Cold Weather

[TheGriswalds]

Hello Everyone,

Wifey and I are brand spanking new to this. We are incredibly excited, we picked up our Greyhawk 31FS yesterday. I have been trying to educate myself by reading this forum. Thank you to all who share and post, you are an invaluable resource to us noobs!

So our "Casa Rodante" has the usual issues. 60mph vibration. Alignment is WAY OFF but other than that it seems so far so good. We are still winterized and haven't done our shakedown trip yet. "Glamping" in our drive way for now.

We live at 7500 ft. As I type this its 32 degrees and I still have a foot of snow in my yard. What do you experienced folks think about taking a gas dryer vent hose, placing it over the furnace outlet to capture the heat and just place it under the RV for heat to protect the water lines.

Do you think the CO would be an issue or would there be enough air flow underneath.

As I type this it sounds too simple and too stupid...thoughts?

Now be gentle, I told you we are noobs. Better to ask and sound stupid than do and be stupid...

[JFlightRisk]

The CO is a concern to me. A couple of light cords underneath would be safer, but either way, without some kind of skirting I would think the heat will blow away.

[NVGun40]

I cold weather camp quite often. Some things you may want to consider.
Skirting is a great thing to do if you are in a long term place and the rig won't be moved. For your average weekend trip, skirting is impractical.

If you are going to a place with full hookups, there are things out there like heat traced water hoses and heat tape which can be put on sewer lines.

If your going to be camping where the daily temperature will not get above freezing then consider these recommendations.
Get yourself a couple of 5 gallon water jugs and keep them in the bathtub (this is what you will use for your water supply instead of filling the main FW tank).

Buy a bottle or two of RV antifreeze and bag of water softener salt.

When you urinate, put a cup of the water softener salt in the toilet first. Do your business and flush it utilizing enough of the water from the water jugs and add half cup of RV antifreeze.

When you defecate, fill the bowl with water, add a cup of RV anti freeze and once done flush, rinse if necessary (remember add RV anti freeze).

Don't forget to pre fill your black tank with a gallon or two of water and your toilet chemicals and a couple cups of RV antifreeze.

I have done this routine religiously, while doing December hunts in temps as low at 30 below zero. I leave my TT winterized and I keep all the water inside in a 35 gallon container and a couple 5 gallon jugs. I utilize a couple extra 20lb propane tanks and leave a Buddy heater (on a low to mid setting) as my main heat source during the day while I am out, and during the night when I am sleeping (The Big Buddy heater has a CO2 auto shut off feature if I leave it on while I am sleeping -- I have never had it shut off yet and never had the CO2 alarm go off). I run the main onboard heater with the generator in the evenings for a few hours until we go to bed. (this keeps the batteries charged and heats the TT more efficiently.)

If temps are getting into the mid to upper 30s during the day, then with all power options considered, you should be fine to utilize the rig as normal, running the heater at night (not through the night unless you have a constant running generator or are hooked to shore power). Getting up in the morning, I assume you will kick the heater on and make coffee or cook a breakfast on the stove, this will heat the rig just fine.

[Jagiven]

I don't run my drier enough to be able to capture the heat to keep something heated.

It would be note efficient to install a few heat.pads to the tanks and use a few incandescent light bulbs for a heat source. An electric heater would be better yet.

[Fairenatic]

Heating pads and heat traces on the plumbing is probably the best solution if electricity is available. Most factory solution require running the furnace which is not practical, all the time.

[Greyhawk01]

A foot of snow!!! Why are you still messing around fill the gas tank up and head to florida. Congrats and best of luck with the new rig!!!

[Gmdjeb]

Hi! We're in Colorado Springs, too. Just south of Monument at 7200 feet. For over 10 years we had a travel trailer and usually did not winterize until the los got into the 20s.

BUT we DID keep an electric heater and an outdoor thermometer in it so we could watch the temp. we also kept the shades down and all the doors and covers inside near the water lines open so the heat could get passed around. Never had a problem, but always made sure to winterize before the forecast went below 20. We kept the interior at 55 degrees when it looked like it was going below 32.

We still do that with the Greyhawk.

That said, we do have a lot of trees and our driveway does not get a lot of exposure to wind. So it is a bit protected from that .

Just my experience. If anyone thinks that is too risky, please chip in!

We have not de winterized yet, but probably will soon.

Regards,

John

[JDSport]

I also live in Colorado Springs. I went out twice last month with the new Greyhawk, temps got down into the mid 20s, no issues. Unless you are going to be camping in ridiculously cold temp I don't think you are going to have to do much out of the ordinary. Weird that you have the vibration problem on a new rig, that was supposed to have been fixed.
Cheers,
Derek