Bath vs NO Bath?

[floyd]

Originally Posted by Bob Miller

Yep, that's it's major drawback, but the Zodi unit only take up about the same space as a Group 27 battery box and is a lot easier to move and store than an entire bathroom.... LOL

if you want a box full of boxes you gotta get an HC1, then you'll never know where something is when you need it. but it sure is cute!

[solovam]

A question for the group. I hardly ever camp at developed campgrounds. I normally just find some dirt road or a pull out and (for now) sleep in the car. This works great when I am by myself, but for the two of us it becomes a hassle. Subaru Forester is a pretty small car Wife and I can sleep fine, but there's no space for gear.

Essentially I almost always "stealth" camp. I have been trying to decide between getting a van and a fiberglass trailer. A trailer is more appealing since it is cheaper and holds value better. A van is stealthier.

If I were to go with a trailer, should I get a toilet and a shower? A portable toilet vs real plumbing? I'd probably just get a new Scamp 13, so can choose my options.

Thanks!

[Mikmay]

I can assure you Floyd as having twelve trailers with similar layouts as your scamp that none are as easy to keep organized as the hc1.

[Bob Miller]

First place to shop is in your owners manual to determine the towing capacity of your Subaru, with special attention to the tongue weight listed.


And, as manufacturers listed weights are only a low-ball starting point, the second place is here, seeing what comes within those limits.
http://www.fiberglassrv.com/forums/f...rld-43010.html


There is at least one earlier thread about towing a 16' FGRV with a Subaru, and the outcome wasn't all that great for the driveline.


Basically you are pretty much limited to a 13' and the Scamp 13' is the easiest to find with a bathroom, but somewhat harder to find with a shower. New is an option, and the last I heard the wait time for delivery was only about 4 months.


There are a number of lighter and slightly small options in the previously owned category, but finding the exact options desired may be difficult.


FWIW: We pulled the loo and holding tank out of our Hunter and went to a Dometic 975 SeaLand porta-potty and find it much more convenient, especially if you are adverse to visiting conventional campgrounds. But there are extensive threads on the pro-and cons of that issue. And again, wanting a 13' with a full (?) bath will severely restrict your choices.


Keep asking questions.

[Kai in Seattle]

We've been mulling this over and realized we bathe our pug girls outside in the summer by setting out black plastic barrel liners ("nests") with water in them in the sun, and by afternoon the water is almost too warm -- we can cool it off with some hose water if necessary. Why not use a black bucket, a non-breakable cup, possibly one of the nests for underfoot, and a privacy tent? We need no battery, just some shore water, and leaving the bucket out in the sun until evening. Depending on the location, even a small privacy curtain or line could be enough, from the van to the trailer...it's just a quick wash-up...by the way, do campgrounds have problems with outside showers? Are you allowed to use soap? Shampoo? We thought just a quick squirt of dish detergent on our hair, then sluice the rest down with those suds to keep it minimal...? Any thoughts?

[floyd]

Originally Posted by Mikmay

I can assure you Floyd as having twelve trailers with similar layouts as your scamp that none are as easy to keep organized as the hc1.

I too have had many trailers. My Scamp of course is a travel trailer which I find more comfortable than any cargo trailer which I have owned. As for organized... well we pretty much did that eleven years ago with only minor changes over the years.

Your HC1 is very cool and cute and a welcome addition to the choices available. I especially like the size... since all the other newcomers seem to start large and the increase in size, IMO negating the purpose of the genre, but still meeting the desires of their buyers, carving out a nice niche in a specialty market.
There certainly is a place for something as unique and versatile as the HC1. It's like a Swiss Army knife.

[Mikmay]

Originally Posted by floyd

I too have had many trailers. My Scamp of course is a travel trailer which I find more comfortable than any cargo trailer which I have owned. As for organized... well we pretty much did that eleven years ago with only minor changes over the years.

Your HC1 is very cool and cute and a welcome addition to the choices available. I especially like the size... since all the other newcomers seem to start large and the increase in size, IMO negating the purpose of the genre, but still meeting the desires of their buyers, carving out a nice niche in a specialty market.
There certainly is a place for something as unique and versatile as the HC1. It's like a Swiss Army knife.

Only sharper lol

[Bob Miller]

About Outside Showers
Letting any kind of water fall onto the ground is, in most campgrounds, usually a NO-NO and adding in any kind of soap to that makes it more so.


The answer is that some of the shower tents have floors that will catch water from where it can be recovered and dumped appropriately. Lacking that, a child's inflatable play-pool works well as a shower base and can be deflated for storage.


On that same topic, if your RV does not have a grey water tank, the long used practice of draining sinks into a bucket is also fast falling into disfavor.


Many campgrounds, including some National Parks, now require a "Closed Drain System" meaning either an on-board gray water tank or an external tank that is connected to the trailer via closed fittings and hoses. This is, in part, to reduce gray water spillage as well as decrease the availability of attractive water/food sources for local inhabitants.

[solovam]

Originally Posted by Bob Miller

Basically you are pretty much limited to a 13' and the Scamp 13' is the easiest to find with a bathroom, but somewhat harder to find with a shower. New is an option, and the last I heard the wait time for delivery was only about 4 months.


There are a number of lighter and slightly small options in the previously owned category, but finding the exact options desired may be difficult.


FWIW: We pulled the loo and holding tank out of our Hunter and went to a Dometic 975 SeaLand porta-potty and find it much more convenient, especially if you are adverse to visiting conventional campgrounds. But there are extensive threads on the pro-and cons of that issue. And again, wanting a 13' with a full (?) bath will severely restrict your choices.


Keep asking questions.

Thanks! I have researched a while ago and I remember that I ought to be able to tow Scamp 13' if just barely. I have an older Forester ('12) with towing capacity of 2500. I have seen a few people (at least pictures) doing that. It is absolutely true that Forester is underpowered as it is. If it becomes an issue, I don't mind getting an Outback.

I also have a big and powerful Honda Odyssey ('13) that will be used as a tow vehicle when we have kids with us. Bunk beds will come handy in that case.

I don't want a big trailer. If anything, I would rather downsize. My typical trip consists of driving 30% of the time and mostly backpacking (or mountaineering, or canyoneering, or climbing) the rest of the time. Being able to unhook a trailer and drive up a Jeep trail to a remote trailhead in a Forester is important.

I wonder if there are any Scamp owners nearby (Boulder, Colorado). Best would be to rent one to see how it works out, but nobody does that in the vicinity. If I had a chance to try one I'd probably already owned a Scamp by now.

[Kai in Seattle]

Hi, Bob Miller,
Was wondering about that! So these outside shower attachments you can have installed can't be used without catching the water...we're working on fitting up a gray water tank inside the trailer with dedicated couplings so we can dump properly...

[Kai in Seattle]

reply to Bob Miller post #88:


OK, thanks. So it's Elvis Presley bathing, then, heat water, fill sink to temp., stand at sink, sponge self off, wash hair, drain into inside gray water tank, dry off, get dressed, dump gray water tank. That kind of thing. It'll do. Why, then, are these outside shower attachments so popular? For boondocking? Catching water in a tent floor and trying to recover it for proper dumping sounds like quite a feat.

[Bob Miller]

Outside shower panels


One of the things that they are popular for is rinsing off when beach camping. In that case it's just water, usually going onto a paved surface, and that is tolerated. It's the soap and stuff that's the problem. And no, "Biodegradable" isn't an answer.


I put outside shower panels on all three of the 13's I have rebuilt and, when there wasn't a camp shower available, we used them almost every night per my former s.o.'s request. (?)


But Judy and I go back some 50 years and we have backpacked The Grand Canyon, Mt Whitney, and everything in between so we learned to be a little more flexible in our nightly clean up requirements. (LOL)


Besides that, in smaller FGRV's, a fixed Loo and a shower just take up to much real estate to be considered.


BTW: That was waaaay back when "Save Water, Shower with a Friend" was a watersaving mantra during the first big drought.

[accrete]

Greetings, here's my take : )

Originally Posted by solovam

...Essentially I almost always "stealth" camp. I have been trying to decide between getting a van and a fiberglass trailer.

My wife and I spent two seasons with our current chevy AWD van conversion and added a wonderful little 15ft fiberglass trailer because we thought we _needed_ more room in camp. Both rigs had the ability to sleep, bathe, potty, and cook. Redundancy in everything and for a couple seasons it was the right fit for us.

BUT...

Originally Posted by solovam

...My typical trip consists of driving 30% of the time and mostly backpacking (or mountaineering, or canyoneering, or climbing) the rest of the time. Being able to unhook a trailer and drive up a Jeep trail to a remote trailhead in a Forester is important.

The above statement of yours is sooooo close to my wife's and my adventuring. So we put the 15ft trailer (Parkliner #35) up for sale and it sold to the first contact who will hopefully have many fun adventures! We just got tired of "unhooking a trailer" and then leaving it back at camp, driving our rig ~20 to 30 miles up a forestry road, finding a perfectly beautiful spot to camp overnight and feeling bad about 1) paying for a campground (granted it might just be a USFS ~$12 nite dry camp) and 2) leaving a perfectly good trailer in a camp all to its lonesome.

So this next season it is us and our van. And no limits or feeling sorry for some abandoned trailer back at a campground.

Our van conversion is also the wife's DD and she luvs it!! IF you have the ability to get creative with your vehicles you might shop around for a fairly easy to come buy van. We paid just over ~$28K new for our chevy AWD including installation of the top/vent/awning/seat-swivel before full conversion (~$15K cash over 3 years).

For Cari & I, the answer was clear... we've got to much wanderlust in our blood to pass up a good trail to who-knows-where.

Best wishes on your adventure.
Thom

[floyd]

Originally Posted by Bob Miller

About Outside Showers
Letting any kind of water fall onto the ground is, in most campgrounds, usually a NO-NO and adding in any kind of soap to that makes it more so.

Right about now I reckon California would welcome just about any water falling on the ground!

[solovam]

Originally Posted by accrete

Greetings, here's my take : )

Our van conversion is also the wife's DD and she luvs it!! IF you have the ability to get creative with your vehicles you might shop around for a fairly easy to come buy van. We paid just over ~$28K new for our chevy AWD including installation of the top/vent/awning/seat-swivel before full conversion (~$15K cash over 3 years).

This is super helpful, thank you!

[floyd]

Originally Posted by Bob Miller

in smaller FGRV's, a fixed Loo and a shower just take up to much real estate to be considered.

Of course I disagree, Nobody says that about the kitchen or the bed. Like heat,cook stove, lights,A/C, refrigeration, running water, etc, essentials can each be obtained or stored outside.
So following that philosophy, a small utility trailer is the best camper...
portable propane heater, stove, lantern,cooler, jug of water, bed roll etc.
All carried and stored outside in a pup tent until needed... one at a time.
We once did all that and still enjoyed ourselves, but it could be rough on those overnights at Walmart.

From what I can see houses hardly need kitchens anymore but they still need indoor plumbing!
They should have a fridge and microwave in the family room with a drive up window to accept pizza deliveries!

An average 13foot camper without a bathroom dedicates 85-90" out of less than 120" of floor space to sitting or laying down. That's about 3/4 of the interior space for sitting.
With a front bath 13foot camper, 54" of the floor space is dedicated to sitting, while the remaining sitting space is dedicated to a bathroom and storage space. That's still about 50% for sitting and only about 15% for a bathroom, which BTW supplies additional "sitting" space when the need arises! the other 10% taken from sitting is very useful additional storage.

[Bob Miller]

I have has three different 13' FGRV's and the least livable for our needs and style of camping was the Scamp with a bathroom. We quickly discovered that, if we didn't want to store the bed and made of the dinette twice a day that there was no place to be inside the trailer.


In as much as at least 90% of the 13' FGRV's out there don't have a bathroom, I don't think that it is an essential for life support. A quality porta-potty is indoor plumbing when living/camping in a 13' trailer.


One should know the pros and cons and make their own decisions.

[Bob Miller]

Originally Posted by floyd

Right about now I reckon California would welcome just about any water falling on the ground!

Nope, we only want quality clean water.
BTW: It's raining right now in SoCal, and has been raining throughout the area for 3 days, including one shower that dropped 3" of rain in 30 minutes. El Nino is on the way

[floyd]

Originally Posted by Bob Miller

I have has three different 13' FGRV's and the least livable for our needs and style of camping was the Scamp with a bathroom. We quickly discovered that, if we didn't want to store the bed and made of the dinette twice a day that there was no place to be inside the trailer.


In as much as at least 90% of the 13' FGRV's out there don't have a bathroom, I don't think that it is an essential for life support. A quality porta-potty is indoor plumbing when living/camping in a 13' trailer.


One should know the pros and cons and make their own decisions.

So when we had an outhouse back home, the thundermug was "indoor plumbing"?

Wikipedia...
Daybeds are used as beds as well as for lounging, reclining and seating in common rooms.

One is certainly being apprised of the Pros and Cons!
This truck conversion might solve the problem altogether...

[Byron Kinnaman]

Originally Posted by Bob Miller

About Outside Showers
Letting any kind of water fall onto the ground is, in most campgrounds, usually a NO-NO and adding in any kind of soap to that makes it more so.


The answer is that some of the shower tents have floors that will catch water from where it can be recovered and dumped appropriately. Lacking that, a child's inflatable play-pool works well as a shower base and can be deflated for storage.


On that same topic, if your RV does not have a grey water tank, the long used practice of draining sinks into a bucket is also fast falling into disfavor.


Many campgrounds, including some National Parks, now require a "Closed Drain System" meaning either an on-board gray water tank or an external tank that is connected to the trailer via closed fittings and hoses. This is, in part, to reduce gray water spillage as well as decrease the availability of attractive water/food sources for local inhabitants.

Hmmm Must be a California thing like permits for a propane camping stove.