cargo trailer

CARGO TRAILER

I have yet to be so excited that I’ve reached the point of giddiness, religious fervor or most days even feeling it is noteworthy, but occasionally YouTube does throw you a bone.  I usually give it an hour a day as I am so mentally weary from writing and Internet reading for a good six hours that it helps me relax enough so I can then crack open a regular book later.  Occasionally I even get an article idea, such as from the SouthernPrepper1 guy.  I couldn’t watch the channel if it was on the computer, but since I can watch it on TV it has become a daily distraction, even if it does usually irritate me as did Rawles and SHTF Plan blog and other Fluff & Fold sites.   It is bad enough that the Yuppie Scum Survivalists infest the place like maggots on meat on a warm day, but they also must be getting paid by the minute because usually they simply won’t get to the point.  Kind of like me, but with nothing to say and with terrible hair.  The guy on “Cheap RV Living” channel had pretty bad hair, the default “shaggy dog and hippie beard school of saving water, money on razors and comb purchases”, but at least he got to the point quickly and had something interesting to say, even if he took too long saying it in toto ( the last half showed the inside of the trailer, but it had already been gutted by the new owner and was far less interesting than the first half of the video ).

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“10 Reasons To Choose A Cargo Trailer” was an interesting piece, if you are considering a travel trailer for off grid junk land living.  It wasn’t applicable to me, but it just might be for others.  He brought up a lot of good points.  They are much cheaper as you can get a brand new cargo for the price of a used piece of crap RV, the new RV ( travel trailer ) costing  something like five to six times that of a cargo trailer, at a minimum.  This is of course because you are buying an empty shell rather than a loaded for living equipped home, but as anyone who has ever had a used RV can tell you, what they shove inside is pretty low quality which sparkles brighter than unicorn glittery farts but is a cruel and expensive façade.  Another point is that the roof of a cargo trailer is far superior to that of all but the most expensive RV’s, as is the axle and pretty much any other part.  I’ve rarely had an RV that didn’t leak, and I’ve owned a lot of RV’s.  Of course, thirty years ago buying a used RV was a whole other matter than it is today.

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Back in the day RV’s were probably no better than pre-2005 units, but if they were made cheap it was cheap compared to the standards of the day.  I have my cab-over which was made in the Sixties and although it was justifiably headed for the junk yard it is no worse off than trailers made ten or twenty years on, as far as longevity.  You know what I’m talking about just by looking at how they made cars.  Pre-mid to late ‘60’s, give or take as I’m no car aficionado, they were tanks.  After that, it was form over function.  Anyway, when I first started buying trailers to live in, they were more affordable to buy new ( remember the general rule for everything but electronics-half the wages to buy in the ‘80’s ) and folks realized the depreciation and gladly got rid of them cheap.  Today, they are made cheap compared to the standards of today, which you know is terrible already, are certainly NOT affordable ( a combination of consolidation-long ago ceasing to be a cost cutting measure and now due to the debt, one guaranteed to jack up costs-and the FedGov and Katrina artificially increasing costs ) and not one single swinging jag-off cheese dingus asswhore wants to admit he overpaid and refuses to reduce the cost of used units reasonably.

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I’ve never paid more for a used RV than what a cargo trailer has cost, but then not only have I been lucky, had lower standards than most and just seemed to always have good timing, I still agree with his general point.  The era of affordable functional used RV’s is over.  More often than not his advice is sound.  With a used RV, the walls do have water rot, the roofs do leak, the pipes also.  The heater and AC are usually not working.  The fridge is more often than not trash.  Now, this is not to say that even a cargo trailer is a good idea.  I’ve given up on RV’s as cheap shelters long ago and just advocate building your own shack.  But if you are in town and wish to down grade your living arrangements on the way to living on junk land, using a trailer in town and as you build underground, then a trailer has a lot still going for it even if it isn’t as cheap as I’d like anymore.  One of his reasons on the list was that a cargo is a lot more stealthy than an RV ( illegally parking in town ) and also that it is a blank slate.  Since everything is busted in a used RV, you need to spend big bucks buying replacements that were designed for the RV.  Why not spend a lot less and improvise all your own appliances?  Composting toilets are superior to RV black water holding tanks.

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One other example he gave was the crappy propane furnaces RV’s come with and how quick they break and how expensive they are to replace, so he was more than happy to just go with the Buddy Heater in his cargo trailer.  Sound advice, EXCEPT you are advised to avoid the Buddy heaters at all costs.  His might still be going for years because he barely ever uses it, but I had poor results from mine.  Yes, the older ones lasted years.  Then, same model at a higher price, the quality went to crap.  Now you were lucky to get a year out of them.  Within a few hundred hours, they were toast.  The old ones got at least a thousand hours.  Hump you, Buddy brand.  Even if you have to make an air intake next to it, I’d go with a regular cook stove, low flame under a ungreased cast iron skillet.  Don’t buy the sheet metal camp stoves.  The gas regulator is built into the appliance and fails quickly ( Wal-Mart camp stoves used to last five years.  Now five months.  On more than one unit, this happened.  I always give a product a second chance by trying another unit, to be sure it is a deliberate design rather than a single lemon ).  If the stove can use the disposable propane tanks, it has the gas regulator built in.  Buy the cast iron camp stove from Sportsman’s Guide.  Barely more expensive ( cast iron compared to sheet metal ), it uses a hose with the regulator attached.  That should be the last stove you need to buy.

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Hippie Dude also mentions how much better your cargo trailer is going to be with insulation.  RV’s, and I’m talking even the more expensive units, have terrible insulation.  My last one was one with rigid board insulation long before that was standard, and while better than most RV’s, it was uncomfortable to live in off grid.  You know the manufacture does a bad job when I could add bubble foil and squishy foam to the ceiling and walls with blankets over the windows and get it much better insulated.  Looked like crap, but when it is in the single digits outside, you appreciate ghetto insulation.  With the cargo trailer, you start out with quality insulation as you install it with no obstructions and in the thickness you desire.  The other reasons on the list were all good points.  Easier and more rugged taking off road ( no water and sewer tanks and pipes to tear off-I can relate to that one ) was one.  The resale value was great.  There was no depreciation on them.  I think I’m missing about a quarter of the points, but I didn’t take notes and I covered the major ones anyway.

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If you have decided a trailer works for you than watch this video and you will learn a lot.  I wish I had thought of this prior to getting my last trailer, even if I had gotten a really good price on it.  Just the insulation alone!  Of course, I was still learning all of this off grid stuff at the time, not even knowing the cheap composting toilet secret.  I had no idea of the solar fridge, and PV panels were still ruinously expensive at the time anyway.  So, while this would have been a nice option I’m not sure it would have been feasible anyway.  But now that you know all these tricks, a cargo trailer, IF you are wanting to live in a trailer instead of a cabin or shack, is far superior to a travel trailer.  Check this guy out ( I haven’t seen any other of his videos, but will shortly.  I’ll pass on anything relevant, probably as a note rather than an article ). 

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