Full time questions

Been reading a lot on here and my wife and I are considering full time living. Can pick up a 06 Landmark for a reasonable price and want to know on a best guess basis how long the propane bottles last in a South Texas winter, any negatives with insulation of the Heartland models and what is the best (?) washer/dryer combination. I am just fixin to turn 60 and want to play for a few years. Who is the oldest full timer that you know? These are just curious questions and I have gained a wealth of info from reading your experiences. Thanks to each of you. My TV will be a 05 Ram 2500 4WD Cummins...Really like the truck.

Your answers will vary based on lifestyles, but for us the shortest we went between tanks while in the Alabama winter was about three weeks.

That said we supplimented our propane heat with electric heaters. We have two tower heaters with digital thermostats, one in the bedroom and one in the living area. They gave us an approximate warming of 20 degrees above the outside temp. We also have the electric fireplace which can give us a greater than 20 degree warming. However, the thermostat in it is not digital and is very hard to regulate.

Our practice was, during the day while we were out, the propane thermostat was set anywhere from 65 to 68 depending on the forecasted outside temp (we also have a dog with us). The fireplace was off and the living area tower heater was set to 68 and the bedroom tower heater was set to 66.

In the evening, while "at home" the fireplace was on with the propane set at 70 and the bedroom tower heater always at 66, unless it was shower time.

Just prior to shower time I would close the door to the bedroom and crank the tower heater in there up to 72 or so. Don's a man, tough, he didn't usually need the bedroom warmed up for his hower.

Almost forgot, we also have the heat pump on our upstairs A/C unit, but it's very loud and we never used it at night and only ocassionally while we were awake.

We have found no negatives with the insullation although our salesman recommended having an additional layer of home insullation put in the underbelly and we did so. We have never had to drop the underbelly, so can't say exactly what is down there. We also have 12v heat strips on our tanks, but have never had to use them and we've seen 17 degrees or so. We do have the thermopane windows and certainly beleive them to be of help based on our experience with our previous 5ver.

We do not have the W/D so we can't be of help there. We chose to go the laundromat route because of the extremely small size of the load capacity. Instead we put a small freezer in our W/D space and find the extra frozen food more beneficial.

We have met fulltimers in their early to mid 70's who are still going strong. But, we are late 50's, early 60's so hope to have a few good years left.

Just an opinion, unless the '06 Landmark is a Shenandoah, we would would upgrade to a 3500 dually. Again. not trying to be the weight police, just our preference.

Good luck on making you decisions and Happy Highways!

If you are talking about the RGV being South Texas we chose the propane route. Most parks in the RGV charge for electricity, we paid 13 cents per KW versus $24 for a 40 lb propane tank which lasted at least a month so it was cheaper to use propane. Most of the time the furnace was used to take the chill off in the early morning but by 9 - 10 am the furnace was no longer needed or if it was we turned it down to around 60 since most of the time we were gone.

We have met people in there 80's still fulltiming and still loving it albeit at a much slower pace.

We have the w/d combo and my spousal unit will not have it any other way. She hates laundromats and I hate taking her there.

I think your truck will be a little light for fulltiming by the time you get everything packed but I am not the wight police either. We have a F-350 dually and I am very close or probably overweight but I have never had my setup weighed. I am looking to upgrade but then again the spousal unit has something to say and that is the only reason I am looking and not owning.

Whatever you do have a safe and happy journey and hope to see you on the road someday.

Welcome to the Forum.
I have a Ford F250 and agree with the above posts. If you go with a Landmark or the bigger Bighorns you will need to go to a 1 Ton Vehicle. I also am not the weight police but I am pulling a Bighorn and I am not overweight but would be if I were pulling the Landmark. I would do some research as to what your Ram 2500 can pull.

We too are fulltiming since last Sept and have an F350 (& 40' toyhauler) but are planning on getting a bigger truck soon as you do have more weight when fulltiming and we want to be able to make it up some pretty good sized hills this summer and not feeling too good about out current truck doing it. We have a washer/dryer combo and just love it. It sure beats going to the laundrymat and we've had no problems with the smaller load capacity. We also have a small freezer in our garage too. We stayed in central Texas last winter and propane was really high here. We usually managed a week to 10 days with the two tanks before having to refill. We also had electric heaters in bedroom and garage (for our dogs) but tried to save on electricity so used the propane more than the heaters. We've met people still RVing in their 80's also. We love fulltiming and you learn a lot as you go and there's a lot of nice people out there willing to help you out with advice and ideas. Go for it!

The two Landmarks I've been looking at are 06 Grand Canyon's. Both are currently being towed by F250's. Read tons of stuff on here and will research it again. Full timing for us would be Houston, Corpus Christi and San Antonio. Probably not much further. Really looking for an alternative to a mortgage and want to spend my time looking at water. Price is mid to high 50's. Does that meet a sensibility check? Both are pretty well optioned.

Lin & I have been in Corpus Christi the last two winters. We use 1 Electric heater on low (750 watts) and set the thermostat at 63 for the furnace. On the coldest of nights we were comfy and only used 1 and 1/2 bottles of LP for the whole season. Our electric bill averaged $70.00 a month weatherwe used heat or A/C. We stayed at Colonia Del Rey and have our site reserved for a 3rd year coming up.

We just spent the winter down near Galveston. We can go through a 30lb bottle of propane in about 5 days if we don't supplement it heavily with electric heaters. Seemed like half the time the heat was running the other half it was the a/c lol.