Hello from Vermont

[vteco]

Hello all. I have had a long standing interest in energy usage reduction, built my own house, heat with wood I cut and split. But unfortunately I do own a low mpg pickup truck, a 1996 chevy Silverado. I do love this truck because it is easy for me to work on myself, parts are widely available, including salvaged ones, it is built to last a very long time, hauls wood, accommodates the whole family and camping gear, handles snow and ice, and driving along the woods path to work on our forest, etc, etc.

BUT, I hate the fact that it uses as much fuel as it does, for all the usual reasons. I do have access to a more rational Subaru car to reduce the truck usage. But I'd still like to improve the truck's mileage as much as practically possible. It presently gets about 16+ mpg driving on our mountain roads, with few stop lights or signs, but speed limits of 35 to 55 mph. I drive with a light pedal to conserve as much as possible.

Longer trips of course are largely 55-65 mph. But happen only occasionally by comparison.

I'm a major DIYer, have built everything from houses to boats to computers (from scratch -- populating printed circuit boards), I've cast every kind of metal including and up to iron. I've built two metal lathes from scratch.

Anyway, this site promises to be super interesting to me, and I look forward to participating.

[freebeard]

Welcome. It is easier to get improvement on 15MPG than 45MPG.

Does your truck have an aerocap yet?

[redpoint5]

#1 factor- Driving behavior

The easy stuff is tire pressure, alignment, grill block, engine block heater, etc. Big improvements require big effort, generally.

I do as much as I can with a 4x8 trailer, so I rarely need my pickup. I could easily gather wood into it with even a Prius.