Winter Camping (sort of)

[senoiasummer]

Disclaimer: I am also posting this on the TRAVEL TRAILER forum

Long story on how we got here, but I am wondering about the pros and cons (mostly cons) of "living" in our 2012 Dutchman Kodiak camper in (what I consider) a moderately cold climate. Specifically, my adult daughter would be living in it for at least a year in Cheney, WA, which is a little SW of Spokane in Eastern Washington. In Dec & January, the average lows are mid twentys and average highs are mid 30s. With windchill the lows fell like "teens". The trailer will be stationary with full hook ups, behind a friends house. It will be parked on a crushed gravel pad. The pad is less than 10 feet from the house and there are trees on the other side, so decent wind break at least of the house side.

My questions are many
1) Does anyone have any experience with cold camping and can you offer any advice on how to winterize when living in a cold climate. How miserable will it be? She is tough. She lived in Alaska for three winters training sled dogs, so she knows what cold is like. She's also spent time in the NW working with pack mule outfitters. Her first experience with cold was spending a couple of weeks in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in December. Here eyelids froze together on occasion. She's tough.

2) Does anyone sell "skirts" to go around the trailer and are they customized or is it a one size, make it fit? She has talked about putting hay bales around the trailer, which will help, but I feel like a skirt in combo with some insulating material (like hay bales) might be the best bet.

3) What about the plumbing. Most if not all of the inlets appear to be on the interior of the trailer. She is talking about using a space heater (or multiple space heaters) as opposed to the Original Equipment (OE) heater that runs off of propane. If you keeps the cabinet doors open at night will that suffice? I have consider running heat trace on the inlets. The inlets are all flexible hosing. Of greater concern (or at least unknown to me) is the drainage plumbing. Do I need to worry about it? The trailer still has to Original liner on the bottom with the gray and black water tank Black PVC piping coming through the liner. I'm assuming the tanks are are some sort of plastic/PVC/poly material. I'm guessing it is best to keep the grey water valve open all the time and just let that flow straight out of the hookup connection. Not sure about the black water. Keep it closed and put a little RV antifreeze in it each time you drain it? Do I need to insulate the drainage pipes? Just not sure what to do about that.

4) Anything to be done to keep the interior as comfortable as possible??

Thanks for any insight you can give.

Senoiasummer

 

[chrisski]

I have come close to freezing, but never below freezing on my five day trips.

I have found that propane is much cheaper than a space heater that runs at 500 watts.

For the skirts, I don’t know where they are bought. The last place I stayed at many of the permanent residents used the insulated 4’ x 8’ styrofoam sheets cut to size. That seems like a bad idea, but many had that.

I would bet hay bales would insulate better, but those are not cheap any more. Local farm
Only sells the alfalfa bails at $10 per bale.

 

[Franktafl]

There have been lots of discussions here about this. I’m a fan of camping in the winter (North Carolina) in the mountains and I have had success at -2 degrees.

1. Heated water hoses.
2. Heated black tank hose.
3. Tank heaters
4. I’m a fan of the radiator looking oil filled heaters (no exposed heating elements). I put one in the bathroom where the water inlets are.
4. I also bought an insulation blanket for a hot water heater and an electric pipe wrap so I could wrap the park’s water supply to prevent it from freezing so I could have water when it was freezing.
5. Slide covers to keep the snow off the roof of the slide.
6. Check rec-Pro for skirting.

Good luck! Your daughter sounds like she should be on NatGeo in a reality show.

 

[senoiasummer]

There have been lots of discussions here about this. I’m a fan of camping in the winter (North Carolina) in the mountains and I have had success at -2 degrees.

1. Heated water hoses.
2. Heated black tank hose.
3. Tank heaters
4. I’m a fan of the radiator looking oil filled heaters (no exposed heating elements). I put one in the bathroom where the water inlets are.
4. I also bought an insulation blanket for a hot water heater and an electric pipe wrap so I could wrap the park’s water supply to prevent it from freezing so I could have water when it was freezing.
5. Slide covers to keep the snow off the roof of the slide.
6. Check rec-Pro for skirting.

Good luck! Your daughter sounds like she should be on NatGeo in a reality show.

Thanks for the insightful answers.

Concerning item #2 .... The black tank (on my trailer, has PVC piping to a shutoff valve, then combines with the gray water outflow and on to the sewage connection point through the external "accordion" drain hose. So when you say you heat the black water tank hose, which of the components are you talking about? Also, since you dont heat the gray water tank hose, do I presume you leave the gray water shutoff open at all times?

Item #3 -- Any suggestions on tank heaters you have been successful with?

Thanks again

Senoiasummer

 

[Franktafl]

There is a heater for the dump hose. I usually keep my valves closed when the weather gets down really cold (anywhere below freezing). When I’m camping above freezing, I keep the gray valve open all the time. In the past, before I got savvy, I had to throw dump hoses away because they were frozen solid.

Tank heaters are kind of like pads that have 12 volt wires in them that heat the actual tank. They glue to the tanks themselves.