Readers have been asking me for an update on how we like our new to us Winnebago Ultimate Advantage motorhome, now that we have lived and traveled in it for almost six months, as compared to the MCI bus conversion we built and lived in for over eight years.

Overall, we are both very happy with the Winnebago, though we have had to make a few adjustments. We love having the extra room the bedroom and living room slides give us. However, we actually had more inside storage room in the bus, due to the extensive cabinetry that Miss Terry designed and built for it.

But, even though we had three huge bays underneath the bus, we still have more basement storage in the Winnebago than we did with the bus. The reason for that is that one entire bay of the bus was used for our holding tanks, which do not take up bay space in the Winnebago, and also because half of one bay in the bus held our house battery bank and inverter, and half of the third bay held our twin propane tanks, plus the fuel tank for our Onan gas generator.

We had a huge gray/black waste tank in the rear bay, and when we were parked in a campground with full hookups, we could turn a diverter valve and let the gray water run directly into the sewer, which meant we could go a long time without dumping the waste tank. In the Winnebago we have to dump the black tank about every seven days. We could probably stretch that if we were boondocking and being very careful, but the difference in tank capacity is really noticeable.

After our first night in the Winnebago, we could really tell the difference in insulation between the two rigs. We built a lot of insulation into the bus, and it was both quieter inside, and much warmer (or cooler, depending on the season), than the motorhome. But, the bus had a single rooftop air conditioner that was vented directly inside, which was much nosier when running than the ducted basement air conditioner in the Winnebago.

After driving across the country in the Winnebago, I don’t know how I lived with the tired old Detroit diesel in the bus for so long. These days I think nothing of cruising up long grades at 60 miles per hour, passing eighteen wheelers, instead of crawling along in the right lane with the radiator misters on at fifteen miles per hour, hoping some eighteen wheeler didn’t run over us. The Winnebago definitely has more power and gets better fuel mileage than the bus did, but I find that I don’t have as much confidence in the Winnebago’s exhaust brake as I did the Jake brake in the bus when going down steep grades.

Everything in life is a tradeoff. Terry misses the household style refrigerator, gas range with oven, and separate washer and dryer that we had in the bus. But, the larger kitchen area and the spacious bedroom/bathroom layout of the Winnebago is much more comfortable. She’s learning to live with the Winnebago’s microwave/convection oven, and the Splendide RV washer/dryer combo.

When you add in a lot of creature comforts and handy accessories, such as cruise control, automatic HWH leveling jacks, automatic Winegard rooftop TV dish, two gas furnaces, and a heat pump, for us the Winnebago comes out the winner.

Several readers have asked us if we will be at the Winnebago Grand National Rally in Forest City, Iowa in July, if we’ll be vendors, and if I’ll be presenting any of my seminars at the rally. The answers are yes, probably, and I don’t know. Yes, we plan to attend the rally, we’ll probably be vending (I haven’t registered yet), and I don’t know if I’ll be presenting any seminars. I haven’t been invited to do any, and the inquiry I sent was never answered. But if you are a Winnebago owner and will be at the rally, and would like me to do a seminar or two, why not give the folks in Forest City a shout or an e-mail? They have no idea who I am, since we have not had our coach that long, but if they see there is an interest, they might invite me to do a couple of seminars.

Speaking of RV seminars, while our schedule won’t allow us to be at the RVSEF RV Lifestyle, Education and Safety Conference in Bowling Green, Kentucky, June 3-6, Walter Cannon has come up with an excellent RV education program filled with great seminars. There is a 10% discount for anybody registering for the conference before March 1^st, so if you plan to attend, register now and save yourself some money on this excellent program. 

Thought For The Day – Virtue is the only true nobility.

Register Now For Our Arizona Gypsy Gathering Rally

A lot of people have asked us if we will be transferring our solar panels from our bus conversion to the Winnebago diesel pusher motorhome we just bought. Quite a few have been surprised when we told them we don’t plan on doing so. Terry and I have discussed it at length, and we just don’t see any reason for it.

Our MCI bus has five solar panels, totaling 540 watts of power, an 2,000 watt Magnum Energy pure sine wave inverter, and a bank of three 8D Lifeline absorbed glass mat (AGM) batteries. For the bus, and for our lifestyle while we were building the bus, it was a good setup. But nothing ever stays the same in life, and our needs have changed.

We used to do a lot of boondocking, and I am an admitted power pig. The bus has a residential refrigerator, and we use a lot of power running our computers, internet connection, watching television and such. We never turned our inverter off. Because the bus onboard electrical system was 24 volt, and our house system was 12 volt, we could not easily charge our batteries while driving down the highway, like most RVs can do. The solar system did just fine, and on a good day we could easily put over 30 amps an hour into our battery bank from our solar panels. If we had cloudy days, we could always fire up our Onan 5500 watt generator and top off the batteries.

But with the Winnebago, we have an RV refrigerator, so we don’t need to have an inverter on while traveling. And with the 7500 watt Onan Quiet Diesel generator and our inverter, we have plenty of power when we pull into a place without hookups for the night.

I have always said that solar is a good supplement to an RV generator, but it is also a very expensive supplement. In my opinion, AM Solar is the best company in the country for RV solar needs, and owner Greg Holder is the acknowledged solar expert in our industry. Even Greg would agree with me that solar is an expensive addition.

So is it worth it? Let’s do the math – according to the AM Solar website, a 100 watt panel with the mounting kit, which usually retails for $795, is currently on sale for $499 per panel. Four panels (which I would consider the minimum for serious dry camping), come to $1996 under the sale price. A Heliotrope HPV-22B charge controller, which usually retails for $325, is currently on sale for $275. Size 27T AGM 12 volt batteries are $245 each, and if you step up to the 8D size we have in our bus, they sell for $540 each. Just for the sake of this example, let’s assume you use three of the size 27T batteries, which will set you back $735.

Then you will need an inverter. A Magnum Energy 2,000 watt modified sine wave inverter will cost $1519, and the ME-RC50 remote control from Magnum is $183. If you step up to Magnum’s pure sine wave inverter, add a couple hundred dollars more. And then you need to factor in the cost of installing all of these goodies, unless you’re handy enough to do the job yourself, or have a friend who is!

So you’re looking at a minimum investment of $4,758 if you do your own installation, based upon AM Solar’s current pricing in this example. And remember, solar is a supplement to a generator, at best! While there are a few die hard boondockers who get by just on solar, they usually go to bed with the chickens and spend a lot of their time monitoring their power usage and solar input.

By comparison, our 7,500 watt Onan diesel generator uses less than a gallon of diesel per hour. Let’s assume I run the genset three hours a day, and that diesel fuel is currently selling for $2.75 a gallon (a high figure in most parts of the country right now). That is $8.25 a day.

Based upon these figures, I would have to run my generator 576 days to break even on the cost of the solar setup. If I had a fifth wheel or travel trailer and used a Honda portable generator, it would cost even less! Let’s assume you spend 45 days a year dry camping, which is much more than most RVers I know ever do. It would take you over 12 years to recoup the cost of your solar system!

Of course, if you have a trailer and have to purchase a generator, you have to factor that cost in. Most RVs have a generator onboard as standard equipment.

So, while we have enjoyed making our own electricity from the sun, is solar a good investment? Obviously not, just in terms of dollars and cents.

Even already having the panels and other equipment in the bus, which we could transfer to the Winnebago, we have decided that we probably won’t do enough long term boondocking in the future to make it worth the time and expense of having the solar system removed from the bus and installed on the Winnebago. We’ll be able to get by a few days just fine on our generator.  

Thought For The Day – Don’t ever take a fence down until you know the reason it was put up.