After spending so much time on the road traveling to shows, Shane and Emily from Arbour Seson decided to move into a home on wheels. With two young kids in tow, these traveling musicians stay busy as they move from state to state, playing music and seeing new places. While life gets hectic, Shane and Emily’s custom-built skoolie is the perfect home base to return to after a long day. Arbour Season joins us for an episode of the Li-MITLESS ENERGY Podcast, where they share about how they enjoy the excitement of travel as a family without giving up the comfort of home.
Before adopting the name “Arbour Season,” this musical pair simply went by “Shane and Emily.” After meeting through a mutual friend in Florida, Shane and Emily began playing music together and quickly became a band. A few years later, the pair fell in love, got married, and started living on the road full-time while playing shows. Following the arrival of their son Sawyer and daughter Juneau, Shane and Emily traded in their RV for a custom-built skoolie. With everything they need for daily life packed inside, this family of four loves taking their home everywhere they go. Whether they’re visiting family, traveling to a show, or simply exploring a new place, Arbour Season is living their dream life on the road.
In this episode of the Li-MITLESS ENERGY Podcast, host Dr. Denis Phares is joined by Shane and Emily of Arbour Season to discuss their life on the road as traveling musicians. This husband-and-wife duo shares how they met, what inspired them to give up stationary living in favor of life on the road, and how they manage their tour schedule while keeping up with two busy toddlers. After a close call with their old AGM batteries, Shane and Emily were ready to prioritize their family’s safety and upgrade to lithium. With their new Battle Born Batteries electrical system, Arbour Season has plenty of power for daily life with their kids and keeping up with their latest tour schedule. Throughout the episode, Shane and Emily share stories from their life on the road and even play a few songs accompanied by Denis on the guitar!
Listen to the full episode or watch the recording on our YouTube channel, and be sure to follow Arbour Season on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and Spotify!
Denis Phares 0:14
Welcome to The Li-MITLESS ENERGY Podcast. I’m Denis Phares, and my guests today are Emily and Shane of Arbour Season. And first, let me state that Arbour Season is a number of things. It’s the name of your band, it’s the name of your channel, it’s the name of your bus. So, you guys live in a skoolie, and you travel around playing shows off grid. Is that accurate?
Emily 0:37
Absolutely.
Denis Phares 0:39
Okay. Which came first, the skoolie, the band, the channel?
Emily 0:43
Hmm. So, the band?
Shane 0:43
So, the band. Out of all of those things, the band, but we actually started… Our story goes way back, but we were called Shane and Emily first. That was our band name.
Denis Phares 0:55
Okay. This is pre-skoolie?
Emily 0:56
Pre-skoolie, yeah.
Shane 0:56
Yeah, pre-skoolie.
Emily 0:59
We were in the RV. Well, first, we were living in apartments, and then we got an RV and we traveled around in that. So, that was when we started hitting the road, playing at universities, different things like that, and realized that we were paying rent on our apartments and we were never there, we were always gone. And we were like, “This is really dumb.” So then it was Shane’s idea to get an RV.
Denis Phares 1:20
Okay, so, you had a band… Sorry, what city was it in?
Shane 1:23
It was in Tampa.
Denis Phares 1:24
Tampa.
Shane 1:25
Yeah.
Denis Phares 1:25
Okay. So, you had a place in Tampa, you’re traveling around the country, or around East Coast?
Shane 1:30
Yeah. So, we did like Disney twice a week for about four years and other beach bars and restaurants. But then, there was a college agency that reached out to us, a college booking agency. So, we would do these conferences, and then they would fly us out to conferences and colleges all over the country. So, we did like 100 colleges in like a year and a half.
Emily 1:48
It was crazy.
Shane 1:49
So, we were always touring, always traveling. And so, we were just paying all this money to live in Tampa.
Emily 1:55
And we were never there. We like weren’t even really living in Tampa. It wasn’t great.
Shane 2:01
So, it wasn’t really a thought at first, and then I was just like… Oh, I went to a gig and there’s this guy that had an RV and he traveled the country.
Emily 2:09
Creighton, that was his name.
Shane 2:10
Creighton, yes. And he would fix other people’s stoves and things like that, like restaurants. That was his job. So, he traveled all over fixing stoves. And he’s like, “Do you want a tour of my RV?” And I’m like, “Okay.” So I went…
Denis Phares 2:20
He offered you his RV to tour in?
Shane 2:22
No, just to look at. Tour. He was really cool, but not that cool.
Emily 2:27
No, just to look at. “Do you want to take my RV and just travel around with it?”
Denis Phares 2:29
I was surprised by that. Okay, he gave you a little tour of his RV. Okay.
Shane 2:32
And when he lifted up his mattress, his bed in the back, and like all of his clothes were under it. That was it. I’m like I have to do this.
Emily 2:39
Shane’s dream has always been to be like Franklin the turtle and just have everything he needs in his backpack everywhere he goes. (Laughs)
Shane 2:45
Yep. And then I saw this couple called Gone with the Winds, and they’re my heroes. And so, I watched all their videos. And I said, “Emily, I’m buying an RV.”
Emily 2:54
We were dating, and in my mind, I was like, “Well, I’m not going to live in an RV, so I guess we’re going to break up.”
Shane 3:01
Yeah, because I had my apartment, she had her apartment. And then, when I got the RV because we’re not married, so I got the RV anyway.
Emily 3:08
And I was like, “Oh my gosh, I’m so never going to do this.”
Shane 3:12
And now, here we are, a bus later.
Denis Phares 3:16
All right, thanks to the appliance repair man.
Emily 3:18
I know, Creighton. I wonder what he’s up to now, I wonder if he’s still fixing stoves.
Shane 3:23
Creighton and Gone with the Winds. He was…
Emily 3:24
I don’t even know where he was from. He looked like he was probably from California. He was just traveling around and he was in Tampa. I should look him up on Facebook.
Shane 3:31
Oh, yeah. He was like a surfer bro kind of guy.
Emily 3:33
Yes, he was.
Denis Phares 3:33
So, you got an RV but you weren’t both living in it yet?
Emily 3:37
No, not till we got married, which was probably like six months after he got the RV. And it’s so funny because I was totally against it. My whole family, we almost had an intervention with Shane. We were like…
Shane 3:51
No, you did have an intervention.
Emily 3:54
I did. “This is a terrible idea,” because he used to break apartment leases all the time. We’re like, “You’re just going to get this big loan, and then you’re going to get sick of it, and you’re going to want to break out of it, but you’re going to be stuck with it. It’s just not practical.” And Shane was like, “I don’t care. I’m doing it anyway.” And we were like, “You’re so crazy. What’s wrong with you?” He was totally right.
Denis Phares 4:17
What kind of RV was it?
Shane 4:18
It was a Class C Forest River Sunseeker. It had no slide-outs, and every time I wanted to do anything, I had to turn on a generator because you have your house batteries but it only runs your lights and maybe your water pump, but you couldn’t watch TV, you couldn’t do anything in your outlets.
Emily 4:39
Yeah. You couldn’t use your outlets unless the generator was on or you were plugged into shore power, and we lived like that for almost four years. Isn’t that crazy?
Shane 4:46
Yeah. Always running a generator and always trying to get it fixed.
Emily 4:50
And that generator was always breaking. It was, seriously, it was horrible. I can’t believe how much money we sank into that terrible generator. I think we had it repaired probably six times over four years. Like big $2,000 repairs, and it’s still broken.
Denis Phares 5:04
Did you ask Creighton?
Shane 5:05
Yeah, “Creighton, what do you do?” Well, he had one of those really nice class As, like really big and new, ours was used.
Emily 5:13
Ours was not, ours was the only one that Shane could get approved for because he was Canadian with no credit history. We even had to have somebody cosign with him, which is another story because we met that guy at the bar, and the day after that, he co-signed with Shane.
Shane 5:29
Now we do the Dave Ramsey stuff, so we don’t do that stuff anymore. Anyway…
Emily 5:32
But we’re always thankful for Brian.
Shane 5:34
Yes. Thank you, Brian, if you’re listening.
Emily 5:37
Thanks, Brian.
Denis Phares 5:38
Okay. I’m trying to keep this straight now. So, you lived in an apartment, you started a band together, and then you were touring around, first without an RV, you were flying around the country. And then, you decided you were gone so much, you bought the RV?
Shane 5:55
Yep.
Denis Phares 5:55
And then, when did you move in with him?
Emily 5:58
When we got married, like the night that we got married.
Denis Phares 6:01
That was like a few months later?
Emily 5:02
It was like six to eight months after he got the RV. So yeah, he was traveling, he was living in it by himself for a while and I was just shaking my head.
Denis Phares 6:11
Meeting him at shows?
Emily 5:12
Yeah.
Denis Phares 6:12
He would show up with the gear and then you’d… Okay.
Shane 6:15
Yeah. I would take the RV to every single gig because that was like the dream. Imagine going to a gig, and then on your breaks, you just walk outside and play Super Smash Brothers on your…
Emily 5:24
Which you never did, but that was the idea.
Shane 6:25
Which I never did, but it was the idea. The fact that I could do it.
Emily 6:28
That’s all you need, is this knowledge that you can.
Denis Phares 6:29
So he’d drive and you’d fly into the show?
Emily 6:33
Okay, when we were doing colleges and stuff, I would ride with him. And we would take friends with us to just hang out, have fun, stuff like that…
Shane 6:41
Her dad came on a lot of trips.
Emily 6:42
My dad did. He used to be like our business consultant, administrator dude. And it was really awesome. But then when we were doing our gigs in Tampa, he would take his RV and I would drive my car over from my apartment, and we would meet up there.
Shane 6:56
Yeah. They would all pile on the RV, and then we’d go for a lot of six-week… There were usually around six-week trips to do cross-country all over. We’d have one show in Nevada, and then, three days later, we had to be in Pennsylvania. The RV just went everywhere.
Emily 7:14
We did 20,000 miles in seven weeks one time.
Shane 7:18
That was crazy.
Emily 7:19
That was insane. With another couple and another friend of ours, all of us in the RV for seven weeks, 20,000 miles.
Shane 7:25
I was looking at wedding rings for her. She had no idea, me and my guy friends were super excited. And then, she was thinking about breaking up with me the whole time.
Emily 7:33
Because I didn’t want to live in an RV.
Shane 7:36
So, I had no idea. And then, when we dropped her off at her apartment, and I went back into the RV parked at the Walmart or something. She…
Emily 7:44
He shut my door and I missed him. And I was like, “Dang it, I guess I have to live in an RV if I want to be with Shane.”
Shane 7:50
I proposed like three days later.
Emily 7:52
Literally two days after that. So, it was really good timing, honestly.
Denis Phares 7:55
When you met, was it after you started playing together? Did you get together after that?
Shane 8:02
Yeah. So, I was touring with other musicians, and other acts, and things like that. And then, I started doing cover band stuff in the Tampa Bay area, and then I met Emily around that time and she was…
Emily 8:14
You were doing cover stuff after we met.
Shane 8:16
Oh, that’s true, because I was on tour with another band. And then I met Emily. But then, I started doing cover band stuff by myself for like a month or two. And then, Emily was working at Cracker Barrel and I said, “Hey, how much are you making a Cracker Barrel? I’ll pay you that.”
Emily 8:30
I was like, “Not a lot. And he was like, “Sure it sounds great.”
Shane 8:33
And then she jumped on stage and we played this one song by Johnny Cash and she sang with me. It was the very first song we sang at a gig, and people screamed and cheered, and like…
Emily 8:43
They never cheered like that for just Shane.
Shane 8:44
They never cheered like that for just me, and so I said, “Emily, you need to join this band.” So we were friends for three years first.
Emily 8:51
Before we even started dating.
Shane 8:52
And I hear you play guitar too, so maybe we should play that song and you should play with us.
Emily 8:57
You want to do it?
Shane 8:58
Right now.
Emily 8:58
Do it, Denis, do it.
Denis Phares 9:00
Should we do it right now? Okay. All right. Yeah, let’s play that song, right now.
Shane 9:02
All right, sweet. We’re going to play that. Usually…
Denis Phares 9:04
Is it that Johnny Cash song?
Shane 9:06
Yeah. So, in an unconventional way, and then…
Emily 9:10
This is the Arbour Season version. Arbour Season/Denis.
Shane 9:14
That I stole from my friend Donny. All right, you’re ready?
Emily 9:17
Yeah, this is Donny’s version.
Denis Phares 9:20
This is…?
Emily 9:20
Folsom Prison Blues.
Denis Phares 9:22
Folsom Prison Blues. All right.
Shane 9:25
Oh, yeah, the intro thing.
(Music 9:26 – 12:42)
Emily 12:43
Oh my gosh, you’re so good.
Shane 12:43
Oh my goodness, making batteries and music.
Emily 12:48
Making music and batteries, that’s what we do. (Laughs)
Denis Phares 12:51
Well, thanks for that.
Emily 12:52
Oh, no, thank you. So, you want to join our band. We actually have an extra bunk bed right now, so…
Shane 13:00
It’s only like this big, but if you curl up.
Emily 13:01
Yeah, it’s technically for a two-year-old, but you could probably fit in there.
Denis Phares 13:05
Got it. Well, I should probably clear that with my wife and kids. So, speaking of which, you guys are on the road, you’re playing shows, and you had kids?
Emily 13:14
Yes, we did.
Denis Phares 13:15
So, how did that work?
Emily 13:16
Oh, man, it was crazy.
Denis Phares 13:17
I mean, I know how it worked. I mean like how do you manage to do that with two young kids in the skoolie?
Emily 13:26
So, I think this is like the thing that might set us apart the most from some other people that travel because it started in Florida. We had our son and Shane was still doing four-hour cover gigs. But we knew that, if we kept doing that, he was either going to start making less because he was going to have to do solo stuff, or he’d have to hire someone else to play with him. So then, he started working with this college booking agency, which really helped out a lot, and then…
Shane 13:53
As a booking agent this time. Yeah.
Emily 13:54
And then, we started doing house shows, primarily, just from contacts from people that we met at Disney and stuff like that. And that was our dream because house concerts are like… They’re just so much more fun. It’s like one hour of our original music. We get to tell the stories behind our songs, it’s an intimate setting, you get to really spend time with people. And so, we did that for the first year of our son’s life, just the three of us. He would sit in a high chair next to us while we would play, and we would hand him snacks, and he was so chill. And then, he turned one…
Shane 14:28
And he was not chill anymore.
Emily 13:28
No. And this girl that we knew in Florida, she just came up to me one day and she was like, “You need a nanny.” And I was like, “Yes, I do.” And she’s like, “Well, I’m married. I want to have my own kids, but I’ve never gone anywhere. So I want to travel before I start having kids, so I’ll come be your nanny for free and just travel with you guys. And I’ll watch your kid while you do shows.”
Denis Phares 14:50
When your boy was one?
Emily 14:51
He was one and I was like, “Are you serious?” And she was like, “Yeah.” So she traveled with us for like six months and…
Denis Phares 14:57
Full-time on the road?
Shane 14:58
Full-time on the road.
Emily 14:59
Her husband came out a couple of times to meet up with her, and hang out, and we would all hang out together. It was really interesting. And so, we were like, “Okay, so this worked out great, but we can’t ask anyone else to be our nanny for free.” So we worked out what we felt like was a really good system for being able to pay a nanny, but also not put ourselves in a really bad position. So, from there, we’ve just reached out to people that we know, like, I’ve had friends from my childhood come be our nanny, friends of friends. There’s a little bit of a screening process that they have to go through, and it has to be something that we both feel peace about, for sure. But we’ve had, I think, a total of seven nannies over the course of the last three years now.
Denis Phares 15:43
I can’t imagine. It’s hard enough to find a nanny and someone you trust but someone who’s also willing to go out and be on the road with you. That’s tough.
Shane 15:51
It’s been surprisingly not… It’s definitely been work. Emily’s done all the work on the backend, but it’s been easier than I think we thought it would be because there’s a lot of people that are like, “I would love to come travel with you.” And not just that, but we pay for all their expenses. It’s like free travel.
Emily 16:06
I cook for them, we feed them. It’s not a great fit for everybody. Some nannies have been like, “This was really cool. I’m glad that I did it, I don’t know if I would do it again,” because it looks different from the side of looking at social media than it does actually like being in it. Because, on social media, we’re posting all the fun exciting things that we’re doing, but there’s a lot of downtime. And it’s a small space, and you’ve got three adults and two kids in a bus. But everyone has been so great, our kids have loved all of our nannies. We’ve had friends also that lived in a camper and traveled themselves full time, and they came around with us. And she watched our kids, and her husband played electric guitar with us. They’re our best friends. We love you Lena and Gioni. So, we’ve had all different kinds of nannies, seriously, all different kinds.
Denis Phares 16:58
So, let’s get into this social media aspect then. So, you’re musicians, you’re on the road, you’ve got kids, but you also influence… Would you consider yourself influencers?
Emily 17:08
Maybe like, up and coming.
Shane 17:10
I think we need know what that term means because we have some friends, all of our friends are definitely influencers because they all have all these amazing followings, and all this stuff. I feel like we’re being adopted by all these people. You know what I mean?
Emily 17:26
It’s true, they’re really nice. They’re helping us grow our numbers and stuff. But on the ground level, I think that we’ve started to get into that market, like, getting sponsorships for awesome stuff like coffee and…
Denis Phares 17:37
I have to imagine, as musicians, it works pretty well together. So you’re getting a following that way, but also people follow you because they like your music, right?
Emily 17:48
Yeah. It’s a mixed bag. Our followers, they’re either people that like our music or people that like the bus. And usually, if they’re one then they end up being both later on because it’s all mixed in together on one account.
Denis Phares 18:00
I have to throw this out. One of the first influencers we worked with were a couple of musician couple called Drivin’ & Vibin’. Kyle and Olivia, I don’t know if you… Do you know who they are?
Emily 18:11
That sounds really familiar. We’ve probably seen them on Instagram.
Shane 18:14
They’re like our best friends, we forgot their names.
Emily 18:15
We don’t even know, we’re like so dumb. (Laughs)
Denis Phares 18:18
They had a little girl. Now they’re off the road, so they don’t do it anymore. But I was actually wondering how they were going to do it, and I guess they stopped, but you were actually doing it with… Now you have two kids, right?
Emily 18:30
Yeah. So, we have a four-year-old son and then a two year old little girl.
Denis Phares 18:33
That is crazy. That’s crazy.
Emily 18:37
It’s the only way we’ve ever done it, though. Our kids have never lived in a house. They’ve always been on the road, so it’s just kind of what we know. It’s the only way that we’ve ever raised kids.
Shane 18:46
I think it makes it a lot easier in that regard because we don’t…
Emily 18:49
We don’t have anything to compare it to, it’s just what we do. And our kids have a great time. Our son has friends all over the country that he likes to go see. He kind of has a girlfriend a little bit. I’m not sure if I’m okay with that, but we only see her once a year, so it’s fine.
Denis Phares 19:04
So, what happens when they’re school-age, are you going to homeschool them?
Emily 19:08
Yeah. And I always wanted to homeschool. I was homeschooled. So I’m kind of…
Denis Phares 19:12
Okay. So, you’re kind of comfortable with this, then.
Emily 19:14
Yeah, totally. I was homeschooled, not in a bus, or anything like that. But my mom was amazing.
Shane 19:22
Your house was kind of small as a bus, though, wasn’t it?
Emily 19:23
It was. My first house that I grew up in was a trailer that was not much bigger than our bus. But my mom was the most amazing teacher and so good at just teaching all of us at our own pace, and finding the right curriculums, and being consistent with it. So we weren’t just running around in nature, hopefully, learning stuff. We were really doing school. She kept track of stuff, and so she’s like my pinnacle of like, “Okay, when our son is like five, which is in six months, I really want to start doing a schedule, and she’s going to be the person I go to because she knows all about it.” So, I’m ready for it.
Denis Phares 19:57
Okay. So, no signs of slowing down, or stopping. You’re going to keep growing the channel, you’re going to record. So, you’re writing music now. You’re writing and recording?
Emily 20:07
Always. Yeah.
Shane 20:07
So, we got three albums out already. And then, we’re working on our fourth one currently.
Emily 20:12
Yeah, so exciting.
Shane 20:14
Yeah. So, we got music on Spotify, iTunes, and all those kinds of things.
Emily 20:18
I think that when and if it’s time to stop, like, we’ll know it. In the hopefully not-too-distant future, we do want to get some property in Missouri, where I’m from, and build a tiny house that’s a place for us to kind of go back and land in because we have a great community there. I still have some family there. We love to visit, but still travel most of the year and then rent the tiny house kind of whenever we’re on the road. So we can still travel, but maybe not only have to travel full time. So, we’ll see you, though, who knows. We’re not in any rush to make any changes. We’re really content with what we have now.
Shane 20:57
Yeah. I think if we start seeing it becoming an issue for our kids, that’s something that we would consider.
Emily 21:01
Absolutely. That’s the only thing that would make me want to stop at this point, if it was really a problem. Every now and then, our son will be like, “Mommy, are we going to get a house that doesn’t drive?” And I’m like, “But…”
Shane 21:12
I’ve not heard him say that.
Emily 21:15
He has only said it twice, and it’s never like he’s upset about it but he’ll ask me and I’ll be like, “I think someday we will.” And he’ll be like, “When we do, we should get a really big garage for our bus to park in,” and I’m like, “That’s a great idea.” This kid’s got ideas.
Denis Phares 21:27
Is he a musician at all? Has he started playing anything?
Emily 21:30
Oh, yeah. He’s taught himself how to sing harmonies, like, literally on his own. He’ll be listening to nursery rhymes and he’s just harmonizing with them. And I’m like, “I did not teach him that.”
Shane 21:39
Nope. And so, he’ll get on the piano, and if there’s a song that he knows, he’ll pick up the notes and find them. He plays the wrong notes, he fixes it.
Emily 21:48
I don’t want to be a braggy parent, but he’s only four. I think that’s kind of impressive.
Shane 21:51
It’s crazy.
Emily 21:52
I couldn’t do that till I was like five. Just kidding. (Laughs)
Shane 21:54
Yeah. And he plays ukulele and sings with it. It’s crazy. And it’s so funny because people say, “Do you want him to be a musician?” And I’m like, “Honestly, whatever he wants to do, whatever he finds that he loves.” I know a lot of people that if they were into sports, “Oh, my kid has to do sports,” or, “I’m a musician, so my kids have to.” If he wants to be a writer, I think that’s cool.
Denis Phares 22:15
Has he been on stage with you?
Emily 22:17
When he was a baby? Yeah, like, really, really little, because we didn’t have a nanny. But now like…
Denis Phares 22:22
No, I mean like singing harmony with you, or anything.
Emily 22:25
He’s not at that level yet. He’s only four, and if we bring our kids to our shows, it is honestly like total chaos. Even if they come to watch, it’s horrible.
Shane 22:33
But there’s this theme park that we play out in Missouri called Silver Dollar City. every year, and he’ll sometimes introduce us, like, “This is my mom and dad,” and then we’ll play.
Emily 22:43
It’s pretty cute.
Denis Phares 22:43
So, let’s talk about the skoolie itself. So obviously, it’s equipped to house three adults and two kids. I know you have lithium batteries on it now, you didn’t in the previous class C, though?
Emily 23:02
No. And even when we first built this bus, we got AGM batteries because that was what… Somebody suggested that we do that because it was a lot more cost-effective. And we were like, “Oh, yeah, I think that’s what we had in our RV, so we’ll just do it in this bus.” And we’d heard of lithium batteries from some people that we followed, but we were like, “Is it really worth it?”
Denis Phares 23:23
Is that The Winds?
Shane 23:24
No, though that’s what they do too. Navigation Nowhere, Mike, would talk about them, and he actually…
Emily 23:32
That was always like the dream. We were like, “Someday, we’ll achieve Battle Born batteries,” but we were just trying to save some money.
Shane 23:40
Yeah. Which is funny because they’re spending more money because we had to get rid of them and do lithium anyway.
Emily 23:45
Oh my gosh, it was crazy. It was the first cold night in the bus. We’d only been in it for a few months, and we went up to upstate New York. And we had two AGM batteries, and we’d had our system hooked up. We’d been using it, it was fine. The batteries didn’t last for very long, we had to use our generator, whatever. But we were used to that because of the RV. And, this one night, I was pregnant with our daughter, and I had to get up to go to the bathroom for like the 50th time and I was like, “I smell something,” and Shane was like, “I don’t smell anything, I think it might just be your nose.” I think he thought it was because I was pregnant, I was just smelling things.
Shane 24:20
I was also tired. I was like, “Who cares.”
Emily 24:22
It was like 2:00 in the morning, or something, and I was like, “No, I really think I smell something,” and I walked out, and I open our utility closet, and there was smoke coming out of the battery compartment and our inverter was smoking. Shane went outside and he called Mike from Navigation Nowhere, and Mike answered, which is crazy because he’s really busy. And he walked Shane through how to properly disconnect everything, but what had happened was it was so cold that they froze, and when they freeze, then they melt. So, our batteries were literally melting in the compartment, and I’m serious, it was all about to catch fire. It was one step away. If I had gone back to sleep, it probably would have caught on fire because there were no safeties on our system. And we didn’t even know that that happened. AGM batteries, if you run them below 50%, then they’re shot, you can even barely use them anymore, and you can’t be in cold temperatures.
Denis Phares 25:15
Yeah, I’ve heard. (Laughs)
Emily 25:16
Yeah, why do they make…
Shane 25:18
You’re telling a battery expert. Just so you know…you probably would know this.
Emily 25:21
Why do they put those in RVs? It’s because it’s cheaper, but I’m like, “Not in the long run.”
Denis Phares 25:26
It’s because it’s cheaper, it’s also just that’s the way it’s been done for decades, and so…
Emily 25:29
Do you remember when we were in our RV and we had AGM batteries in there, we had to replace one of them and the guy didn’t even know how to hook them up properly. I think he hooked them up backwards, and our radio in our RV had been broken for like six months. (Laughs)
Shane 25:44
Oh, I forgot about this.
Emily 25:45
Shane turns on the RV…
Shane 25:47
No, no. So, first of all, he went to put them on and there was this huge spark, like a… And then, our radio started working.
Emily 25:54
The RV wouldn’t turn on, but the radio turned on and we were all like, “What is happening right now?” It made no sense. It was crazy. And so, it was that week we went down to see Mike because he’s based in that area, and we were like “Dude, you have to fix this because we’re living in this thing and that can never happen again.” So, we ordered our first Battle Born batteries, and he installed them and rebuilt our solar wall with the proper components, and stuff like that. And I remember just being like… It was like night and day. The fact that we knew if we ran our batteries all the way down it was not the end of the world, you just recharge them and use them the next day. We lived with just two of those batteries for a year and a half in our bus, and that’s only 200 amp hours, but we were able to survive and get by. But, man, it all changed last winter when we got three more 500 amp hours, and we were like, “Oh my gosh.” We were living like kings.
Shane 26:54
We were invincible.
Emily 26:54
I’m like, “I can run my blender all day if I want to.” It was amazing, total game changer. I’ll never forget that night because, seriously, our bus was this close to burning down to the ground because of those AGM batteries.
Denis Phares 27:08
Well, I’m sorry that happened. That’s not the usual reason people switch over, but I’m glad that you’ve got a system working now. So, before we end, I’d love to do another song with you guys because not everyone comes on the podcast and plays music with me. So, what do you want to do?
(Music 27:31 – 29:44)
Emily 29:45
Go team!
Shane 29:47
Nice. We have a new band.
Emily 29:53
I love it.
Denis Phares 29:54
Well, that’s going to do it for today’s episode. And I’d like to thank my guests today, Emily and Shane from Arbour Season. Be sure to subscribe to The Li-MITLESS ENERGY Podcast on any of your favorite podcast platforms.
Emily 30:07
That was the one. (Laughs)
[End Of Recording]
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