Fulltime RVers Guide: Your First Winter!
As we contemplate our second winter in the RV, we’re naturally looking back to last winter, and considering all of the things we learned from that experience. Full-timing presents a special challenge, especially if you’re not planning to hie yourself immediately to the bottom of Florida or Arizona on the first of October. We spent most of last winter closer to the middle of the country (you know, where they have weather) and it’s looking like this winter’s going to be the same. With that in mind, I thought I’d throw together a few Things They Might Not Have Told You about staying in your RV in cold climates:
1: The insulation is going to suck. Unless your RV was built for cold climates, there are hundreds of heat-loss points that will ensure that it’ll be hard to keep interior temps above 40 degrees if it’s 20 outside. Keeping the blinds and curtains closed helps. We hung sleeping bags over the entry door and the windshield, which cuts down on light but helps to keep heat in. Insulated covers for your roof vents are available from RV shops, and we’re going to experiment with stuffing insulation under the dash and into the front-seat footwells as well.
2: If you’ve got a motorized RV, don’t forget to switch the dashboard climate control to RECIRC; otherwise fresh, cold air will blow in through the dash vents!
3: The furnace will keep it reasonably warm inside. If it’s an LP furnace, it’ll also go through propane like nobody’s business. Not only is that stuff expensive, but if you’ve got internally-mounted tanks like ours you’ll have to unhook to refill it, or convince the propane truck to come to you. We kept LP usage down by lowering the thermostat to 65 overnight and purchasing an electric space-heater. We got a compact DeLonghi oil-filled heater that works like a little radiator and has a built-in timer. It seems to be more efficient than a comparable ceramic-element heater, has a lower surface temperature (the better for the cat to lay in front of it) and stores in the under-storage during the summer.
4: Get an electric blanket, preferably before the cold season starts and they become impossible to find. Seriously, you’ll thank yourself for it. Between the electric blanket and the space heater, we were able to turn our furnace off completely some nights.
5: Check for exposed pipes in your under-storage. Newer RVs sometimes duct warm furnace air into the basement, but older coaches like the Incorrigible don’t. The lack of insulation down there means that cold air blows right through. You’ll notice this heat loss from the inside, especially if you have a non-carpeted floor. Foam wrap on exposed pipes will help to keep them from freezing, though it’s not a guarantee. Some RVers even hang clip-on worklights down there, to let the heat from the bulbs keep the temperature up.
6: Before the temperature drops below freezing, make sure you disconnect from any external water sources and pack your hose inside. We tried insulating our hose with foam insulation when the temps dipped into the 20s, which was not effective. Some folks recommend heated tape wrapped around the hose, but we chose not to spend the money; it’s easier to fill the onboard water tank, unhook and avoid the risk of being frozen to the standpipe. It takes a long time for the standpipe to thaw. Trust me.
7: Make sure your sewer drain valves are closed, and get as much water out of the hose as you can. Few things are nastier than trying to clean out a sewer hose that’s blocked by an ice-dam of black water. Thankfully, this is not something we had to experience firsthand. Ice in your sewer hose can also put small rips in the material resulting in foul-smelling leaks (or hilarious dirty-dishwater showers) later, so be careful if you have to stow it when it’s below freezing. For stowing in the cold, we found that flushing the hose with water beforehand tended to clear the ice out.
8: Speaking of those drain valves, they can freeze shut. Don’t try to muscle them open; the handles will break off. Usually, as the ambient temperature goes up, they’ll come free. If it’s ridiculously cold, some patience and a hair dryer (or heat gun, if you’re so fortunate) are the way to go.
Of course, we’ll probably learn more things this winter, but hopefully these tips will make your first winter as a nomad somewhat more bearable. Hopefully the other nomads out there will have more tricks to suggest, if you can’t (or don’t want to) avoid the cold weather.
October 1st, 2009 at 12:50 pm
Nice post Emmy! Can’t help but feel I inspired this one. We’ll be heading up to Moab today which will mean purchasing a space heater finally. Our toes still haven’t thawed out from last night.
October 1st, 2009 at 9:10 pm
You did, in fact, inspire it!
We had to go looking for help a lot last year, so I figured we’d put some of the help that we didn’t get out there, and your asking made me think of it.
October 4th, 2009 at 11:23 pm
Brilliant writing! I read your entire blog tonight.
Some notable favorites:
“smelled like onions and child abuse”
“while we determined a way to keep our glasses from committing suicide”
“personally, I prefer my mountains uncarved”
I am in Central Austin, so sorry I didn’t get to meet you both while you were here.
(I am making the transition to fulltime RVing, so am also very grateful for your detailed postings on RVing issues.)
October 5th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
Glad you enjoyed it, and thanks for reading! If we’re back in Austin before you go nomad, a meeting should definitely be arranged.
October 7th, 2009 at 12:23 pm
i only rock my moho in winter time, trying to break the habit and use it for summer surfcamp ect ect…..
im just a cold weather junkie I guess.
October 11th, 2009 at 2:16 pm
Brrr…winter sounds cold. I thought most RV’ers full-time so they don’t have to remember what winter is like? That’s why I moved to Florida
October 20th, 2009 at 6:38 pm
I found your blog because we too bought an old, 95 National Dolphin. The electric blanket is a great tip. We used to use a fifth wheel to camp in. After our first sub 30 degree night, we decided it was a worth while investment. It has been worth its weight in gold. As long as you have shore power anyway.
If you have any tips or tricks about the Dolphin, I am all ears. We keep finding little things we didn’t know about it. We knew about the little pull out computer table on the passenger side, but it took us 4 days to figure out there was a storage drawer right next to it! (It was pretty heavily velcroed in place.)
October 20th, 2009 at 11:22 pm
Wade,
Congratulations on your Dolphin! I’m surprised at how many of them I see on the road from time to time, even 15 years later. Did your dealer show you where the house batteries are, under the steps? I had to go under the hood and trace the starter wire to find them!
Also, make sure your refrigerator’s latch is still holding up. The spring in the latch wears out, and it’ll fall open while you’re driving, usually in the middle of a right-hand turn. Very messy.
October 21st, 2009 at 9:39 am
We didn’t buy ours from a dealer. We bought it on eBay from an individual. He gave us a quick rundown of the features after we flew all the way up to Boise, ID to get it. Here is this, that…this and the other. Okay, see you later! So the wife and I sat in the parking lot of a truck stop for an hour trying to figure everything out. Fortunately, we have had several other campers in the past, so we have done pretty well figuring everything out. I had another Dolphin owner point out that the little red, illuminated switch on the pedestal by the door turns on the storage lights. I couldn’t figure that one out to save my life.
We have no door handles on our fridge. They are both broken off, but we haven’t had any trouble keeping it closed. It seals up pretty tight. The replacement handles are like $65 each I believe. Yikes.
The problem I can’t figure out is that the generator is not charging the house battery. That will be my next hurdle to overcome…
October 21st, 2009 at 10:30 am
Checked out your blog. Your rig’s paint job is pretty slick! Glad your trip has gone more or less okay. Do you have a straight-through kitchen with a dinette, or the offset L-shaped couch and sink like ours?
Some other thoughts: sometimes the loose cabinet latches can be fixed by squeezing the metal clamps on the cabinet doors a bit tighter, so they grip better.
I think most Dolphins with the 7.5 Ford gas engine have the same exhaust leak. Ours does.
Our weak fridge latch is secured by a bungee cord when we’re in motion.
No charge to the house battery…yikes. I would check first to see if there’s a light on (if left on, the understorage lights will make it seem like the battery’s not charging). I assume you’ve visited iRV2.com to plumb the collective wisdom there?
October 21st, 2009 at 12:12 pm
Ours is pretty much identical to yours. The paint job is actually a huge, vinyl decal that is stuck all over it. I liked it because it certainly makes it look different.
We looked for a really long time at hundreds of different RVs. We settled on this one, almost solely because of the L-shaped kitchen and couch. It didn’t hurt that they had replaced the furniture with Flexsteel stuff. The captain’s chairs are amazing. Worth every penny they spent! Heh.
I got most of the cabinets fixed. Some I had to move the latches so they would catch. Others I replaced with the magnetic latches. I have been unable to source a bathroom door handle as of yet. I am not even sure what I am looking for at this point. There is nothing there…
I will keep working on the charging issue. For now, the house battery charges while we are in motion, but the generator doesn’t charge it while parked. It is odd. I think there is a fuseable link somewhere that isn’t working. Either that, or the battery we bought is just bad. That happens to me a lot.
October 21st, 2009 at 4:40 pm
If it’ll help, I can take a picture of our bathroom door’s latch and email it to you…
October 21st, 2009 at 4:41 pm
Sure, that would be great and very much appreciated.
November 19th, 2009 at 11:51 am
I just wanted to thank you very much for this illuminating article. I have already bookmarked your site, when I have more free time I am going to have to do some further reading. Well back to my dreaming of Panama or back to the books – I wonder which one is going to win out.
November 19th, 2009 at 11:51 am
I just wanted to thank you very much for this ensightful article. I have already bookmarked your site, when I have more free time I am going to have to do some further reading. Well back to my dreaming of Panama or back to the books – I wonder which one is going to win out.
December 12th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
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