We aren’t completely mad, I assure
you. We do know a little bit about cold weather despite having lived in Florida for many years.
I was born and raised in
Colorado. Until the age of 12, before my family relocated to Florida, I spent winters building snowmen and perfecting my ski technique.
Eric was born and raised in Pennsylvania and spent many winters doing the same, but on a smaller scale (and with a snowboard on "mountains" haha). It wasn't until after high school that Eric left Pa and went to Florida for his Navy training.
|
So true! |
We both
enjoy 1-2 weeks a year traveling to ski (even though I haven't been able to the past two seasons) and have always
dreamed about spending a season at a resort. But before full-timing, we never would have had the opportunity. Little did we know that we would be
afforded the opportunity to do it this year’s season!
Early this fall we mapped out a plan that
would include spending approximately 7 weeks in Whitefish, Montana (although it
is before ski season, we will be spending time prepping with lots of hikes
enjoying autumn and the turning of the leaves which doesn’t happen in
Florida). After Thanksgiving, we are
planning a week and a half to travel to Colorado, possibly with stops in Big
Sky, Montana and Jackson Hole, Wyoming (depending on snowfall).
We then plan to have about a month each in
Breckenridge, Colorado and Park City, Utah finished by a few weeks at the end
of February in Tahoe, California before a sprint back to Florida in time for
the Runaway Country festival the third weekend of March.
We departed Florida in the middle of September in nearly 90
degree weather with all of our winter gear loaded in the RV along with a few
items our research found (thanks google, grandma, and other bloggers!) that have already proven to be helpful for the cold. Even though it hasn't dropped below freezing (our thermometer says it got down to 29 one night, but not sure)
I’m sure we
will be adding as we go and discover tidbits from other RVers and through our first-hand experience.
When we were choosing our new fiver back in February, we knew
that we would eventually want to do cold weather living so we made sure we had
a “four season” rig. This can be
misleading, as there technically isn’t a “four season” rig – rather more of a
three season. With right preparations,
plenty of advice from those with experience and some of our own experimenting, it can be just as pleasant inside during the winter as a hot summer. Most full-time RVers prefer to follow the
mild seasons, not ever having to worry about such things as extreme temperatures
and there is definitely something to be said for that, and I’m sure we will join
them sometime in the future, but not this year!
As we departed Florida, already in our possession were two
ceramic space heaters, a backup propane heater, foam door insulator, and 3m
plastic window film.
In our first three weeks, we have used only our on board furnace (with a vent cracked to help
control humidity, ideally kept between 30-40% to keep from damaging
condensation from forming inside).
An
important note on our first three weeks: we have, so far, spent only on night on
the cord as we discovered on our way that many parks such as
Devils Tower and
Glacier National Park are still open (and uncrowded) for primitive camping.
The days are still in the mid 60’s with the
nights in the low 40’s (a few dipping down to the mid 30’s).
It’s been wonderful experiencing our first
real autumn in years. We both forgot how beautiful and colorful the trees got and how cold air has that crispness to it...
After a few colder nights requiring the use of the furnace, we did have our carbon monoxide
detector go off in the middle of the night which was a little scary, especially since we didn’t know why.
We smelled some propane earlier in the day and being new at regular use of the furnace we
didn’t think much of it (we had also just changed one of the tanks). Since we didn't want to take any chances and we were pretty sure
the problem was somewhere in the furnace, we decided to shut it down and go with our Mr. Heater Big Buddy backup propane heater. Since it was already late at night, it seemed like the best option for both safety and sleep! The Big Buddy runs off of one or two 1lb propane cylinders OR you can get a hose with a quick connect (shown above in Amazon store) that allows the hookup of a 20lb tank - well worth the expense for the added peace of mind. I don't recommend using the medium setting. It doesn't seem to get any hotter than the low setting and it made a funny smell. Low was perfect and put out a nice, even heat while high had no problem heating up inside the RV within a few minutes. The heater doesn't come with a power cord, that part is extra, but it can be run with 4 'D' cell batteries so that you can run the heater's built-in fan. This is a nice feature to help keep air circulating inside your rig. It works just fine without, but for keeping condensation down and keeping temperatures even inside, we prefer using the fan.
|
Typical RV Carbon Monoxide Detector |
The next morning, after some investigating, Eric found that the furnace exhaust had been turned into a
caked dirt mess by some bugs (we think probably mud daubers in Florida) at some
point!
We don’t know if this happened
before we purchased the RV or over the summer, but we are sure glad it was such
a simple fix.
We do have vent covers over them now, but we didn't have them until about two months after having the RV. Once we figured out the problem and cleared it out, we were back up and
running in no time. We were glad we had the
backup propane heater since
we were in Glacier and there are only three times a day that it is acceptable
to run a generator (which we would have used to run the space heaters rather
than freezing all night if we’d had to). The only drawback we had with the heater is that we didn't have enough backup 1lb canisters of propane to run for more than then night. We now have plenty of those as well as a connection to hook up the Big Buddy to a 20lb propane tank. We've read stories of fellow RVers heating their rigs for days and weeks before having to change out the tank!
I would say the funniest lesson we’ve learned so far is just
how much wood is in a half a cord!
As
you can see from the picture – it’s a lot!!
We were having trouble finding firewood at a reasonable price (read: grocery stores charge $5+ dollars for 4-5 pieces of wood that burn up in 15 minutes!) We saw a truck full of wood alongside the road in Columbia Falls and thought we might be able to get a better deal. Knowing we would
be in the Apgar campground inside Glacier until it started to dip down to
freezing temperatures, we figured we would be camping there for another week or two.
Going through 8-10 pieces every evening we
wanted to save by buying more than just the bundles the grocery store offered
so we decided on the minimum delivery amount, a half a cord of wood!
Holy Cow, half a cord is a lot of wood!
We have now started a wood sharing business
LOL – our fellow campers now had their very own source of wood, for a donation
of course ;-).
The preparations that we have already made include adding a
weather station that has a remote temperature sensor that we will keep in our
bays so we can monitor temperature - the last thing we want is for any of our pipes or tanks to freeze up!
We have also ensured that our door and basement compartments are
completely sealed with foam tape. When using foam insulation tape, it is
important to make sure when choosing a size to not get it too wide or too thick.
The idea is for it to fit just
right, with just some squishing for the ideal seal.
Too thick and your door won’t close and too
thin you won’t have a seal to prevent not only the cold, but the wind, from
entering.
We also will use foam board insulation on the inside of any of our exterior access compartment doors to help keep the warm in and the cold out!
Our next step was a thorough
inspection of all the seals of our windows.
Being that our windows are single pane as
I’m sure most older RV models are, while the seals are good, there is not
really any insulation as most newer double paned glass offers (maybe a future
upgrade?)
On a visit to grandma in
Chicago last spring I saw installed a “
plastic wrap” type material on her
windows. Since we had evenly flat aluminum frames around our windows, we were able to affix the plastic directly to the frames with the included double-sided tape. It was applied fairly easily (we recommend removing blinds etc to made the job easiest) but was a little difficult to get in place at the top of the frames. Once the plastic is in place and reasonably snug, any wrinkles can be ironed out with a hair dryer.
This product has allowed us not only fully
seal our windows, but also to use the air between the plastic and the window as
an insulator which is hard to believe just how much of a difference it
makes!
It does take a little practice to
install, as it does tear – but a few pieces of
gorilla tape fixed those right
up.
So far we have had it installed for
a week and despite using the day/night blinds and having two energetic doggies,
we have not had to replace any yet.
In the next few weeks, we will be purchasing a heated water
hose.
Although our tanks are in our
insulated and heated bays, we will prefer not to keep water in them this
winter.
We will also get a PVC pipe that
we will wrap with heat tape and insulation for our black and grey tanks so we
won’t have any of the dreaded poopsicles
we’ve heard so much about. Ewww…
Other things we are considering are heat
blankets for the propane tanks (expensive so we may wait on these as the
coldest parts of our winter we will spend hooked up directly to the campgrounds
propane) as well skirting for around the bottom of the fiver to keep out the
winter winds and the worst of the cold.
We have already some tarps, which we plan on trying first in the front
of the RV where we have so much room below the tongue of the fiver.
On the suggestion of a full timer we met in
St. Louis, we will also probably be getting 1in thick foam board that we can use
to circle the rest of our RV including the slides.
He even suggested if needed, as he has seen
others do before, to enclose each slide in the same foam board.
I don’t think we’ll need to go that far!!
RVing in cold weather is not for the faint of heart. That's coming from two Floridians. That being said, there is a certain sort of fun (some call it crazy) that you have from full-timing in the cold weather. Besides, if you love any outdoor winter activity, there's no better way to get up-close and personal with the great out-of-doors than by setting up shop near your closest winter resort.
If any of you have any more suggestions or ideas for us, we
would really appreciate your comments!
Don’t forget – we’re a couple of cold weather novices and it’s certainly
going to be an adventure in RV living!!
Did we get it right? Do you have experience or knowledge about this post? Please make yourself heard! Comment below and we will respond as soon as possible. As always, thanks for following us!
Disclaimer: We are not paid writers. We write for enjoyment and to share information about our travels with our families, friends, and our followers. The information that we provide is based on our experiences with the products, services, etc, that we write about. It is 100% non-biased!