taking an RV to Burning Man | Technomadia


Enjoy!

- Cherie

[Johnny B]

Cherie, thanks for jumping on here and filling us in on how to tackle Burning Man with an RV. My wife is refusing to take ours to BM, maybe your experience will give her some insight. But then again, I think she just might like camping in domes. Thanks again, I have been looking for this specific information. You guys are awesome, love following your new bus stories.

[Hollyjoy]

I'm taking my Trillium 1300 this year to Burning Man. How would a FG trailer be in the heat? Will it be like an oven?

[Air Doug]

All trailers and tents get hot then hotter when it is hot outside. Unless you are a jerk and run a generator and AC all day.

I built a frame about 6 inches above my trailer and suspended aluminet shade cloth over it. I also have used aluminet on the south (sunny) side of the trailer and as an awning. I highly recommend you do something like that. Get the highest shade rating aluminet you can get, like 70%.

[Steve Carlson]

Why anybody would want to choke on that much dust is beyond me. It's just not good for you.

[BolerMike]

Originally Posted by Air Doug

All trailers and tents get hot then hotter when it is hot outside. Unless you are a jerk and run a generator and AC all day.

I built a frame about 6 inches above my trailer and suspended aluminet shade cloth over it. I also have used aluminet on the south (sunny) side of the trailer and as an awning. I highly recommend you do something like that. Get the highest shade rating aluminet you can get, like 70%.

Agreed *mostly* my Boler was a sauna even with a tarp shade structure.

Aluminet and a swamp cooler are great options. Make sure to keep an air gap (as noted by Air Doug) between your camper and shade structure and make sure your shade structure can withstand wind gusts (I mean like hurricane strength wind gusts) or you'll be chasing it across the playa.

The reason I say 'mostly' is that running a quiet generator during the hottest part of the day is a fair option especially if you invite others in to share your 'coolness' and electricity or if it's a necessity (if you're older or have small children etc.) Also if you're part of a theme camp depending on the camp you may have access to electricity and/or an airconditioned (or otherwise cooled) communal space.

If you join a theme camp many other amenities may be shared as well. If you're on your own - you are literally on your own (Radical Self-Reliance) ergo plan to cover all of your needs yourself. RV service is sporadic, unreliable and extremely inconvenient as you will find yourself waiting for a service truck that may or may not actually even show up. I usually bring about a gallon of water per person per day (I never actually use that much but that's what I bring) and then I run the sink drain to a 5 gallon pail for easy disposal.

BTW evap ponds are gross and I've never seen one work properly yet. Dust blows in to them making mud which doesn't evaporate and even if you did get it to work the odds of it being empty for exodus are nil and now you have a kiddie pool of gross waste that you somehow have to get rid of before you can leave. <insert barfing emoji here>

[Bruce H]

There was a sign in the Walmart at Winnemucca the last time I was there that there would be absolutely no refunds on bicycles, tents and sleeping bags that had been taken to Burning Man.

[John in Santa Cruz]

Originally Posted by Air Doug

All trailers and tents get hot then hotter when it is hot outside. Unless you are a jerk and run a generator and AC all day.
.

my kid co-runs a large theme camp at BRC every year... he has a couple 20KW 'quiet tactical' military diesel generator he sets up and shares power with his theme camp and several adjoining ones, they can run dozens and dozens of RV air conditioners all day. at night, the generator powers their live stage and lights.

i visited him once when his crew was getting ready a week or two before Burning Man setup.... yeesh, said 2 20KVA generators, a dozen 50 gallon drums of diesel, 3 or 4 of those big poly-cube/cage water carriers that are 100s of gallons each. 5 ton 6x6 army truck pulls that 20,000 lb payload trailer, then there's a MFK-99 mobile field kitchen which acts as their theme camp's community kitchen (also has a 6 full keg beer fridge), etc etc etc. their convoy ends up with like 20 vehicles.


said 6x6 truck...