Less crucial now that the burn is over (we went with a car, ultimately, and bought the rental company insurance) - but I'm still interested in the answer. I also should have been more clear: I live in NYC, and thus don't have a personal auto insurance policy. I was/am looking for temporary coverage,...

Swampdog - that's interesting, I didn't see the gusset spec when I googled. 3 gal sounds like a winner (at $1.20 a bag, it better be)... if the neck of the bag isn't too tight, that is. Probably have to put the block in lengthwise, then turn it. I can't believe it's so difficult just to get measurem...

figjam - that's a good way of thinking about it. Though I'm not sure it's that easy, since the bag is essentially two-dimensional and the dimensions of the block are rigid (and unknown, currently). You're losing a lot of space in there - if you've ever tried to shove a loaf of bread into a ziploc, y...

lemur - I appreciate your opinion, honestly. I also know about allowed sprinkling. But I maintain that this is pretty standard stuff - we've been doing the bottled water trick since like 1995. This year, our camp will be somewhere between fifteen and twenty people, with a dozen or more coolers. If y...

Thanks for the replies. I probably should have been more detailed in my explanation: We're definitely not relying on melted ice for drinking - we'll have the requisite suitcases of H20. It's more about not wasting the water produced, and having to dispose of or evaporate it. Also, it's about not was...

So for reasons I won't get into, we won't have the time/resources to freeze a bunch of bottled water this year to use as ice blocks in our coolers. (Ice melting in a plastic bottle => drinkable water.) I was thinking an alternate plan would be to stick our storebought ice into giant ziploc bags. The...

Thanks for the responses. I'll reply to a couple of them, as some of this is stuff we've considered previously: Tarps - we were really trying to steer away from tarps, for the noise/wind reasons mentioned, and because it's completely opaque. Also, it means more tensioning of the whole thing from the...

It's been about thirteen years since I've built one of these, so I'm hoping to get a sanity-check from the masses on our design. See pic here: [img]http://houseofpain.org/xfer/blind/tubey_v8a_crop.jpg[/img] Stats below. Feel free to ignore the nudeness and hugeness of our stand-ins. We are much less...

Yeah - that's why I had the feeling the CruiseAmerica lady was just feeding me a line. When she said 1 gal / hour, I asked if that included when it was just idling - I don't think our dinky home stereo receiver and xmas lights are going to load a 4kw generator much. Her response was that it's the sa...

Thanks paul & others - awesome info. (And numbers! I love numbers!) Sounds like my math was pretty much in the ballpark. If we were able to spread the cost across multiple burns, a fast charger & 2-3 batteries sound like the way to go. Info from our RV company: the outlets aren't connected to the st...

Thanks for the continued stream of info. Yah - my feeling was that we'd pay for genny time when anyone wanted daiquiris, and try to run lights & tunes off the batteries. What I'm still shaky on is the math of discharge / recharge... If my figures above are in the ballpark, just lights/fans/stereo wi...

Thanks for the tip. I'd read elsewhere that many RV's have a cab battery (for drivin'), plus a couple others that run the interior lights, etc. when parked... But I'd assumed this wasn't a solution, as the source seemed to be saying you didn't want to run heavy appliances like the microwave off of t...

As much as I hate creating Yet Another Power Thread - I've been wading through online info for hours now, and still haven't figured it out. Hopefully, this thread will at least serve as a fully-worked-out example solution for future waders. So we're trying to come up with a power plan for 2011. Some...

Here's an off-the-wall thought: has anyone considered using rechargeable drill batteries to power camp items? They're light, charge fast, and you're going to be carrying them anyway. (Though you'd want to be careful not to leave yourself drill-less.) At about 3Ah each, I think you could run a small ...

>> But, by Third Party, do you mean something not associated with the rental company? Like my "automatic" Discover Card coverage? Bingo. I'm asking whether there's a cheaper alternative than the coverage you buy from the rental company. (Given that credit card and personal policies may not automatic...

One-way rentals are significantly cheaper, since they charge by the day only, not by the mile. (Discovered this tidbit from several posts on the forums.) "Home" for us is New York City - so everything large either burns or gets donated. We only need a whole truck one direction. I assumed they're onl...

Not to be alarmist, but I just got a call from Penske, saying that all one-way truck reservations into Nevada are canceled for the week of Burning Man, company-wide.

Anybody else get a cancellation? That's going to bone a lot of folks, I imagine - Penske's been pretty popular with burners, iirc.

Does anyone have research to share regarding third party insurance when renting a truck? Googling didn't turn up much info. Some context: o many personal auto insurance policies don't cover trucks, "commercial" rentals, or "off-road" operation. o ditto the automatic insurance included with your cred...