I'm starting a supplemental thread on tools that some people may wish to carry some of the time depending on their trip-specific needs, but which are probably not desired by all Interstate owners.
This is a van-specific thread within the context of our extremely-limited carrying capacity. This is *not* a trailer / TV thread that will be useful to those Airstreams for whom, IMO, the tool-carrying potential approaches infinity. They don't have the same space limitations as we do, and they are not bound by the same trade-offs.
The primary Sprinter and B Van thread pertaining to tools is here, with its focus being more on intra-van mechanical applications:
Tools: Required, Nice to have, and overkill but I have it anyway
However, we also have additional valuable tool info spread willy-nilly across multiple other threads, including tools for extra-van contexts.
For example, a useful sidebar regarding power tools is contained within the mammoth Small Space Living thread, commencing
here. It took me 15 bloody minutes to locate that content, hence I'm re-linking it into this new thread devoted to that topic.
We carried rechargeable power tools to our off-grid location in Canada this year for the first time ever, including an Ego string trimmer (
Troutboy was correct about it being a good brand) and a Dewalt impact driver.
I was initially hesitant to do that - afraid that our 300 watts of solar would not be able to keep up, such that the tools would draw down our 300 AH house battery too severely, leading us to discontinue using them, and therefore becoming useless and dead cargo weight.
But I was pleasantly surprised. For perspective, I began mentally tracking tool power consumption in units of refrigerator (i.e., in units of our Vitrifrigo, given that I know instinctively how much juice it needs). We took an oversized rapid-charging lithium battery to fit the Ego string trimmer, and that thing gobbled up 5 refrigerators worth of power, but only in 30-minute increments, such that on a sunny day, the net cost of a recharge was only about 3% of gross battery capacity. The impact driver had tiny batteries in comparison, and consumed less than one refrigerator.
For the chainsaw, though, I think we made the right decision NOT to go rechargeable. That's just too demanding a tool to be trying to run off a solar / battery system, with the amount of work we do out there.
What tools do you take, that are specific to your destination or situation? Where and how do you carry them?
To mark the thread launch, which I always like to do with a frontispiece, here's our rode-hard-and-put-away Stihl conventional gas chainsaw, plus some reasonable arm definition in the 56-year-old female wielding it:
Linear Mode
