Greetings from New Member, FT in 260RD since June 2021

ChefColeman

New Member
Joined
Jan 9, 2024
Messages
2
Greetings!

My wife (Stephanie 37) and I (Coleman 50) have been full time in our GD 260RD since June 2021. We're both from WI and met in a Green Bay Packers bar in NYC in the fall of 2014. Stephanie started falling in love with the idea of Van Life sometime around 2017 and by 2019 we decided to quit ours jobs (nurse and chef), leave Queens/NYC after a combined 30 years and hit the road. The pandemic delayed us by a year and we left NYC in May on 2021. Great decisions!

We moved around a lot the first 14 months, changing locations every 2-14 days and eventually ended up in Asheville, NC for 14 months while Stephanie worked at a local hospital and I worked at the local KOA. As of November 2023 we're back on the road, currently making our way to NM for the rest of the winter.

We LOVE LOVE LOVE our little home. It's the perfect size for us; it's small enough to get into some great boondocking sites and big enough to fell homey and cozy. The kitchen is wonderful, especially the larger than standard fridge and the extra counter space (see below). We do miss our king sized bed! (Looking at you, dogs)

Stephanie is currently studying for her Masters so she can teach remotely and we can do this indefinitely and move around as we desire. My job is to make her life as easy as possible while she studies.

Started my account today because I'm trying to figure out why my thermostat has decided to not kick the heat back on a few times today. I've seen some posts about this already and may start a new one.

Happy RVing!
Coleman

Modifications, Additions and Fixes:
- Swapped out the counter to the right of the range with a 55x23x1 piece of cherry butcher block. Best mod in rig! Awesome prep space/work zone. Also required four specialized drawer glides (from Chambrelan Industries in Canada) and cabinet mod to allow top the drawers to pull out far enough.

- Spent four days correcting the capacity issue of our "55 gallon" fresh water tank which we could only get 32 gallons out of. Not a good deal when boondocking! Dropped the tank, rotated it 180 degrees, braced it with three pieces of angle iron, attached a braided hose to the air vent and ran it up into the cabinet under the range, looped it back down to the underbelly and relocated the water fill/draw line to below the original dump valve (dump valve now below that). Now we get 52-53 gallons out of it. I will eventually make a post about this project. I know I'm not the only one who has discovered this problem and GD has admitted to the issue but not before I had to deal with the only bad customer service rep I have encountered at GD who kept talking in circles about how that's the way it was supposed to work. Second best mod in the rig.

- Removed the ridiculous wine rack from the left of the microwave and built two simple shelves instead. Great for coffee/tea stuff and a great place to install an under cabinet paper towel holder.

- Solar power (designed and installed by dealer): 4 x 175W panels; 4 x 100Ah Battle Born batteries; inverter and other equipment that I don't have the specs for in my head and sometimes wish I understood better.

- Solar supplemented by a Honda EU220i generator converted to tri fuel with Hutch Mountain conversion kit (run it on propane straight off the BBQ port)

- Swapped the Furrion microwave for a Furrion convection microwave. Exact same dimensions, very easy swap, totally worth it. I also ran a heavy duty extension cord from the oven to the underbelly via the storage under the dining area so that when we're hooked up to 30A we can run the oven directly off the post from another 20A outlet and still run the A/C.

- MaxxAir fan/vent in the bedroom (installed by dealer)

- Three level locking storage cage on the back hitch using parts of three Maxx Haul cargo carriers, AL straps, AL angles and a lot of bolts.

- Guard around the bed so our dogs (one with a spine issue) cannot jump down (think railings for a kids bed but a corrugate piece of plastic installed on a bed with no real frame)

- Mopeka sensors on all tanks. They work great on the propane tanks and fresh water tank. Work very well on grey water. Not so well on black water. Also installed marine hatch cover at each sensor location so they can be accessed without removing the coroplast.

- Awning over slide out (installed by dealer)

- Recently started using a Temp Stick to remotely monitor the temps when the dogs are home alone. Great peace of mind!

Future plans, hopes, dreams:
- Composting toilet
- Reese Goose box 16K hitch
- New underbelly coroplast in three or four sections so I don't have to undo the whole damn thing to get under the back of the rig.
 
​Hi and Welcome ! Can't wait to read your mods and repairs. We have a few travel nurses as friends and family, great way to see the country! Enjoy the journey
 

Try RV LIFE Pro Free for 7 Days

  • New Ad-Free experience on this RV LIFE Community.
  • Plan the best RV Safe travel with RV LIFE Trip Wizard.
  • Navigate with our RV Safe GPS mobile app.
  • and much more...
Try RV LIFE Pro Today
Back
Top Bottom