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A lot of people only RV and camp in warm climates. I would love to hear some advice/tips on RVing in a cold weather climate. Can it be done??
Andrew,
Through some research I have done the short answer to your question is Yes. However, there is a large truckload of research you must do prior to leaving out to the -30 C spot. As I remember the rig must be undercoated with insulation to the temperature you are looking to camp in and then it must be totally waterproof. We were looking at the possibility of taking a trailer to Southern Canada in the winter. We have since changed our minds.Happy research and good luck.
There are RVs that are called four season RVs and have much better insulation than most. If you already have your rig you can do things like swap the windows out for double paned ones. Note that you can not put regular windows into an RV. The glass needs to be tempered and shatter in a specific way in case of impact.
You’ll also want to look into the different things to do with plumbing. My RV had some sort of bypass on the hot water heater that needed to be utilized in freezing weather, I removed mine because it was leaking and I much prefer to be warm than cold.
And just like traditional homes, you need to protect your pipes on cold nights. However in a traditional home, often it’s sufficient to put a Styrofoam cap over the outside faucets whereas an RV pretty much has its plumbing a tad more exposed to the cooler weather and therefore needs the pipes drained or at least the pressure released with some air space to allow for the water in the pipes to expand when freezing.
I’m sure there are RVs built for constant freezing temps but in many standard RVs, if it were freezing outside, you could never make use of the pipes, meaning you wouldn’t have any water…
Hi Andrew,
Yes it can be done with some homework, I winter in my Sportsmobile in the North Cascades. I’m okay to -25F before I need to check some things in the coach. One of my favorite items I found to work great is a low voltage heating blanket to keep you warm at night. I also use bamboo textiles to help regulate the heat and cold for all seasons. I drain all water and use other facilities for showering and such.
PRg
Wow! So PRg I guess if the temp is below freezing then all water has to be drained?? I did see someone who wrapped their water lines with aluminum foil, the foam coating, and heat tape to keep the water line from freezing. Ever heard of that or tried it? And what exactly are bamboo textiles?
Hi Andrew,
Correct all utility water gets turned off for the winter(big problems if you don’t below 32) I have played with insulation and heat tape, lots of work. I just drain the system and bring in water for drinking and such. The low voltage heating blanket
is awesome!, paired with natural fibers made out of bamboo helps regulate temperatures in the winter and summer months.
J
My Pacific Coachworks trailer is 4 season tuned up for cold weather but remember that a strong breeze can turn that 25 degree night into a minus 25 so you need to be prepared. I used to use the anti freeze liquid in the holding tanks but this stuff is way bad for the environment. I have tried many tricks. Working in 15 degree weather I found that a pot of hot water down the tanks at night will prevent freezing. Swim noodles work well, available at any store, these things that kids swim with make great insulation and easily wrap around a pipe with duct tape. If not using the coach and its gonna sit in an oil field in Fargo N.D, you must drain every drop of water from every line, regardless of your wintering or quality of RV. All RVs have a low point drain. You park over an area that needs water and open the valve. Cannot see dumping a hundred gallons down a gutter when mother earth needs water!
Also!!!! Spray expanding foam
that you get at any hardware store is an excellent insulator for under the coach. One squirt over a water line will insulate. Do not use too much as it expands 10X over. Install in warm weather so it sets up and dries quickly. Another plus with this brown goop, it keeps bugs and rodents out when you are in the Boonies. One trip we dropped anchor in a beautiful park in Pahrumph Nevada and the kids wanted to go for a bike ride. We were gone for 30 minutes. In that time ants got in the trailer and covered the kids birthday cake. Daughters white coconut cake was solid black with ants. They walked thru a small drain hole under the sink and found Mr. Cake. Took the entire trip to catch them all. One squirt of foam and have not had another bug invasion.
Select several locations to apply the foam as the can should be used up within 10 minutes of first spray. The product expands in the spray nozzle and seals the can up good. A construction type of guy will clean the sprayer with acetone but it is a hassle. Use the entire can. 6 dollars well spent. Wear gloves that you never want to see again, like surgical disposables in the event you have to mold the product once it starts to expand.Fantastic advice Scootertrash. This expand spray is good, too in bins with electric cables in them. I find when I get a mouse, they always visit every bin with an electrical cable because of the holes in them. Filling up one hole can reduce the space the mouse has to roam, reducing the space to clean. Darn mice! Prevention is better than prescription!
Happy trails!
Ihave a 29 ft 5th wheel that pretty much stays in one place year round . I also have a truck camper that I purchased new in 2014. I live in a cold climate & have to drain all my tanks in both units , then blow out the lines with a compressor & finally run plumbing (not automotive) antifreeze through all my supply lines & allow some to go in all the drains so that the traps are filled below the sinks. If I want to use either of these rigs in the winter I don’t use the drains unless I add some more antifreeze & I don’t use the supply lines at all. Condensation can be a problem because the warmer it is inside the unit that warm air in contact with a relatively cold surface such as a window or a wall that is not as well insulated & there you have moisture condensing on the cooler surface. I was planning on heading south with my truck but have to postpone for now but I would only dewinterise it once I was safely far enough south .
Some great info here for cold weather camping. The one thing I find the most useful, as a boondocker, is my Big Buddy heater
.It’s propane so you MUST have a window cracked open to vent and I also keep one of my roof vents open a few inches. You don’t want to wake up dead some morning. RV heaters are very inefficient and unless yo plan on spending about $35 every week on propane, it’s worth looking into one of these. If you park in an RV Park then you can use an electric ceramic heater and not have to worry about fumes.
I looked at real down comforters but they cost about $600 for a good one and don’t warm your head or the air. they sure are comfy though. Maybe next year.RBuzz, how do you hook up your Big Buddy inside? Do you have a DOT tank that you bring in?
I saw in someone’s RV a propane valve he installed. He put a T in the gas line behind the stove and fed it out through the kitchen counter wall and hooked up a cool antique looking propane valve to connect his propane-powered ceramic brick heater. It was pretty impressive! And the heat from that thing was instant and strong.
I stayed in mine last winter in wisconsin. I stayed at a site that had winter water but you were required to wrap your line in heat tape and insulate.All was well until you drop below 20f. At that point my heat tape failed and i had frozen water.I built a small 2 foot high lean to against my trailer insulated with 2 inch polystyrene rigid insulation. then put a 500 watt construction lamp inside added a foot of sand in the bottom of the box so air would not infiltrate along the bottom seam. we got many days below zero. That stopped my water from freezing there however he water lines in the trailer are routed along the outside wall. Had to get pex and temporarily rerout the water lines inside the trailer. Had water the rest of the winter no prob. Had to take plastic and cover all windows inside and out. had two 1500 watt heaters for heat this maxed out my 30 amp service.On really cold minus 20 nights ( we had a few) I supplemented with Big Buddy propane.Last Water is fine but now sewer is frozen. Get insulation and skirt trailer bottom use a 55.000 btu heater to thaw out underneath because sink is frozen and plugged. Finally in Feb. used a porta potti at night and dumped it every morning at our trailer parks laundry bathroom.This is getting kind of long but if I was to do it again I would build some false insulted panels and wrap the trailer for the winter. Last we had internet where I was so I checked temps on daily basis in other parts of the country. I noticed many days in Denver they just got to freezing or just below since I love to ski 25 yo 40 degree weather is beach time for me! oops that pic is not me it’s my parents
Wow, thanks for sharing Michael. It shows that if there’s a will, there’s a way!! Best of luck this winter 🙂
This video by RV Geeks does an awesome job explaining who to make your rv ready for winter. https://youtu.be/n5RGlcLSrM4
I’m getting ready to watch it again so I can make a list of what I need to get mine ready. I’m just outside Portland, OR so we don’t get too much below freezing, but just in case!
I am rebuilding an old camper for this purpose, +1 to insulation and waterproof. In this case I tore the aluminum off replaced 1 1/2 inch of fiberglass with styrofoam and used hardboard and glued fiberglass reinforced panels and sealed the joints heater buddy solar panels and wind turbine are next. Internal water storage so no frozen pipes and a compost toilet. Now I just need to park it. Thanks Pippi for the my rv your land idea on Craigslist. 1 maybe in 2 weeks, reposting it now.
You’re welcome Daniel. Best of luck on what seems like some fabulous renovations and DIY projects! 😀
Nice story Michael, I’m in Wisconsin as well.
I am making a hot water (glycol) system that distributes the water to baseboard heat exchangers that can be purchased at most stores like Home Depot and Menards…etc
This system can be made with a old water heater or the new expensive on demand units. I am eliminating the forced air furnace in my 5th wheel and putting in a hot water heater that someone gave me. it is a LPG model and should give me some extended shower times if I am running water in it and figure in winter to run glycol so it does not freeze.
Hi all. I thought I would jump in with a thought or two.
As far as RVing goes, I can’t say that I have experience with anything more severe than early and late season boondocking but since I have lived in Iowa most of my life (subtract the years I spent in the navy-lol) and have lived in some drafty old houses in both rural (farm land) and small town settings, I know a little about making the cold less uncomfortable. To many of you this comment may be like “I knew that, Duh” But to some, I hope it will give them ideas or help them to apply sticks and bricks technology to the RV.
It seems to me that there are two ways to winter in your RV. One is to remain mobile taking trips to wherever you choose and the other is to winter in place. I’ll comment on wintering in place as it more closely matches my life experience and honestly, I know pretty much nothing about mobile winter camping-lol.
If you are wintering in place, you are likely either on your own land or you are in a purpose rented spot for wintering over. The rules will vary depending upon which, but I’ll assume that you are on your own land and that it is pretty much out away from town so zoning laws aren’t an issue and you can do pretty much whatever you want.
Two big things to look at are insulation and sealing up air leaks. Yeah, there are other concerns too like water systems and heating systems, but I’ll not try to talk about those. I love the expanding foam for sealing up air leaks. I’m not sure how much R value it provides though. The double pane windows are a great idea, but for me and I imagine some others they are not an option dut to the cost of the retrofit. (Read on for some window ideas) Insulation types vary in their R values and other properties so do your research and don’t forget about the moisture barriers. (Think of foil faced fiberglass batting that is often used in the walls of houses Vs. foam panels. Obviously the fiberglass batts wouldn’t be right for most RV applications.) Pippi did a great video on adding insulation to her rig. If you haven’t seen it, give it a watch. There are many areas where you can easily beef up the insulation in your rig. I think Pippi mentioned using reflectix in the back of your cabinets for one thing. In my rig there is a spot under the master bed pedestal/frame that simply begs for some insulation help.
Humidity control. This is important for comfort and it is something that I haven’t heard much talk about in the RVing videos and forums. You don’t want to be cold and wet. Too much humidity makes it feel much colder but it also makes heat feel hotter. 90 degrees F isn’t too bad when the humidity is around 20%, but let the humidity increase to 70% and you’ll feel quite a difference. It’s the same with the cold. A wet cold is harder to endure than a dry cold. With temperatures at 65 degrees F, if you are wet you can easily go into hypothermia in under an hour. Ok, that is an extreme example, but think about having wet gloves from clearing the snow off your car. While the gloves are normally adequate, once they get wet it quickly feels as though your hands are encased in big blocks of ice. The humidity in our living spaces has a similar, though less pronounced effect. If you give closer attention to the humidity control, you can be comfortable at temperatures that might seem a bit chilly otherwise. Consider using some of those moisture absorbers from the dollar store. Place them in areas that tend to have issues with condensation. They’ll help the condensation a little, but the overall effect will be to decrease the humidity in your rig to (hopefully) more comfortable levels.
Carpeting. Now I don’t see carpeting as having a lot of insulating value, until, that is, you get out of bed in the middle of the night and put your bare feet on a cold hardwood, linoleum, or tile floor. I have heard carpeting mentioned a few times in forums and in YouTube videos. One even suggested trying to get some carpet samples for free from the stores. I wish that person luck in finding free carpet samples. All the stores in my area now charge for them. I’d suggest simply buying a small amount of carpeting and cutting it to size.
Most carpeting is sold by the square foot. It comes on either 12 or 16 foot wide rolls. If you were to buy…let’s say 2 feet off the roll, you would have a nice 2 X 12 foot piece that you could cut to length with a utility knife. You’d only be purchasing 24 sqft and when you buy it without the pad and you aren’t paying them to install it, it is cheaper than many people think. Want it wider? Buy a 3 foot piece and you have 36 sqft. Now compare that to let’s say a room that is 9 X 12 which would require 108 sqft to cover. Another obvious advantage is that everything will match and you can pretty much get replacement pieces whenever part of it wears out.
Windows. Two items are quite useful here. One is foam weatherstrip usually intended for sealing leaks around doors. It can help to plug those air leaks between the panes of sliding windows and other places. It has adhesive on one side so you just peel off the backing and stick it in place. Get creative-lol.
The other very useful item is called rope caulk. It is sold in rolls of varying size and it simply presses in place with your fingers. (wear disposable gloves if you have sensitive skin, but otherwise it is safe to handle and doesn’t make a mess in application. It is pet safe too, unless your pet decides to eat it.) Although it is better to apply it in warm weather, rope caulk can be applied at somewhat lower temperatures than many other agents. (But it does have its limits.) Best of all, it doesn’t harden up (Well not for much longer than a single winter season, anyway. I have had it come of my house windows easily after being in place for 3 years.) so it is easy to remove in the spring. It is also relatively inexpensive which is an added bonus.Skirting. I’m a firm believer in skirting. I’d bet that anyone who has lived in an older style (Tin box) mobile home will agree that it is essential. There are several materials that are commonly used for skirting including plywood, aluminum panels and some others. You may want to consider alternate materials for your skirting. In the past I’ve seen many mobile homes on farmsteads that were skirted with the small square hay bales. (about 100-120 lbs each) You have trouble finding those these days but there are still some to be had. The bales are compressed tightly enough and are thick enough to give a pretty good insulating value. Probably better R value than most commercial insulations since the short dimension on them is around 18 inches. When they are butted up against each other (tightly) end to end, the wind can’t penetrate unless it is truly hurricane force. If you talk to the farmer you can probably buy his “spoiled” bales at a substantial discount. These are the bales that have some small flaw that prevents the farmer from selling them or using them as feed for livestock. The last I heard, those small square bales were going for around $5 each. Whatever you decide to use for skirting, it is important to make sure there are no gaps. Overlap panels a bit if you are using panels and secure each piece to the next with screws to prevent the wind from carrying one away just when it is needed most.
Wind break. Some sort or either natural or artificial wind break is also desirable. A wind break can make a big difference on both your heating bill and your comfort levels during a great plains winter. A thick stand of trees within 50 feet would probably do nicely. You could also use the terrain as a wind break if you have hilly property. If a natural wind break isn’t available, you could make a reasonably effective one by placing a row of the large round hay bales on the windward side. Because they aren’t as tall, they should be closer to the rig. I’d guess 25 feet would be about right. These bales usually weigh 1000-1200 lbs and would have to be moved in by a tractor with the appropriate attachment. Even a few panels of 6 foot privacy fence from the home improvement store can be used to reduce the amount of wind that (directly) hits your rig and robs it of heat or finds that one spot you didn’t find when you sealed up the air leaks.
Garaging. I have seen a few YouTube videos where people put their rig inside of one of those “u-build-it” garages as they winter in it. You know the kind I’m talking about. The ones with the tubular steel frames and either heavy (tarp-like) cloth or corrugated metal for the roof and sides. They leave one end open but close up the other 3 sides. I can’t say that I have any experience in that kind of setup, but the principle seems sound.
Sallyport doorway. Consider using some heavy blankets and command hooks to make a sallyport at your entrance door. When you open your door, lots of heat and cold go through. If you go through several times a day, your rig gets cold and you spend more on heat. Creating a sallyport at your entrance door, helps block the air currents that rob you of heat. Once the entrance door is closed, open the overlapping curtain and proceed inside. The amount of heat loss will be less.
Again, these things are offered with the assumption that you will be wintering in place on your own land without restrictions on what you can do. I hope this gave at least one person food for thought. Thanks for reading. Happy and comfortable wintering over to you all.
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Some thoughts from a full-timer.
Choose your vehicle wisely.
First of all. You’ll often hear/read about “four season” campers as Pippi mentioned. That’s what you want, but don’t believe most of that. I’ve seen “four season” campers advertised that are far from it in the north. In Alabama they might be fours season campers, but not in North Dakota.Once again, from my experience – few things you want to look for.
1) Insulation, Insulation, Insulation. It is key. Once you get your camper and park it for winter use, you’ll want it skirted, perhaps build a little porch for the front door, maybe use some heat tape, etc.
2) You want an RV with storage under the floor. This is called the basement. With these models, your plumbing runs through the basement. Hanging a couple 60 watt bulbs in the basement keep it nice and warm when the weather is cold.
Be extremely careful with your pipes.
Other precautions include letting water trickle on subzero nights and possibly constructing some kind of dead air space around the sewer pipe so it doesn’t freeze if we get to -30 like last winter! This is advice my dad gave me – don’t even risk it, temperatures in wintery areas can drop fast and even driving on the highway can have the water freezing and destroying the pipes.You can even use the trailer without using the water lines – just bring along water in other containers, enough for drinking, cooking and personal hygiene.
Stay warm.
Your main concern will be heating the unit. On batteries with no gen set your very limited, the furnace will eat up your battery in no time. While a hot topic among forums there are many types of propane heaters available to use safely with caution of course, our favorite is Mr Buddy. It, despite some people saying other wise, is safe to use inside 24/7. Just be careful with the size: you might have an issue with condensation if you use an oversized heater in a small space.Condensation… well.
I try to open a window for at least a short while each day to reduce condensation, but a dehumidifier would be a good idea too (we use Pro Breeze in our 31 length, it does have small capacity but for our vehicle that’s ok + we have a heater I’ve mentioned above). Watch anything which comes in contact with walls, such as your mattress at the top of the bed, pillows since they will pick up condensation and mildew.And choose your location.
It really depends. For instance, Montana is very capable of having week long stretches of sub -20 degree weather. If you catch such a streak, it is virtually impossible to keep everything unfrozen. At a minimum you will need to have a heated and insulated water hose and access to a heated and insulated water spigot. And if you’re going to stay in warmer states, that won’t be very different from your summer camping.
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