Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

Hello all!

I have officially got the bug to build my own teardrop and I'm trying to decide some specifics about the Galley which will determine how much space I need for some items. My polling questions are this:

1) What are the thoughts on a permanently mounted sink in the counter, and do you run water pressure to it, use a hand pump, or just a spigot reservoir and gravity feed?
2) Is your stove permanently mounted in the galley or do you remove your camp stove (Coleman or otherwise) at your campsite and set it up on a table (either attached or not to the trailer). If permanent in your galley, is it plumed with a propane tank or do you use disposable bottles?
3) Anyone using a galley stove that has an oven, or is it overkill and not commonly used while camping?

This is my first post so forgive me if I've missed the format, but I'm very curious about what works well!

Ben from San Diego

Ditched the sink idea, more trouble than it was worth. I also needed the space more than I needed a sink. I have a drawer for the stove, but I cook on a picnic table. I don't want to deal with spatter from cooking and open flame with all that wood nearby didn't seem like a good idea.

We have a standard stainless steel RV cook top and a decent sized sink with a 6 gal gas electric water heater, plumbed to a 25# propane tank. We also have a grill that goes on a table with a 10' hose plumbed to a gas point on the side of the trailer. The trailer has a 10gal water heater and 16gal gray water tank. Nancy LOVES having hot water to do dishes etc. and there is a shower point on the side of the trailer.

Hello Ben from San Diego and welcome to the forum.

Stoves, sinks, and their installation have been the subjects of many many threads here on the forum so there is no shortage of information/opinions on the subject. As has been stated, for each person you ask you will probably get a slightly different answer.

First of all, to get more galley ideas than you will ever know what to do with, you should get yourself a snack and a drink and spend a spell going through all the beautiful pictures in the galley gallery, located here
http://s134.photobucket.com/user/ams-texas/slideshow/Galley%20Gallery/?albumview=slideshow
That will certainly get your creative juices flowing.

As for my own two cents....(and it's just that, and not a judgment of any kind that my way is any better or more right than anyone else's) I started out by buying a counter mounted stove and a sink, manual hand pump and all the related plumbing before I even had the walls up. By the time I actually got around to building the galley I had done a lot more research, taken a lot more measurements and just had more time to think about what I needed and wanted (and even more importantly an assessment of how I like to work). I chucked all that and went with a Coleman stove (which can sit on an extension table off my galley or on the picnic table depending on how much room I need), a portable waterjug (or a hose if campground water is available at my site) and 2 plastic dishpans. I am very happy with my decision. I use every inch of the precious storage space I have in my galley for gear and supplies. The space a sink, tanks (fresh water and gray) and a counter top stove would have occupied would have left very little space for much else. Those with bigger teardrops than mine will be less restricted in this regard so the size of trailer you intend to build will play into this.

I have lived on boats (in San Diego, coincidentally) with tiny little bar-size sinks and their function is so limited that you will get much more done (without making a wet mess in your galley) with a couple of dishpans (hence a double sink) on the picnic table. Some people have made extension tables for their trailers that have cut outs to drop in two dishpans. Bob Henry comes to mind. My thought about the stove mounted in the counter top is that it brings a lot of grease and smells into the galley, hence more cleaning. I don't particularly favor cleaning and strive to reduce the need for it whenever possible. I also tend to utilize all the space on my counter (which I would have virtually NONE OF left if I had a sink and drop in stove). Again, size matters. If you will be camping in bear country you will probably appreciate not having lingering smells of cooking meat on the inside of your galley.

Whatever you decide, it is your galley and you are the one that has to be happy with it, so evaluate your style and make it fit you. Best of luck with your build. And we are incurable voyeurs here, so please post lots of pictures!!

Becky is right, a quick search will give you many threads on this topic. For me, i totally agree with both becky and danny. Sink is not worth the loss of space, especially fro the water tank. Stove goes outside on a table attached to a hitch receiver. Did not want to lose the counter space. I think it is summed up best in the "perfect td" which can be found under "design resources" at the top of the page.

"I wouldn't want a sink for three reasons. 1. A sink usually requires a water tank and a holding tank for waste water. Both of these add tow weight, take away cargo space and can be difficult to clean out. After a season or two with a tent trailer, we stopped using the sink inside our rig. 2. A sink is usually too small for more than hand washing or vegetable rinsing. 3. A sink takes up too much valuable countertop space. The only reason I can see to have a sink is because they are real cute. But a sink is one cute item that does not justify itself in any other way. We carry 3 gallon water jugs with spigots on them. Gravity feeds out the water on demand and a large lid is removable at the top of the jug so that it can be easily cleaned."

As for oven, although I know several tds that have them, again, I don't want to give up the cabinet space, plus a dutch oven is all the oven I need!

No sink here and our stove is on a pull out so we can cook there or take to a table somewhere else.

Don't want to give up the counterspace........

Just make more...



and the oven hard at work......

I am building a newer trailer as we speak. I plan to have the sink on a slide out drawer just under the counter. no faucet I will set up the drain to be removed when not in use. But we have a coleman camp kitchen
we use with our present trailer.
and we use a stove support table

We have several of the white gas stoves .... once we had one that had not been cleaned right and needed new parts. the Gas be hind the burner flamed up and began to run down the side of the stove. We pulled out the fire extinguisher and put it out. So I would say unless you know how to make the white gas stove run like new and have your stove as part of your wooden trailer use propane. One man recommended putting a sock around the small gas cans so they would not ice over.
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these are the galley set ups I like so far. Keep looking you will find several that meet your needs. and many have Ideas they like they go to a gathering and go home and rip something out and put the new idea in. it is a never changing process...... mine may not even look like this when we are done!!

Good luck

I use a table top grill on a seperate table to cook, no sink currently, I plan on a hook on side table/shelf to either put my RV sink (free from the PUP I tore down) orjust go with the dish pans idea. I want my counter space for working not tied up.

I'm gonna install a regular RV range/oven in the galley of my build in progress. Currently, I carry a couple of propane burners and set one or both up away from the galley so the cooking mess is not in the galley. I plan on using the range top over the oven in my build mostly for "non-messy" cooking (ie no frying) and use a remote burner for the messy stuff. I do the same at home. As our climate is mild I only boil stuff inside the house. If I make bacon, sausage, stir fry or anything messy, I do it outside on a SS table that is easy to scrub and hose down.

I hate doing dishes in anything less than hot water. I think it's a crime against nature to do so. So, I found a large SS bowl with a flat bottom and use it as a dishpan. I just place it right on a burner and heat the water to the desired temperature. When it cools down I just pop it back on the burner and heat it up again. The bowl is almost hemispherical and because of its shape plates, pots, and pans fit into it well and it uses less water than a rectangular dishpan.

As Slow says, my 2 cents.

Cheers,

Gus

With no sink or gray tank, and using portable wash bins, what do you do with the waste water when you're done, if the camping area does not have a designated space for dumping it? The bushes?
Also, one concern of not having a gray tank is camping in places like Yellowstone, where the smell of dumped waste water from doing dishes might be an issue. Do places with bears usually have designated dump areas for this purpose?

Most camp sites have fire pits. I dump used water in the fire pit. That way any "gradoo" gets incinerated.

Cheers,

Gus

If you are concerned about grey water you can always carry a 5 gallon bucket with lid (ala Home Depot). or get an extra 5 or 7 gallon portable water jug, or plastic jug meant for gas or kerosene and label it as grey water (if you're using similar jugs for other purposes. Or if you have a lot of disposable income you can buy a real portable grey water tank (they even come with wheels and a handle, like a wagon). You can dump your grey water from your dishpans in there and then dump the bucket or tank in the sewage dump on the way out of the campground when you dump your portapot. The jug will serve the same purpose as one mounted in the galley, will not take up space and will be much easier to rinse out with a hose when you get home. Plus it will be a lot cheaper set up than a permanently installed one. (Have you priced those tanks, and all the hoses and fittings?)

Becky, I like your approach or thoughts to this grey water thing. I was thinking of having my grey water go into one of those 5 gal blue containers. And for the beginning of my camping time while I develop my final designs for the finished trailer, I was going to use the blue containers for grey water and another one or two for drinking water. Now with your recommendation to use a yellow jug, I see the wisdom in that. For one thing, there is less of a chance to mix up the containers if there is a color difference. Or I could just paint the grey water a different color.

Bob