What living in a caravan for two years taught me about using less electricity

The first week we lived in our caravan, we ran the battery flat.  

We'd moved out of our house in preparation for our two-year trip around Australia as a family of four, and were camped across the road in a small paddock; it rained the whole week.

Luckily, our neighbours lent us their generator. We had to run it for a full day to get the battery charged enough to even register on the caravan's monitoring screen.

It was a steep learning curve, and after a couple of years of living on the road, there's still a lot I don't understand about our van's electricity system (or electricity in general).

But I do have a very good understanding of the habits and appliances that use a lot of electricity — and how to manage them.

Why off-grid travel can be challenging

After we spent over $100 a night at a caravan park in the Barossa Valley, I had big ideas about avoiding caravan parks completely.

We were set up with solar panels, batteries and an inverter that allowed us to plug in normal chargers and appliances if needed, including an air conditioner (more on that later).

It helped keep costs down, as there are lots of caravan sites around Australia that are either free or very cheap if you have your own water, power and toilet.

But, even doing the best we could, I quickly learnt there were times we'd run out of power.

If we had clear weather, were parked with our solar panels in full sun, and used only what electricity was absolutely necessary (the fridge and water pump) we could break even in terms of our electricity usage.

But add the odd cloudy day, fans, lights or an electric kettle to the mix and we quickly went backwards.

The big suckers: our fridge and our cooking equipment

Our fridge was our biggest issue with power usage because we couldn't avoid using it.

We had a large 12-volt car fridge on a sliding platform that pulled out of the side of our hybrid caravan (basically a cross between a camper trailer and a full caravan).

A lot of full-sized caravans have fridges that can run on gas, which would have made a huge difference because fridges use a lot of power. If the weather was hot, our power went down faster as our fridge sucked up more energy.

Anything with a heating element was our enemy when trying to conserve power. Our van heater, hot water system and cook top were all gas and one barbecue-sized bottle of gas went a long way.

But we really like our little luxuries and had an extra battery system installed in the car that charged while the car was in motion.

This allowed us to run another smaller fridge, microwave/convection oven, toaster and electric kettle out of the back of the car — just not all at once as I discovered when I blew the fuse on the system.

These "luxury items" were used sparingly, mostly when we stayed somewhere we could plug in to power, and always with one eye on the battery charge.

Meal planning when you're conserving power

We would plan our meals based around what our chances of regaining that power were.

If we had cracking weather or lots of kilometres to travel, we could splurge on a pizza or even a roast in the convection oven.

We got really good at choosing meals with minimal cooking time. Hot tip: lamb chops, boiled baby potatoes and a bag of coleslaw is a winning low-electricity dinner!

Staying cool without air conditioning

The one other big power user was the air conditioner.

We had the ability to run this while off-grid, but we soon discovered we would only have hours of battery power if we did.

So, we ended up almost never using the air conditioner. Instead, we planned our travel in the hottest part of the day, visited swimming holes/pools, sought out shady sites to camp at and slept with our windows open and fans going to keep the air moving in the van at night.

But on our late December dash through Western Queensland, our car thermometer registered 43 degrees Celsius. At 6pm that day, it was still 40C.

At times like these, we paid to stay somewhere with power.

We ran the air conditioner, watched a movie, washed our clothes and sheets in their coin laundry and tried to get our money's worth while we could.

Maintaining good habits is hard when you don't have to

We finished our trip in Darwin during the season known as the build-up. Locals tell us it's one of the hottest and driest build-ups they have experienced.

We are renting a house with a pool, an air conditioner in each room, an oven and a microwave.

My husband and I both spend time working at home, so the air conditioning is on a lot of the time. I am dreading our power bill.

When you have to do it, saving electricity becomes second nature. But for most of us, in our normal lives, our homes and habits are not set up to make it easy – especially if you're renting – which makes it a hard habit to maintain.