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Note: The first two posts in this thread were copied (and slightly edited) from https://gdrvowners.com/forum/gdrv4li...ving#post96767 This type of information is not the in the "lane" of this forum, but it's too good to not try and capture. -Howard (Moderator)
Cold weather camping? Break it down into systems.
Insulation. That space between the outside cold air and the inside air. You walls are what they are and not much you can do about it. Your windows are a good place to focus. Before I got dual pane windows I would get clear window insulation kits and apply around the windows. There are other materials you can use as well, but after properly applying the kit and using a hair dryer to shrink the material we could still see out. It took several attempts and lots of wasted material to learn how to fit that stuff.
Ceiling vents. You can buy insultion pillows to fit in the vents. Many folks buy A/C covers or build a wood box to place over the A/C units on the roof, I have never done this.
Slides. In the early years I would buy foam board and secure it to the floor of my slides. Later, when I went hole hog on the skirting I purchased slide our skirts that you would put foam board underneath. I am not sure it was worth the money and effort, ok it helped some. Another thing helped was to take painters tape (tape that does not stick too well and can be easily removed without damage) and tape the edge of the slides. I put it on the inside. I would not raise the rubber slide seals off of the slide.
Skirting. OH yeah, it helps a lot. I went through several different types, but ran into a snag when one RV park I stayed at would not allow foam board, or unpainted plywood, or hay, or blue tarps. Fussy folks. I have seen insulated board used a lot, it's cheap and disposable. Easy to work with. After years of winter camping and moving about I finally broke down and spent big bucks on an engineered RV Skirt, pricey but effective. I watched a neighbor use one of the new inflatabe skirt systems. Looks like it helped some, I wouldn't touch them. First off there are gaps, ok you can seal those with other materials. Second is temperature change. It was a fairly warm day when my neighbor installed his inflatable skirt. I noticed that they had tie down hooks on them and chatted him up, he had not planned on tying them down. I broke out the paracord and helped him tie them in, warning him that the wind sometimes came up hard it may blow the tubes away. Sure enough, big storm came in, temp dropped about 50 degrees, tubes deflated and where flapping. Without the tie down you may have found those things a couple of counties away.
Heating the area under the skirt... I tried that one year, didn't seem to be effective. I didn't like the idea of a fire based heating system under there, I am a little afraid of a fire in the RV. I used electric, but, in one of the freeze/thaw cycles I check under there and the little heater was sitting in an inch of water. I decided that was not a good idea.
Water freezes. So think about all the places in your RV that have water in them. Tank heaters. They are just heavy duty heating pads that sit under the edge of your water tank by the valve. They work. Most only heat to 40f and have thermostats on them. GD has the tanks inside of the coraplast insulation, so they don't tend to freeze anyway, then the tank heaters help keep things liquid. I don't know the Reflection line, in my Momentum all the water lines are in heated area so not a big deal. There have been reports of isolated locations where the water lines would freeze, it wont' know for sure until you in freezing conditions. One thing folks do when this occurs is to simply open cabinets and drawers, allows greater ciculation. Check the area where your city water hose connects, in my Momentum there is a heater vent so that area stays real warm.
Sewer pipes. Yuck. Yes I have cleaned out a poop-cicle. As you are traveling into cold weather check that sewer pipe to see if there is any build up as you travel. As my RV's got older the holding tank valves would seep a little, no big deal in the summer, poop-cicle in the winter. There are two lines of thought about sewer lines, one is you dump every four days and ensure your line is completeley drained. For me, that time always seemed to come when a storm was howling, I am out in the cold wind playing with my sewer hose. Beleive it or not, those plastic hoses can freeze ,when they do they get very brittle and break easily. One year I wrapped my sewer hose in insulation, that seemed to work ok. In later years I ran a line of heat tape along the bottom edge the length of the sewer hose, then wrapped more around the exposed section of sewer hose. That way I could leave my shower and kitchen tanks open and not have to go dump them. You don't leave the black tank open, it needs that water build up to break down materials, but ours last for at least a week before the toilet starts to burp letting us know it's time to dump.
Water supply hose. When I first started winter camping there were no commercially made heated water hoses. I started out simply filling my internal water tank, then disconnecting the hose, but that got old pretty quick. So I built my own insulated hose. Heat tape.I learned to love this stuff. It has a product liablity warning on it, saying don't wrap it or cross it over itself. I get it, there is a small possibility that it could cause a problem. But it doesn't get very hot. But if it shorted it would get really hot. I have used and abused this stuff a lot and never had it short or burn anything. Lenght of water hose, I would tape it alongside the hose, not curling it, just next to it. I would then layer foam pipe insulation around it and tape it tight with plastic tape. Be careful to put the sensor on the outside, I put mine on the end that connects to the water spigot. I also left extra at that end to wrap around the faucet and any exposed pipe. I would then put a cheap garbage can over the spigot. Some places I visited had either an isulated wood box or insulation of some kind wrapped around the spigot.
I have owned three different types of commercial heated hose, all three failed within a year. Pay attention to where the water hose connects. Spigot side I insulated and heat tape. On my Momentum the connection inside has a heat duct next to it so not a problem, on neighbors I have seen them freeze up where the water hose connects to the side of the RV.
Heating the RV. You must run the propane furnace. That's what heats the internal bays and belly. Of course that brings up propane management. I changed my 30# propane tanks out for 40# tanks, then bought another spare. Leave both tank valves open. There is a switch that automatically changes tanks when one tank empties. It will have a little red/green indicator and a lever at the top pointing to the tank in use. When a tank runs dry, the indicator will turn red, simply change the lever to the other side, that isolates the empty tank. The indicator will turn green. If you run the system completely dry you may have to flush the lines by turning the burners on the stove a a few minutes. If there is an air pocket in the propane line it's possilble the furnace will fail to light and go into safe mode. Easy fix, just turn it off and on again. In most years I have contacted the local propane supplier and rented a tank for the winter. They were pretty knowladgeable about keeping it filled based on changing weahter patterns. They would bring the tank out, connect it to the RV, test the system, and I didn't have to lug tanks all winter long.
Cold weather camping? Break it down into systems.
Insulation. That space between the outside cold air and the inside air. You walls are what they are and not much you can do about it. Your windows are a good place to focus. Before I got dual pane windows I would get clear window insulation kits and apply around the windows. There are other materials you can use as well, but after properly applying the kit and using a hair dryer to shrink the material we could still see out. It took several attempts and lots of wasted material to learn how to fit that stuff.
Ceiling vents. You can buy insultion pillows to fit in the vents. Many folks buy A/C covers or build a wood box to place over the A/C units on the roof, I have never done this.
Slides. In the early years I would buy foam board and secure it to the floor of my slides. Later, when I went hole hog on the skirting I purchased slide our skirts that you would put foam board underneath. I am not sure it was worth the money and effort, ok it helped some. Another thing helped was to take painters tape (tape that does not stick too well and can be easily removed without damage) and tape the edge of the slides. I put it on the inside. I would not raise the rubber slide seals off of the slide.
Skirting. OH yeah, it helps a lot. I went through several different types, but ran into a snag when one RV park I stayed at would not allow foam board, or unpainted plywood, or hay, or blue tarps. Fussy folks. I have seen insulated board used a lot, it's cheap and disposable. Easy to work with. After years of winter camping and moving about I finally broke down and spent big bucks on an engineered RV Skirt, pricey but effective. I watched a neighbor use one of the new inflatabe skirt systems. Looks like it helped some, I wouldn't touch them. First off there are gaps, ok you can seal those with other materials. Second is temperature change. It was a fairly warm day when my neighbor installed his inflatable skirt. I noticed that they had tie down hooks on them and chatted him up, he had not planned on tying them down. I broke out the paracord and helped him tie them in, warning him that the wind sometimes came up hard it may blow the tubes away. Sure enough, big storm came in, temp dropped about 50 degrees, tubes deflated and where flapping. Without the tie down you may have found those things a couple of counties away.
Heating the area under the skirt... I tried that one year, didn't seem to be effective. I didn't like the idea of a fire based heating system under there, I am a little afraid of a fire in the RV. I used electric, but, in one of the freeze/thaw cycles I check under there and the little heater was sitting in an inch of water. I decided that was not a good idea.
Water freezes. So think about all the places in your RV that have water in them. Tank heaters. They are just heavy duty heating pads that sit under the edge of your water tank by the valve. They work. Most only heat to 40f and have thermostats on them. GD has the tanks inside of the coraplast insulation, so they don't tend to freeze anyway, then the tank heaters help keep things liquid. I don't know the Reflection line, in my Momentum all the water lines are in heated area so not a big deal. There have been reports of isolated locations where the water lines would freeze, it wont' know for sure until you in freezing conditions. One thing folks do when this occurs is to simply open cabinets and drawers, allows greater ciculation. Check the area where your city water hose connects, in my Momentum there is a heater vent so that area stays real warm.
Sewer pipes. Yuck. Yes I have cleaned out a poop-cicle. As you are traveling into cold weather check that sewer pipe to see if there is any build up as you travel. As my RV's got older the holding tank valves would seep a little, no big deal in the summer, poop-cicle in the winter. There are two lines of thought about sewer lines, one is you dump every four days and ensure your line is completeley drained. For me, that time always seemed to come when a storm was howling, I am out in the cold wind playing with my sewer hose. Beleive it or not, those plastic hoses can freeze ,when they do they get very brittle and break easily. One year I wrapped my sewer hose in insulation, that seemed to work ok. In later years I ran a line of heat tape along the bottom edge the length of the sewer hose, then wrapped more around the exposed section of sewer hose. That way I could leave my shower and kitchen tanks open and not have to go dump them. You don't leave the black tank open, it needs that water build up to break down materials, but ours last for at least a week before the toilet starts to burp letting us know it's time to dump.
Water supply hose. When I first started winter camping there were no commercially made heated water hoses. I started out simply filling my internal water tank, then disconnecting the hose, but that got old pretty quick. So I built my own insulated hose. Heat tape.I learned to love this stuff. It has a product liablity warning on it, saying don't wrap it or cross it over itself. I get it, there is a small possibility that it could cause a problem. But it doesn't get very hot. But if it shorted it would get really hot. I have used and abused this stuff a lot and never had it short or burn anything. Lenght of water hose, I would tape it alongside the hose, not curling it, just next to it. I would then layer foam pipe insulation around it and tape it tight with plastic tape. Be careful to put the sensor on the outside, I put mine on the end that connects to the water spigot. I also left extra at that end to wrap around the faucet and any exposed pipe. I would then put a cheap garbage can over the spigot. Some places I visited had either an isulated wood box or insulation of some kind wrapped around the spigot.
I have owned three different types of commercial heated hose, all three failed within a year. Pay attention to where the water hose connects. Spigot side I insulated and heat tape. On my Momentum the connection inside has a heat duct next to it so not a problem, on neighbors I have seen them freeze up where the water hose connects to the side of the RV.
Heating the RV. You must run the propane furnace. That's what heats the internal bays and belly. Of course that brings up propane management. I changed my 30# propane tanks out for 40# tanks, then bought another spare. Leave both tank valves open. There is a switch that automatically changes tanks when one tank empties. It will have a little red/green indicator and a lever at the top pointing to the tank in use. When a tank runs dry, the indicator will turn red, simply change the lever to the other side, that isolates the empty tank. The indicator will turn green. If you run the system completely dry you may have to flush the lines by turning the burners on the stove a a few minutes. If there is an air pocket in the propane line it's possilble the furnace will fail to light and go into safe mode. Easy fix, just turn it off and on again. In most years I have contacted the local propane supplier and rented a tank for the winter. They were pretty knowladgeable about keeping it filled based on changing weahter patterns. They would bring the tank out, connect it to the RV, test the system, and I didn't have to lug tanks all winter long.
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