FnA Van Life: Day 1 of Moving Into Our Off-Grid Trailer in Canada... It's NOT Going Well

At my sister's house right now, we're waiting for a delivery today. I believe this is the final delivery that we need in order to move into the hideout full time. There's still a couple little projects that we need to do but this will be the last like outside input which is pretty exciting. 10 minutes ago it just started pouring rain like let down so the ground is probably super saturated. I'm hoping that the truck can get all the way back there. My sister said usually they just have a really long hose so he'll just have to truck back to the hideout to get it going. Fingers crossed it all works out. We ran to the truck because we figured if we're gonna show them where it is maybe the best way is to drive because it is downpouring. Did it all of a sudden stop? Yeah. We ran out here in such a storm. I'm literally soaked. Look at my pants. Paco's you wet? Yeah. There he is. I'm like how is this gonna work? I don't even see a hose. How where's how long is this man's hose? It's like a thousand yards. I don't know measurements let's be real but it's pretty far back there at least probably like an acre back maybe two acres back. Gosh I hope this works. Fingers crossed we need water so bad. I kind of just walked him back to the area. I'll take you guys with me he's gonna have to get on the grass for a little ways to get back there but he said he has a few hundred feet of line so I think we'll make it. Let me go help him out. Oh yeah here he goes. Man this guy got some hose. The length you got here dude oh my gosh. Is this one of the further uh you know fill-ups you've had to do? I do a lot of sod. Okay. So I got water a lot of grass like yards this big. She's about 100 150 feet to a pool roughly. Yeah not bad not bad. Anybody else feel awkward with Frank commenting on that man's hose like that? You know I thought about it and I was like no that's a good comment and he has all different color hoses. Yeah some are brown some are green some are shorter. Okay so we got these two jugs last summer we bought them on Facebook Marketplace super super discounted. Do you remember how much they were Frank? Uh I think for both of them was under a hundred bucks. But we never got to the point where we actually filled them and used them so this will be the first time that we're actually setting up our water system. So we're gonna fill these two tanks each of them is a thousand liters and then the plumbing is on this side. I'm gonna have to come through with a weed whacker just to to get in there. No don't kill my flower. These guys right here are what we need to get to we're gonna plumb those two in and put the pump right inside here. And then the hose will come back out to go to us and then I think we do have a um heated hose so even when it gets a little bit chilly like obviously in the middle of the Canadian winter it's not going to be sufficient but for a little while it'll be fine. Wow maybe you should hold it just in case it blasts off. Yeah yeah I could do that. Yeah it won't take long for me to fill it up by the time I walk back. Okay and then we'll swap it right over to the next one. I'm gonna get soaked that's what that means. It won't take long by the time I walk back here. That's a it's a lot of water real fast. All right I'm excited for this to kick on. Just go flying. I look like the kids from the Little Rascals. There's the generator. Three, two, one. Oh that wasn't so bad. Oh yeah that's a that's a that's a lot of power. That's a heavy flow. Oh wow. It's got the little bit here guys. We probably should. That's a hell of a lot of water. This thing's heavy. Yeah I'll bet. If I just go off angle a little bit splash is going everywhere. That's exactly what I meant. So when we when we pay you for this are we actually paying for the whole load of water or? Yeah yeah yeah. The truck is ginormous. Crazy. It feels ridiculous. It's like 300 miles an hour. Yeah it's ridiculous. All right here comes the big splash here soon. Close. Might as well fill it all the way to the top. Three, two, one. That's why he said a little bit of water never hurts. You go home soaking wet every day. It's all right I'm here to help him you know relieve him a little bit. That's awesome. Make sure nothing gets in there. It's a lot of liters. A lot more than a liter of cola. Hi. Look at the splash zone on that. We might need three to get three months. I guess we'll see once we start actually using it like how fast it goes. Oh that was like basically perfect timing. Babe that's choked my armpit. You got so wet. Oh your white shirt. I should have. Well the good thing is oh man it's just dirt. It'll come off right. A little bit of bleach. Here maybe you hold this right here. Okay hold that. Let's do this. Oh my god that is really heavy. You got it babe? Barely. It back flowed again probably. Yeah don't worry about it. Yeah you're all good that's that's perfect. Oh there it goes. That's good. Yeah it's plenty dude. We'll be just getting dirt in there now. We have a little filtration system we'll run it through. So it's gonna work perfect. So I asked Matt what got him into the business and he said well my well kept getting dry so I figured there was enough room for one more truck in the area and I said that's a good reason. So smart of him to get into a business of a need that he has and I think this is actually how a lot of businesses start is you have your own need and you're like how do I offset this cost and so there you go. Water company delivery service was born. Pretty good idea. I have a plan to get this water into the shed and then the shed will be my pump house and then I'm gonna use a hose to pump it over to the hideout so we can fill our tank. But I gotta make sure that plan's gonna work. First thing I gotta do is make sure to see if this hose right here reaches. Luckily enough for us the hose is literally just going to reach. I mean just. Look at this guys. Look how crazy this is. I can't make it up. If I go directly underneath it will give me a little bit more room which is what I'll wind up doing. But look how incredibly insane. Every last inch we needed to get that hose over here. So step one check if the hose fits and it does. There is another connection I think. Let's go check the back. Yes. Right here is where we can land it as city water and we could use that pump in the pump house to give us the water that we need bypassing the pump inside this unit. We're not going to hear a pump going when you're washing your dishes. When your daughter's taking a nap. That's one thing about these units is they are very loud when it comes to their pumps. So I think this should do it. That pump should be able to no problem handle the distance. I did buy a little bit bigger of a pump for the 12 volt to be able to give us enough pressure to get everything over here. Oh I made a mistake too guys. I didn't bring the 12 volt batteries over here that I was supposed to bring. So I am going to have to make a run back to the house. Go pick up the batteries that we got from Booj RV. Be able to throw them inside the unit there. So that way we could just power that pump indefinitely. Another thing that I've noticed and that we've ran into while we're out here. This one's pretty cool. I saw you over here buddy. Where are you? Come back. Let's see if we can find them. Right there. Look at that right there. That's a wild strawberry. There's a whole bushel of them. Look at this guy. Ready? That one's ready to go. A perfect little wild strawberry. And these are delicious. So I was just thinking about it and I realized that a little ways back I actually broke my hex cutter. And I don't know where it is because I probably tossed it after I broke it. It still works. I don't know why I would toss it but yeah. Now I have to do this old school way and use a knife. And to eliminate making a bunch of cuts what I'm going to do is use this hex that I already have to kind of just go from there to here and then just make one cut hopefully. I was going to make it look all pretty with elbows and everything but since I don't have the knife that I need it's not going to be as pretty and that's okay. You guys watch this line right here and let me know if we have any leaks. That's it. That's full. Good. Easy enough. One, two, three. Now what I'm going to do is I'm actually going to screw that pump down and then after screwing that pump down then we will get the rest of it fit in right here. My absolute only worry about this whole entire system is will this little 12 volt pump be able to do the job to get the water over to the unit and not just get it to the unit but make sure that we have enough water flow for everything to work seamlessly. Oh it sounds like some electricity is moving. Okay but now it seems the water is... Open up one of the caps on the lid. Like let the air out? Wow it's really sunny over here. Does it matter which one? That tells me I have to put a switch in. Okay well you don't have to do it right this second. What? Well what we could do is we can hook up the hose right now. And make sure it was working. And then I could attach everything we make sure we get water at the other end of that into the house. Uh-huh. It's probably going to take a while to fill the water into the house city-wise. So yeah let's let's do that. Let's just hook up this hose. Might as well make sure it's all working before you make sure the electricity's like. Yeah. Oh it's fun that you have to hold it there. Well I don't have to. I could actually fully connect it but not noticing any water going to this hose yet. How do you know there's water in it at all? Right now I'm pretty sure now that now water's going through you had them I had them on you shut them off. Yeah but when I shut it off then you got water. Yeah so hose is starting to fill. Very complicated. We're gonna have to put a little label on there. Hose is starting to fill. Go open go open the water in the house. Oh like a faucet? Okay. There's no cap on that water coming out so water's gonna come out of there eventually. Out of where? Out of that pipe right there. What pipe? Don't trip and fall. What pipe? I could hear it. I could hear it. There it goes. Go shut it off. Why is there no cap on that pipe? Man we paid money for that water we're just watering the ground with. Oops. Ah it's leaking over there too. What do you mean? Let me see. Oh no. Let me see. Heads up. Right here. Oh he says. That must be this. What's that? This we need a key to open. Where are the keys? Good question. My hope is that one of these are the keys. They fit but it doesn't unlock it so that's not it. Oy. We're almost there. There's no keys in here. We need to find a cap for this. There should be a black cap that looks like that. Cool. And then why is it leaking from there is the question. It looks like something rotted out there. If you look there's like a chunk of wood on the floor underneath of it. Does that mean the floor is leaking here? Does that mean we need a new floor in here? No. I can see the wood there. It doesn't look bad but what that means is we have to cut out that that piece of wood was not from from here. It blew over from over there. What we do have to do is cut out this section right here with a knife and see why it's leaking. It's got wet. Oh my gosh you scared the living heck out of me. Something touched me and I was like yeah. Just around that circle that that little area that you were saying. Do a patch. Pull it down. It's really wet in there. Yeah. The insulation's all wet. Oh that looks like it's city from the city water. Is it a piece of pipe that I could just quickly fix? Or is it a bigger problem? It's a much bigger problem than that. My guess is that that water that we're seeing leak is either the city fill or the water that comes to here. I'm glad we got some water going though. Yeah right out onto the ground through holes we didn't know existed. You told me to be excited and now you're being the Debbie Downer? Oh man. It's always something eh? I'm wondering if there was a mouse chewing through that area and that's why there's a hole there. We don't know yet until we could get behind there and look and see. Yeah that's not a good sign. That means there's a whole nother project that I'm gonna have to handle here eventually. This is Everly's room too. Oh look at all how much water. Not good. Not a good sign. Kind of tight and gross. Is it just a hole or is it a big spot? I don't know what it is. I'm trying to get into all I see is this like wet insulation. I think I need to pull more of this stuff down. I would put on gloves. Yeah? Just because of the insulation? Yeah the insulation is uh... fiberglass baby. Yeah so I mean it could have just been squirting as that water went inside. You know what I mean? Yeah so like a new leak. Yeah so I might have to patch the pipe from an area to an area. Did you when you when you winterized did you winterize the... I think that's definitely mouse house. Yeah it's a mouse house area. Because look at all the random garbage in the insulation. Yep. Ew. Yeah you can see all the different colors in there. Look at all those colors. That's all from a mouse originally that was living in there. It's like metal shards. Yeah yeah they take whatever they can babe. Yeah? Yeah. Oh yucky. That was a guy living in there for sure. Oh yeah he was eating the plastic. That's what they do. They take whatever they can. See it says like little metal shards. There's definitely a larger poo in there too as well. It was eating like all of this. So I wonder if it bit through a line or something. What we're gonna do is... I love that there's a dryer sheet in here. Like that was gonna stop it. They do say dryer sheets is supposed to like deter them. Yeah well it didn't turn the dryer sheet into its house. Instead it bit through the plumbing. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Imagine a mouse fell out. Oh my god I would die. All right we got to find a cap for that so. You think it's just here or did you take it off last year when you were... I definitely... I thought I put it back on there. Well clearly. I don't think we're moving in today guys. We looked in all the usual places and all over the floor and we could not find that little plug. So we cannot turn the system back on until we have the plug. Because that's the the biggest leak. But that means we need to take a trip to the hardware store. The day is too late. Gotta wrap it up. You know what's messed up? I blew everything out of the lines with air and then I added only food grade antifreeze. So there should be no leaks anywhere unless something was chewed through. We thought we made it through this winter without any mice. Maybe there was like one or two. I captured a couple of them. You want me to put them in the vase with the other flowers? Okay. Very important. So yeah we're gonna have to reconvene. After a good fun trip to the store I got a little cap here. I did return a couple things and me and Paco are back at the job site. My goal is to just get this water done for today. I have to get water too coming in here because I need to be able to fill up Paco's water bowl. So priority one. Let's go put this on and let's see where that leak is coming from. I'm gonna close this so no bugs get in on you. We know the source of the issue is coming from behind this box. I will take this off. We now found the source of the leak. There she is. Mouse chewed right through it. Son of a gun. That means that the system was drained down. But man that freaking little bugger chewed right through the pipe. I can't believe that. Luckily for me I do have a single coupling and a single half inch to male adapter. I'm hoping that this is the right size because if it's a three quarter then this isn't going to fit and I'm going to have an issue connecting that and I will have to make another trip to the store. So I'm hoping that this and this will do the job. Let's see. It is quite literally a perfect fit. Now it isn't terrible. It could be so much worse because yeah I mean it could just be so much worse. Let's pull it back up and in. Now we take our trusted crimper. This is actually the reason why I really like PEX is it's really easy to work with in tight spots for the most part. That's it. That should be our repair. Like we are filling up the system. We have no leak. Nothing's dripping. Let's go look inside. We have nothing coming out here. Nothing coming out of the drain over there. Oh no. We have water coming out out of here. Yep. Fudge crackers. So it looks like the toilet's leaking now. So we now have to figure out why that has a wimp head. So let's go ahead and close our line. Oh no. We've had a full disaster. You know I thought I did a really good job at winterizing this but I guess I didn't because we now have a leak at the foot pump at the foot pump on the toilet which is probably the worst case scenario because now I most likely have to remove this Dometic toilet and put a new one in if I can't fix the broken mechanism. Calling Quinty RV. How may I help you? Hey I was wondering if you had any Dometic 310 toilet valves? I think so. It's possible. I'd run my parts and services. Okay and so if even if you did have it I wouldn't be able to pick it up till Monday. Hi. How are you doing today? I'm looking for a part. Hang on a sec. I think we do but hang on a sec. Yeah so I have one. It's 102 93. Perfect. I'll be there in a little bit to pick it up. Thank you. I grabbed this little RV Bloss. This should kill any type of bacteria or smell or whatever in that black water tank and then this right here is the ultimate piece that I need to stop that water leak that's happening and this should solve my issue. What a nightmare. You know what though? I could look at this in a really negative way and be like oh you know all the things that I should have done. The fact of the matter is I've never really winterized a rig before like this so I learn from my mistakes you know and I think that is the ultimate thing is learning from your mistakes and figuring out what you need to do next time. So next time what I'll do is I will drain that toilet completely. I will remove that line and drain it so that way I have no issue whatsoever and there's no water left in that mechanism even and that should ultimately fix any of the other issues in the future. Now when it comes to the mice that one's really hard to solve. What do you think Paco? Are we going to be able to fix this leak buddy? I'm going to need your helpful paws so you're going to have to climb inside the house and help me out. Does that sound good? If you are ever installing one of these one thing you have to know is there is a screw on the back side on the bottom here on mine. There might be a screw on the back side on top on yours. So unscrew that. It's going to make your life a hell of a lot easier trying to take this on and off. I didn't realize it was there and so I was fighting it the whole entire time and it literally comes with two screws. Mine only had one. It's going to make your life easier to be able to unscrew that. Then these little clamps push down nice and easy on both sides and it pops right out. So if you're dealing with this in the future and you're fighting it that's probably your issue. I'm going to go ahead and install this. It's really hard to get the angle of me installing it so I'll show you what it looks like and that it's working once it's done. Let's see if Alex answers. Hey we got a big problem. So I fixed the one leak. A mouse chewed through the line. The new leak at the toilet. Water supply going in. The good thing is I've already fixed it. It was a big problem because I had to go find the part. Yeah. Well so now is it leak free? We're about to find out. I'm about to turn on the system. Water's back at the lines here. Let's go open up stuff inside and see what we got going on. I'm hearing something. Good. For a second there I thought it was the toilet. It was right here. Nothing there. Let's see if it flushes. New water in the line. So far so good. See it fill up. Nice. Looking good. No leaks in the area baby. Do I have water coming out somewhere else now? See. Whoa. That was a lot of pressure on the hot water side. All right. Hot water side's looking good. You know with that much pressure coming out of it. With that much pressure coming out of it that means that there's no leak at the hot water tank itself. That's some pretty good pressure. And then now let's go see how that pump is doing. See if it's shut off. I look at it as an opportunity to like troubleshoot and figure out what's going on and not to hang my head low and instead keep my head high. We have no pump running at the moment which means that the pressure has been satisfied. No difference. Great. The line is nice and taut. No leaks inside here. Battery looking good. Yeah I'm pretty stoked. Everything feels nice. Everything feels great. Yeah. Line is nice and hard. We have no water coming out anywhere else. We've solved all the issues and we now can officially move into the hideout.