Buying a Camper to Convert... Any Advice

[Dances with Walleye]

I'm not sure which I'm more excited for... Getting Married this Saturday and going to Hawaii... Or the Camper that I'm buying to convert to a Fish house on Mille Lacs this winter!

LOL!

I suppose as I'm working on it I'll keep this is a journal of my conversion...

But first I've got some minor questions...

I'm trying to work out picking the camper up before my wedding this weekend... If not I'm going to let my buddy (Who's splitting the camper with me) pick it up with my truck while I'm on my honeymoon.

I've never bought a camper or a trailer from a second party before... So I'm wondering if any of you guys have any insights on little red tape things I should keep an eye out for.

What's the deal with liscence/registration etc?

Any questions I should ask out of the ordinary?

[DuluthMedic]

My buddy and I just bought a 14ft Mallard camper and are in the middle of converting it. We both agreed we would pay half on everything. The only problem is whos house it stays at. I fish 10x more then he does, he also does not have an auger. So I'm guessin we will leave it at my place. Good luck...lost of good advice around here on coverting the camper.

[Dances with Walleye]

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My buddy and I just bought a 14ft Mallard camper and are in the middle of converting it. We both agreed we would pay half on everything. The only problem is whos house it stays at. I fish 10x more then he does, he also does not have an auger. So I'm guessin we will leave it at my place. Good luck...lost of good advice around here on coverting the camper.

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Pretty simple there... I own 3/4 of an acre lot... He is in an apartment...

As for it's placement on the ice... We're both in agreement on Mille Lacs...

And we've already worked out that we're going to toss our friend some cash in the summer to keep it parked at his Lake Lot, since we're fishing up there all the time anyway.

While it does suck a little bit to be sharing a house... I've known this guy for 26 years, so we're pretty good at being able to sort out arguements amicably.

The only issue I forsee is if I don't go up for a weekend, and he goes up with some people I don't know, and they break something etc...

[Scott K]

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The only issue I forsee is if I don't go up for a weekend, and he goes up with some people I don't know, and they break something etc...

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Its best to work out stuff like that before it happens!

[Dances with Walleye]

We pick it up tonight!

Been doing a lot of chatting/planning on insulating and such...

But the biggest debate right now is how to heat it.

We have 3 options.

Option 1:

Wall Mounted heater

Cost: $280

Pro's: Wall mount means we can put in another hole or two in the floor, and the wall Mounted heater is more efficient, and is the safest option for propane heat.

Con's: Cost of propane will mean roughly $40 per weekend. And since it's wall mount we can't use it to boil water to pour down the holes and create humidity... And since there's no kitchen we also can't cook off the wall mount, and would have to bring a camp stove with us every time.

Option 2:

Floor mounted propane furnace

Cost: $150

Pro's Excellent heat control, and we can boil a pot for humidity and cooking on it.

Con's Cost of Propane will be roughly $50-$60 per weekend. And "Technically" you're not supposed to sleep with it on... But an army of detectors and proper venting get around this.

Option 3

Floor Mounted Wood stove

Cost: $90

Pro's: CHEAP, can boil a pot etc... Both me and my buddy have access to TONS of wood to burn. Cost to heat each weekend next to nothing.

Con's: Means we always have to haul wood with us, and find a way to store wood dry without putting it in the house. A little harder to control the heat (But not bad) A little messy to be dealing with the ashes. And there is the threat of carbon Monoxide (However a good CO detector clears that up.)

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Considering how in the next couple of year things will be running lean for me (Kids & Mortgage) the wood stove seems like the best option... Then I can go ice fishing for just the cost of truck gas, bait and the time to cut down big pieces of wood into small pieces of wood.

[DuluthMedic]

We bought the a 160$ propane wall mount at Menards for the shack. Haven't fired it up yet..but i'm sure it will work. Just need to ad co detector and the camper has a nice vent in the roof. Should work fine.

[Dances with Walleye]

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We bought the a 160$ propane wall mount at Menards for the shack. Haven't fired it up yet..but i'm sure it will work. Just need to ad co detector and the camper has a nice vent in the roof. Should work fine.

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The problem I run into with a wall mount is that I can't boil water on it... And with a camper being so far off the ice, we often boil lake water (for Humidity) and then pour the water down the holes every couple of hours to keep them open.

Also the kitchen is gutted out of this house... So with a Furnace or wood heater I can put a can of soup, or pot of leftovers on the furnace and cook it. (It just won't fry stuff like eggs and bacon)

So if I want to boil or cook I'll have to bring my camp stove with every time.

[Scott K]

As for the holes freezing up, mount a fan on the ceiling and blow the air down to circulate warm air, works well, even in real cold weather.

[Dances with Walleye]

Good point...

We played around with that last year at the end of the year, and it worked well... Only problem was that it pretty much doubled the drain on the 12V batteries.

[beer batter]

Bring the camp stove and get a wall mount furnace. You can set things on top of wall mount furnaces. Just like setting things on a window sill. You won't be cooking, but things do warm up nicely. I used to take aluminum foil and wrap up a bunch of sandwiches made in hamburger buns, and set them on top of the wall mount furnace. A couple hours later you've got some warm, melty cheese, and whatever else you put in there sandwiches ready for lunch. Stick a coffee can of water on top and you'll be able to dump it in your ice holes like you mentioned above.

You will want the extra space allowed by the wall mount furnace. That much is for certain.

[federline]

You're propane costs seem high to me, how many BTU's are we talkin?

We're on our second year with our gutted 12 footer conversion, after buying it for $200 intact. 3 bunks, 6 holes. We're replacing our heat source this year, too. Blaze also mentioned in the other camper conversion thread we are putting removable skids on it this year so it can convert between wheeled and skids.

We just cut out the 40 year old gravity furnace last night to replace it this year. We also lined up all our options. We decided on a propane floor stove for all the reasons you listed (fast heat, dry heat, cooktop heating), and because we can't afford a direct vent wall heater ($280 is a really good deal if it is really a direct vent...), and we don't want the moisture from a vent-free blue flame (we like dry heat), and we don't want to have to run a blower in an RV furnace (we run 1 deep cycle and no generator for a weekend, and we like the quiet). We run a CO detector, too, but our house is like swiss cheeze...

We plumbed in a baffled/routed air intake to the bottom of the stove, used 2-wall gas flue piping out the roof, and put flashing on the wall and floor around the stove. These stoves are so small. They do take some floorspace, tho. We have the room for it since we gutted our camper and computer-optimized our layout.

Other stuff? We have 3 owners. We've put over $1000 into it. It's getting pretty nice now. They key for us was to spend the money over time, we're all working stiffs with kids and mortgages and multiple cars and boats... We keep track of who spends $$$ on what, so we know who has to spend money on it next. Example: This year, I paid for storage, another guy paid for some frame welding, and the other bought HVAC and paint supplies. We tally up the inequity and the debt gets washed out by ice road access fees, propane, bait and beer.

We all trust each other well since we're all invested in it. We can do everything by consensus pretty much - where to put it on the lake, who does what and brings what. And we're all tinkerer-handymen with enough tools, trucks, toys and interesting friends between us all to get anything done. It would be a lot harder to do all this alone or with only one other person. 3 owners seems to be the magic number.

[federline]

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What's the deal with liscence/registration etc?

Any questions I should ask out of the ordinary?

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- It will need a trailer license if (A) you use it to haul your ATV (some people cut and mount a door in the back) ( you tow it somewhere intending to use it as a camper on land. Permanent trailer licenses aren't too expensive - register it as a homemade trailer if you do, and low ball the price to avoid paying a lot of tax.

- It will need to have an ice shelter license if you leave it on the ice overnight (you knew this).

- If only licensed as ice shelter, you can technically only haul it on the road to go right to a lake. I make sure ours is identifiable on the outside as a ice shelter in case the sheriff looks my way when I'm hauling it home from storage to work on. The advent of permanent trailer licenses means many trailers don't show a license plate anymore, so it's hard to check a trailer as it drives by...

- Make sure the frame is sound underneath it!!! You'll have heartbreak and a mess on your hands if the tongue or axle or back half snaps off.

- Make sure the road lights work, replace any that don't. Nothing attracts the sheriff's attention quicker than a ratty old camper with no license and non-functional lights!

- CHECK THE WHEEL HUBS FOR HEAT AFTER A MILE OR TWO OF HIGHWAY SPEED! Old trailers have old bearings usually, that don't last long after its pulled out of the back forty.

- Preserve your 110v AC circuit alongside the 12v wiring, even if you don't plan on using a generator. You may someday, and its really nice to plug in while working on it at home.

[tipup]

My dad and I bought an old converted camper trailer last year and dollar for daoller it was the smartest thing we did. We also will be doing updates as the times passes and money comes about. We welded two skids underneath of our this summer and made the wheels removable as we only live a few miles from the lake. Once we are at the lake we take off the wheels and pull the house out on the skids, never need the wheels again until we take the house off for the year. Seems to work just fine plus we are now about 3-4" off of the ice insted of 12-14" with the wheels on.

[danwilliams]

Tipup..

Great idea! What did you make skids out of? Sounds like a plan and a half. Living 3 miles from Mille Lacs, I'd just need wheels start of season and end of season.....

[tipup]

We just used square steel tube and beveled up the ends as to not drag /dig into anything, steel in my mind will out last wood once you start having to chop ice away after a few days of being in one spot. Chip it loose a bit and then give it a pull. We made connectors on the tongue to hook chains/tow rope up to to pull it around the lake.

[federline]

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We just used square steel tube and beveled up the ends as to not drag /dig into anything, steel in my mind will out last wood once you start having to chop ice away after a few days of being in one spot. Chip it loose a bit and then give it a pull. We made connectors on the tongue to hook chains/tow rope up to to pull it around the lake.

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Tipup, sounds like you have a good design. How did you attach the tubing to the camper? Welded? Bolted? To the main frame member, or across side-to-side supports?

We busted our tongue last year, too, so we would probably hook to the skids themselves to tow around the lake (the tongue repair is good, but don't trust it completely yet).

Our leaf spring shackles are part of the main front-to-rear frame members, so we can't run a single steel skid front-to-back the easy way, looking for a good idea or solution.

[tipup]

We put tubes along the main under frame and just left gaps where the spring shackels are. We also fabricated retractable wjeels this summer for it so I will keep you all updated on how it turns out.

[Dances with Walleye]

Just got back from my honeymoon in Hawaii... Good to see this thread has some life left in it! Thanks Guys!

This weekend my buddy and I are getting after the camper again. (Didn't really accomplish much more than taking out some bunk junk the previous owner had in there. Over a couple of whiskeys after my grooms dinner.

Though I did make a point to write my vows in the fish house! Just so I could always point to the ratty old table bunk and be able to say that!

LOL!

At this point we're pretty much sold on wood heat... And just put the wood stove over top of one of the wheel wells... Not losing any floor space that wasn't already being eaten up.

Problem is... I just discovered that for some reason the wheel wells are just a thick glossy plastic!

Any ideas on how I should insulate against this? Or is there some easy way to simply buy a wheel.

Our other pressing issue is that the original roof leaked... Caused the roof to sag... Then the last owner simply rubbered the roof... But it still sags...

We're taking off the ceiling and essentially going to just rebuild all the supporting structure...

In my mind it seems as simply as replacing the 2x4's... Though I'm wondering if there might be some other kind of snag that I'm not aware of with this sort of endeavor?

[skinnylee]

have anybody looked at a hi low camper for fish house Im looking at one and then put crank up wheels on it I think it would be cheap to tow long distance any opion on this

[Dances with Walleye]

Well I took the ceiling off this weekend... Took a nail to the head SAVAGE! Now it's infected...

Essentially what was causing the sag was 2 fold...

1. The previous owner removed some structure in order to wire in some lights, and the remaining structure couldn't support it.

2. There was some minor leaking and it caused a couple of beams to rot.

The problem we have now is that the 1X2's in the main section of the walls are weak by the headers... So we decided to replace with 2X4's... Thickens the walls a little... But it will allow us to put more strength to the compromised ceiling.

[Dances with Walleye]

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have anybody looked at a hi low camper for fish house Im looking at one and then put crank up wheels on it I think it would be cheap to tow long distance any opion on this

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If you're refering to a crank down frame for a wheel house...

Someday when I've got more free money I plan on building one from scratch. Once upon a fall I even sketched out and priced one up... But what I'd want is more like 6 grand...

Camper is much cheaper for right now.

[federline]

Dances w/ 'Eyes: Good job with the roof, these old campers will last forever if you just open a wall now and then. :-) Keep us up to date with progress, and keep putting salve on that nasty cut, man, you have to make it to ice still.

[Dances with Walleye]

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Dances w/ 'Eyes: Good job with the roof, these old campers will last forever if you just open a wall now and then. :-) Keep us up to date with progress, and keep putting salve on that nasty cut, man, you have to make it to ice still.

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This weekend my partner couldn't make it, so I ended up working on it alone.

Boy I tell you that is some rewarding feeling work...

I've come to the conclusion that working on the fish house is the culmination of the childhood dream... Like when you were a kid, and you were always trying to build this awesome fort... But you never really finished it, and if you did, it was never really what you pictured.

Now as a grown man, I have the ability to make my fish house awesome... And it's become my "Man Fort."

I mean I come home to have a beer after a hard day, and I just sit in the man-fort, and chill... No Wife's ET blaring in the other room... No Tele-Marketers calling me... No Dancing around the pets... Just me and the Man-Fort... The smell of fresh cut lumber, and curing caulk.

This weekend I tore out a dry rot wall, and re-built it... Then I Re-enforced the sagging ceiling in the Nose of the camper, so that it would better handle this long period of rain.

[Pikeslayer]

Dances with eyes My wheelwells are made out of fiberglass(lots of heat loss)What Im doing with my camper is box it in with cardboard(old beer boxs)around the humps and fill it in with spray insulation,build it up enough and you have instant benchs!

[Dances with Walleye]

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Dances with eyes My wheelwells are made out of fiberglass(lots of heat loss)What Im doing with my camper is box it in with cardboard(old beer boxs)around the humps and fill it in with spray insulation,build it up enough and you have instant benchs!

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You and I are of the same mind...

One Wheel well is going to have the Wood Stove above it at some safe distance... And will be insulated to whatever fire safety level I need to do... So I'm not worried about that wheel well.

The other I'm going to have a cabinet that I can remove. (Making for more space for the Auger handles). I'm thinking about having a spray foam form as part of that cabinet.

And then of course I'm going to put up skirting... And I was thinking of insulating the wheel wells from the outside, with some extra 6" insulation I've got, that would just attach to the wood frame of the skirting to keep it in place.