Living in a Cargo Trailer

hi everyone welcome back to our next video today we're meeting Randy we've done an interview and then we've toured his van and now we're going to tour his cargo trailer and I think he's got some really brilliant ideas about how to live and convert a cargo trailer to build in so let's take a look so Randy you wanted the extra room I assume and that's why you have a cargo trailer plus a van yes I I was able to afford the option of bringing a trailer along to try the idea out of what I like more having a man and a trailer or whatever combination thereof I bought a used trailer it's three years old I bought RV windows for it I put three in it there's two on this side and one on the opposite side having traveled and been off in BLM land before I knew that I needed extra clearance to be have less of a chance of an issue of getting stuck so I bought a factory axle from the trailer company and I put a straight axle in it and it raised it four inches higher off the ground I upgraded it and put brand-new 16-inch tires and wheels on it they're ten ply rated tires because trailers have a habit of wearing tires out if I can make it in the van I easily can make it in the trailer one of the reasons why I raised it too is because I actually add I have a 16 gallon black storage tank so I put an RV tank on the trailer my added that because I have a shower and just the idea that I wanted to have it so if I was ever questioned about the validity of being a camper I can prove that I actually have the ability for black or gray water storage I've got three hundred and ten watts of solar on the roof I have an RV a Winegard a amplified TV antenna which I'm able to get plenty of free TV channels I have a fantastic fan on the top and then I have an additional cooling fan that I built-in that's inside that comes off of the other side of the trailer you're not at your spare on the backboard same job save me a lot of space if you'd watch the previous video of interview with my man I did I always did them I mirrored everything with the van and the trailer so I have a full electrical external hookup and this was actually how I can tether my battery bank from the van to the trailer if I want I have 800 amps of battery storage in the van and then I have a 150 amp battery in here with my 300 watt solar system but if I want more power than what my little bank has currently in my trailer all I got to do is hook my tether I made a custom power cord to tie the van to the trailer and all I do is I made a color-coded system here to tie the two together and these are standard hookups for our welding for welding so I just elaborated on the idea that was already out there in the parts that were out there and and modified it for my needs to make me a custom extension cord so I just plug in lock them they're quick locks and now I have the ability to pull all the battery storage electricity from the van to the trailer it's actually zero gauge stereo amplifier wire this is a like boombox industry and the reason I went with zero gauge is because I did not want to lose any amperage from the van to the trailer so you want to maximize your wire gauge size as large as you can get it I can move a hundred and forty amps of watt of power on demand because of the size of the wire I chose and then here is an RV plug so I could plug in from a house or from our in this situation I can plug from my van to here with AC power 42 gallon water tank again I put an RV so I have direct access I just hook up with a hose so I've got a secondary cooling fan and so I have one on the roof like everybody else does but I also incorporated one inside and it pulls its air from here and what I did is I created an air chamber here so I have a filter that is an air chamber in there and it goes to a cooling fan and I can pull air from this side pull it in and sustain cooling fan is the one I used on the van it's an aftermarket Racing cooling fan and it moves a lot more air than your traditional fantastic fans so this is the back side of my my build we've got a full shower pretty simple I added a shower curtain and I used a concrete mixing tub as my shower face and the water dumps into my gray water tank black water tank combination tank I brought around and I have a spigot access a quick access to water of my 42 gallons there when you're on the road and you learn to do things in a small area this is actually more than enough room for me to shower being a big goofy guy that I am so I've got about two different battery driven or DC driven shower systems and I've got one in the van and this one is similar it's not it's not completely self-sufficient the what it does I just plug it in I add I added a lot of extra electrical outlets to my van and my trailer and this gives me the rate of charge in my solar or my battery bank and it gives me socket so there's here's my extra outlets just so I can see what were my battery's at and then i powered my shower there's my little plug in 12 volt Leo so all I do is when I'm standing here and I'm showering I do that and then the other end just drops into a bucket and this is your washer you're washing yes yes what we're going to do a separate video yeah this looks like to anybody when you first look at it it's a cupboard right so you open it up and it's a cupboard I have storage space in here but this also is my air of my air duct way to my second cooling fan which is to the vent that you saw outside right so what I do is is if I might use them for storage all I do is take the vinyl sheets that I bought and I move it this way and now I've converted it into a vent it's miss now my duct way for my fan so I made myself my own hot water insta hot is were ability to make hot water while I'm traveling and I use again I love electricity so I use my solar power off the van and I've created an electric hot water heater so I put a hot water element and I bought this from a marine supply a boat supply company and I just fabricated it to fit in this in the bucket this is a three gallon bucket and Yamma lid yes with a gamma little of the gamma lids so I can heat two gallons of water in 10 minutes to 120 degrees and I have high water so I have hot water shower sixty five amps and oh my goodness that's a lot of juice but you're only running it for ten minutes right so not much know so yeah again this may give people ideas that how to build their solar systems you really don't need a big system to use the the stuff I am using to have comfort the second benefit to the black bucket is solar in the summertime I can put this in the windshield inside the windshield on the dash of my van and I can heat it with us with the Sun two hours on the - I can heat this water without any energy at all I like this on my solar side to monitor how much solar power is coming in I bought an external meter that wires in line and and this one's wired in line to my solar panels so it tells me how much energy is currently being produced from the panel's or what is needed it's a demand it's only on demand so they'll produce a lot more but right now my battery bank is only needing to put in this rate I our energy 60 amps controller Wow well I had a six-man Patrol because I had a 900 watt system right if you don't I just left the 60 amp because it didn't matter so I still have the 16 amp controller but I added an external meter so I could say actually see what's going on with the solar panels you know I have simple creature comforts I got a actually just use an automotive am/fm CD player for a stereo system as for this runs off of a battery bank couple speakers what's the interesting with my what I feel with this 6 by 12 trailer is I wanted to separate the trailer I created a hallway because I wanted separation from my front living area to the back and it makes the trailer look bigger and so what it did is I created a kitchen area so I actually have kitchen sink I got my water I have the same water type set up I can pump water out of my 42 gallon tank and then excited separates my shower and stuff so this is kind of a neat effect and all this is the Home Depot shot of 2 shelf units but it looks like a well you know it gives a neat effect very good and that's your vent yes so this is the neat part so this is my second fan so this is my primary this is my fantastic fan you know that everybody has in the situation so I use this as a polar fan so I pull hot air out with this fan right but I use this is what is what they call it pusher so I bring air in from outside and I have bent I've made this grill and I custom vent the fins to go different directions so it spreads the air different ways right so I turn it on here and I'm able I have a variable speed fan and I can sit here and I have a great cool air blowing down on me and so I can control it it's all coming from outside right very very nice and then I got it covered so I just created a little clothing covered area to fill up the gap that I already had you know in the shelf unit right the bed like everybody else's hands is this comes up and I have access to storage under the bed and then I also have pull-out storage as well so these containers all pull out and I have storage I wouldn't recommend this to anybody unless you're comfortable with it but I have my propane storage in under my bed for my wave3 catalytic heater I don't like to be cold and propane's cheap as long as you properly install your tank I do not feel there's a risk of fire I try to take advantage of storage I'm not dealing with the interior folks so you know I did not I'm not done yet but the whole idea is the panels walls like everybody else has I've got inch foam insulation in the walls and in the roof goodness ceiling and this actually is very comfortable even in in wide open Sun cute little table you and I talked about it earlier it's a nice portable table actually okay so all I do wow I looked at I mean well I mean this is perfect for people that are have a challenge with space since I had an abundance of electricity I can cower electric heat in a mile leaving and I say anything from 30 30 degrees or warmer I can heat my little space which is approximately 45 square feet in this front area I can keep me and the dog comfortable at 65 degrees with this plate here or amic household a grid heater you only drew about four to five amps per hour on at 110 on 110 so multiply eight to ten times that on DC which is almost nothing nothing really not really I'm kind of I'm a very security-conscious guy this is actually a driveway a motion detector set up I actually have two sensors that I can put anywhere in my camp up to a hundred yards away and it'll detecting emotions so when I'm out here at night I want advance notice if there's two or four legged Zout here that I need to be aware of because if I let my dog out to go outside I need to have masks morning if something's lurking around there very good idea I'm cheap and it's very reliable I'm very happy with it well right now I'm just really impressed you've done a wonderful wonderful job with your trailer thank you well Randy thank you so much for sharing your your cargo trailer with us your conversion it's just amazing you've done a wonderful job very creative you got your shower you got an amazing ventilation system just really amazing thank you thanks Bob appreciate it thank you everyone for watching this video and I hope you've enjoyed it and learned something from it I'm sure you have been inspired on so keep watching until our next video like us on youtube subscribe to the channel and we all visit with you later [Music]

Channel: CheapRVliving

Views: 210,344

Rating: 4.9019947 out of 5

Keywords: live, living, car, van, RV, Fill-time, nomad, gypsy, camper, camp, boondock, travel, cargo, trialer

Id: Zimg0APaHI8

Length: 14min 52sec (892 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 03 2017