Side Tracked!

So last weeks post didn't go up as planned, woops! Just as well though because this week we got nothing done on the trailer.

Alex's original on the phone quote for the trailer frame of "about 1000$" turned out to be something closer to 1200$ in person and if we wanted the bed inset between the wheels and the bed wrap around the wheels it was another 250$. Plus 100$ for plates plus I wanted fold down jacks for the corners which was going to be another 100$, plus 13% sales tax and we were looking at 1865$ for a trailer frame. I don't know about you but I've seen full blown utility trailers with walls and all at Lowe's for 1100$ or 1243$ after taxes and last time I was there they had 10% off, so at that time it was actually 1133$. This steps us back a bit to think.

We have a MIG welder and the capability to build our own so I'm thinking that's the road we're going to take. I found this website that breaks down step by step to build a trailer with pictures and everything so I will probably use that as my base design and assembly instructions. I still want to do the wrap around the wheel wells thing for more storage space and I'm planning to ask the Teardrops and Tiny Travel Trailer community on the leveling jacks.

All this came to a screeching sharp halt when 14 yards of clean quarter inch gravel and a back hoe showed up in my driveway Friday night.

The beauty we rented from Home Depot!

We spent the entire weekend digging and dumping and moving earth. We had three major tasks that we did not want to dig by hand:

1. Roughly 100 feet across the back part of our yard used to be a ditch but it's been mostly leveled out over the years and now it's more of a swamp in the spring. The plan was dig it up, put down some gravel, big-O filtered, more gravel, some weed paper, earth back in ground. 
2. Sump pump hose gets moved every time we cut the grass and it's been forgotten at the house a couple of times. To prevent there being water in the basement again we wanted to bury the pipe and have it run to a hole full of rocks.
3. We want to build a stone patio for our fire place :) (this one makes me the happiest!)

So that consumed our whole weekend. A flat tire later and a guy out to do the repair, me running to the store because we forgot to buy 200 ft of big-O, swinging by to take my moms dog to the vet and made for a chaotic weekend. We still didn't get everything done but we got a big chunk of it done finally!

And now for some pictures!!!

Looking left and right along the ditch at the back while we were dropping the big-O and gravel/digging

The "finished" product after I filled in the ditch again

Alex digging the trench for the sump pump line

Teardrop Features

Sorry this was supposed to go out last week, apparently the schedule feature on Google Blogs doesn't work the way I think it does.

If you caught my last post you'll realize that I have a passion for camping, and somewhat bitterly, no passion for rain soaked gear and deflated air mattresses. The natural conclusion here is the teardrop camper.

But with so many features where does one start? With the basics of course!

Sleeping Compartment:

I'm 5'10" which is fine for most sleeping arrangements but Alex is 6'2", this complicates things when a lot of plans define a sleeping space as 4' x 6'. Do I suck it up and sleep in the corner while Alex sleeps diagonal or do we jam up the kitchen space to add to the sleeping space?

Since my goal here is to make camping more comfortable for myself, sorry kitchen but you're getting smaller.

One could go pretty wild now with "niceties" inside the sleeping compartment (remember the bathrooms in some teardrop trailers?!). I'll just run through a few of our options and what I'm thinking for ours:


1. Doors, do we want 1 or 2? I'm saying 2 since I got to bed and get up before Alex.

2. Windows, in the doors? on the roof for romantic star gazing? At the front for a cross breeze? TBD. I'm hoping for all of the above to be honest!

3. Air Conditioning or just a fan/vent in the ceiling? AC dictates some kind of power supply, so does the fan but on a much smaller scale. I'm thinking fan to start but I'm asking my electrician (Alex, the Electrical Engineer boy toy with a cute butt) to wire for a potential AC down the road!

4. Additional sleeping space/storage space. If you take a look at this instructable he's constructed a bunk bed for his daughter quite cleverly, see also his photo below. I may someday have children so this would be nice to have and in the meantime it would make good storage space.

5. Entertainment: I've seen stereos and TVs and all manner of things but at most I want a radio in this thing. The whole point in camping is to get outside in the nature. 

6. Lighting: I want to have small reading lights at the head of the bed on each side as well as "patio" lights outside each door with switches (like the photo above) so that I can "leave the light on" for Alex when I go to bed and so we can see our shoes when we get up to pee in the night. 

7. Charging: as much as I want to get away we often need our phones, I picked up this solar panel at Canadian Tire last night because it was on sale. It's a Coleman 40 W solar panel, it won't give us much charge but we're hoping to keep the demand low and leave the house with a fully charged marine battery. Once we have an "electronics plan" we can determine roughly how long the battery would last us. 

8. Bathroom: just no in such a tiny space. I need to be able to escape that... odour. 

The Galley (fancy for kitchen):

Like everything, I've seen a wide range of possibilities here. Some trailers are just shelves back there and cupboards and some have built in sinks, stoves, the whole nine yards! 

So decisions:

1. Lighting, how much and where do we want the lighting for the galley? I'm thinking inside the galley cover and bright enough to illuminate an area around the galley. This location helps keep the bugs up and away from the food when we're cooking in the night. 

2. Water, sink, fresh water reservoir, grey water reservoir, where do I start? 

I know I want a sink for sure, and I know we won't have an endless supply of water like at home so we'd need some kind of control. I like the how in the instructable he made a circuit that if you push the button the water comes on for 5 seconds. That would be good I think in case the nieces and nephews discover how to make it work they can't just run all the water out! Plus we can brush our teeth at our trailer instead of walking over to the comfort station in the morning. 

If we have a sink we'll need a pump, a fresh water and a grey water tank. This could add a significant weight to the galley. Weight distribution impacts our trailer design. On this link Pass-n-Gas says " A good rule of thumb on a tongue pull is to place the center of the Axle"s" 1" for ever foot of combined bed and tongue length. behind the center of the bed." In theory we have even distribution the length of the trailer so that by setting the trailer axle back we have actual tongue weight and not a perfectly balanced teeter totter. 

3. Cooling food.... there's a lot of options here. The most basic is salting all our food like they did in the olden days, man do I love me some prosciutto. But I also love melon so maybe this isn't the answer. 

Next option and still somewhat low tech is a cooler. This is good for up to a few days camping and works but we'd need to store it somewhere. This will need to be taken into consideration when planning the galley. 

Another option is a propane fridge. I have no concept of how much one of these fridges burn in a 24 hr period and it's not currently in the budget/I haven't been able to find one I like online. I would like to do some research though and at least make it an option should we choose to upgrade. Who knows, we may want to run away to the woods permanently if we had one? 

4. Food prep area. Obviously we need counter space to prep food so I like the trailers that have had the stove slide out on drawer slides so it can be tucked away for prep time. I'm still debating stainless steel sheets on the counters or wood or concrete (that's a joke). At it's core it will be wood even if we wrap it in SST so this won't hold up the design while I ponder :) 

For now that's all I can think of for features. I'm sure as we go there will be more!!!

What features would you want if you were building or buying a teardrop trailer? 

Teardrop Trailer Insanity!!

I've been a little obsessed with Teardrop Trailers these past couple of years, which I'm sure my friends and family could confirm... wait, did you just say "what's a teardrop trailer"?! Funny you should ask :)

I've read this several times now so it must be true, but the original design was published in a Popular Mechanics magazine and it was supposed to be a cost effective way for the every day people to go forth and enjoy themselves:

I know, probably the sexiest hunk of junk you could tow behind your vehicle ever right? Kidding. That being said, I'd rather sleep in that thing over an air mattress that loses it's air and a tent that was inevitably set up in a torrential downpour so all your gear is soaked.

In reality modern teardrops are pretty sexy! There's also a huge range, you've got your more basic models like Big Woody Campers:

To the significantly more complex and lovely such as Camp-Inns stretched Teardrop:

Bunk beds and I believe a Queen sized bed: 

I've even seen some with bathrooms jammed into that tiny footprint of a trailer! I feel like Alex would stink me out so no... no thanks. 

In general, when you're talking Teardrops it comes down to a fairly small footprint camper, low ceiling and with a swooshy type shape. I've seen some "teardrops" that were more akin to a brick than a drop of water but they were close to the general principles. I personally think a water drop shape on the top side is a lot more aesthetically pleasing.

You may be asking yourself about now, why not just get a "brick" and be done with it? Well, these Teardrops are generally lighter dry weight wise and more aerodynamic. I don't drive a big truck, Ford Ranger, but I still don't want to be pouring gas out the window! Plus, I understand that with a teardrop you can camp at a normal tent site with no special trailer site requirements. That's a plus for us since we do a lot of tent camping with Alex's family. 

How do you like to camp? Are you more of a rough it in the wild sort or is your idea of a camp out swiping your visa at the nearest spa hotel?