Feeling Low (Energy)

There is no two ways around it. Sometimes van life gets me down.  Take tonight for instance.  I am low on power.  It has been cold again and my engine battery seems unable to handle it.  I went to start the van last night so I could move to another part of town. I got one weak roll over.  Not enough to fire, and that was it.

Today over lunch hour I pulled the battery out again and brought it into my cubical to warm up and thaw out.  Always a cold finger freezing job when it is near zero.  Other people have a plant in their cube.  I have a DieHard.

Additionally, my house batteries are really low.  We had a nice clear and sunny Sunday.  But there was a foot of snow on my solar panels.  Not much collection happened that day.   Prior to that, and since, it has been cold and grey.

A thawing DieHard on my office floor.

When batteries get weak they can't handle the cold well.  They freeze and don't hold much power.  That is a bit of the cycle I am in here as well.  Even if I plug in to charge, if the batteries are half frozen they won't charge much.

I spent part of my workday today doing some research on small propane heaters.  It seems like I am going to have to somehow heat the house battery space.  But figuring out a way to do this and not get battery acid fumes inside the living space seems the trick.  But at the same time I have to come up with some solution that doesn't suffocate me by burning up all the oxygen in my small space.  So far I have not found the right answer.

I looked at the Little Buddy by Mr Heater.  The size was bigger than I really wanted but the area it wanted for clearance from flammable materials was the real deal killer for my situation.  I just don't have that much space.  There was another small propane heater that screwed on to the top of a one pound cylinder.  But it was built to point up at a 45 degree angle.  No way to change that and really I need to point down 45 not up.

Here is a way to feel even more crowded.
Stack up a bunch of boxes.

What I have done tonight is pull my slide out drawers and have them stacked by the side door.  I won't be warming the battery space but at least the space next to the batteries.  Hopefully that will be good enough to make some difference.

Right now is the lowest I have ever run down my batteries.  You shouldn't run them down to even 50% and I am sitting at 51%.  Some battery damage is likely to occur.  Tomorrow I have to get some sun or I have to get someplace where I can plug in and charge up.

All of this stuff is the harsh reality of van life.  Particularly cold weather van life that can get a person down.  Sometimes it just plain and simple isn't fun to be living in 63 square feet when it is -11 inches away, outside my steel walls. When a few other things go wrong, it all starts to pile up.

At least there is no shortage of white stuff!