We've camped with temps down to 19 degrees without problems. I unhook the water supply hose and use house water until the temp get above freezing. I use 2 small electric heaters, but also run the furnace a bit to keep the basement warm. One other thing I do is to leave a couple of lower cabinet doors open in the kitchen area to ensure that warm air reaches the indoor plumbing. I also leave the bathroom door open at night to allow warm air to circulate through that area since there are lots of pipes there also. As for the outdoor shower, I keep it full of the pink stuff.
2007 Jayco Seneca 33SS
2008 Jeep Wrangler 4 door 4X4 toad
Ready Brute/Ready Brake tow bar/brake combination
Igloo Ice Chest
My two most useful actions in the cold - 1) When shutting down the cab engine for the day, put the heater on "off". Otherwise you leave an open pipe from the outside to the inside to let in cold air.
2) Remember your exterior tanks in the outside wind act like a fan recirculation furnace to quickly defrost the tanks in air above freezing, or to freeze them quickly in air even a few degrees below freezing. This means that when the air is above freezing, find a dump as soon as convenient.
Your windows, even if double pane, have metal frames that seem to shoot in the cold. Carry several garage towels to lay alongside the cold frames.
Not sure if you will be dry camping so I'll add a mixed bag.
A catalytic heater will save on battery draw and is quieter than the furnace. I know folks that use portables (like me) or have them mounted and plumbed in to the rig's plumbing.
Block the cab off from the house with a blanket.
If you can cover the windows at night it will help. Lots of ski bums I know use the bubble insulation from Home Depot etc.
Don't get too freaked out about freezing up. Damage rarely happens. I know many folks that have frozen an dknow nobody that has suffered damage to date.
Another trick is if dry camping you can hook up a dinky generator like an EU1000/2000 and start it before going to bed. It will run out of gas eventually overnight but it will use less battery juice in the process.
Next time you're in Bolivia grab a big furry Alpaca hide thing to sleep on like I have. It will be very expensive if you have to pay for the plane ticket but very nice in the winter.
What makes your slides work? If it is oil beware of the oil geting cold and not flowing. Last winter we spent a very cold night -5 and when we trid to pull the slides in nothing happened. We had to let the MH engine run for about one hour to heat up the underside of the MH. That warned up the oil enough for the slides to come in at a slow rate. This year in cold weather we will not put out the slides.
In cold weather we use only bottle water for everything inside the MH.
" You can go down a mountain a thousand times too slowly, but only one time to fast." "Diesel Boats Forever"
First, chains are a REAL PITA! It takes near and hour and a LOT of effort to get them on, and as soon as you go over the pass the road becomes dry again so you have to take them off, and sure as hell after a mile there will be another icy pass. Do a Google for "Auto Socks". They are SO much easier; they are strong fabric covers which go on the tire easily and come off just as easy - maybe five minutes to do both rear outside tires. I gave my chains away last spring.
When parking for the night, before you shut down the engine, shut off the heater. Otherwise you leave pipes open to the cold and the cold ends up on the inside.
Below about 20 degrees, even if the windows are not too cold, their metal frames sure are and seem to radiate the cold. We bring many old towels to cover the frames where our arms may hit them.
If your sewage tanks are outside, be aware that as soon as the air goes below freezing, the tanks and pipes will freeze. Yet as soon as the air is a few degrees above freezing, they defrost rapidly - remember that air going by is like a convection oven/freezer. So as soon as it warms up we look for a place to dump if the tanks are more than half full.
NEVER leave a water hose attached overnight. It freezes fast, and once solid cannot be stored until it defrosts. It took me losing a hose by having to leave it in the campground to learn that lesson.
We regularly camp below 20 degrees and several times have gone below zero. The heater in the air conditioner keeps us warm to about 35 or 40 degrees, then a portable space heater keeps us OK to maybe 10 degrees, then those two plus the furnace keeps us OK. This means you need a electrical hookup or a full gas tank to run the generator all night, as we had to do once. Make sure you open all inside cabinets - otherwise the contents freeze - they can't take the cold from the coach wall. We have never run down the house batteries from the furnace, even after three freezing nightsa, but it is something you need to be aware of.
Good luck. Remember that in slippery situations your coach will hold traction better than a car, but once you lose it, the coach will end up wherever it wants to go no matter how skilled your driving. The real skill is not ever getting into a skid situation. My worst case was when a deer bolted in front of the rig at night with ice on the road. I managed to avoid a crash but from now on the deer dies first!
Lessons learned about winter camping. Two 12v house batters won't always last a whole night in cold weather. Depends on the draw from the heater and anything else that's on. That plus the cold affects the battery and they drop to 50% capacity. If possible, go to 2 or 4 - 6v batteries wired in series. Had to do that with our 24ft Bigfoot.
Second item, we broke a gray tank discharge valve trying to dump the tanks. Black tank worked fine but apparently the gray with its smaller diameter piping had froze shut. We now dump about a quart of antifreeze into the tanks after emptying.
2006 30MH24SL Bigfoot Class C
2003 Citation 32' Sky Deck TT
2003 Artic Fox #1140
Rick & Kathy, My best friend and wife for 38yrs
Pepe, Rascal & Peewee(our furry children)
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