Winter camping

We've been anxiously waiting for the weather to improve before making an extended house-hunting trip North to Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri.  We've never attempted to RV in freezing temps, but I've read a bunch and have my heat tape, pipe insulation, space heater, and drop lights -- everything I need except for the nerve to actually try it.

Anybody here regularly camp in REALLY cold temps, like 12 degree lows and 24 degree highs for several days at a time?  I'm afraid of what I don't know -- like how susceptible my 2008 2350 is to frozen (broken) pipes, and how long a tank of propane lasts when using the furnace.  Am I worrying for nothing?  Is it worth the hassle?

Hi, I am doing the winter in southern PA but not sure I can help much.  I have a 3100 and no clue how different your water line runs are from mine, etc.  Because I knew I would be sitting still I was able to make use of some ideas from folks on the forum.  Invested in foam board and Reflectix.

I did get the extend a stay kit and I am going thru a 30lb tank each week.  I have the slide out in and the furnace is set at 67.  The tank heaters have so far done their job but I do worry about the fact that I won't know if it actually quits working until there is a big problem.

One thing I found that was not extensively talked about was that the absorption refrigerator function drops off and can quit if the temp is too low.  Putting insulation over some but not all of the vent openings helps - I am running the fridge on electric. 

I haven't done it for long periods of time, but have been caught for a night or two in conditions like that.  Yes, the pipes (and black and gray tank outlet lines) will freeze.  The built in tank heaters take a lot of electricity so do not use them!   Keep all water tanks and lines dry!   Pretend you are in a car.    You can bring a two to five gallon jerry can of fresh water if you keep it inside.  Use public restrooms for your needs.

The propane heater can handle those Temps, but won't last for more than about 4 days.

Your coach batteries will lose power more rapidly, but will recharge via the generator.

Having met you and your wife when we got the ebikes, and I pulled my stupid RV off the driveway trick... I would say you can handle it if you can find a nearby RV Park that's open and at least plug in to shore power.

If the temp stays above about 25 for the low, you can use your bathroom and flush via the jerry can.

If the lows are 30 or higher... You can carry fresh water, use the Grey and black tanks, etc.  Just open the kitchen and bathroom cabinet door to allow room temp air to circulate to the pipes under the sinks.

Don

Winter glamping is easy if you will be plugged in while you are at the destination or stopped over night. En-route, the movement will keep things from freezing (think rivers.) Putting a fair amount of pink rv antifreeze in your holding tanks before you go will solve any worries while stopped over night. Don't use your fresh water holding tank  and you'll not worry about the water lines. The shower area will hold many gallon jugs of water for your use. Have an old half-gallon milk jug by the toilet to flush (I always use this method.) We take a oil filled electric radiator type heat when we winter travel and can plug in, keeps the coach toasty with no noise or fear of flame. I actually leave it in the PC parked at home and it will keep it at 45 inside when it is 0 outside. Think of your trip as tenting without the zippers or a thermarest on the ground, and warmer and comfy. Wet wipes, paper plates and paper towels are allowed.

And hanging a blanket between cab and coach keeps the area to heat smaller, less windows for heat loss. And roof vent insulating interior covers are a must. I also made reflective foil faced bubble covers for inside the windows for when it is really cold.
And, all those covers work just the opposite when it is hot outside.

Or...I bet house rentals are cheap at LOTO this time of year, take the car and rent a place for a month...
Dougn

Will you have shore power?

Yes on shore power.  The KOA in Camdenton is open and $20/night.  Even the cheap hotels are over $100 if you want to stay longer than a week.  It seems to be the only place in the world where volume doesn't get you a discount,  The Red Roof where we paid $50/night to be their only customers for two nights before Christmas wanted $100/ night if we stayed a month!  Weird!  AirBNB rentals started at $150.

Oh well...

So I guess the consensus is to not even try to use a water connection?  I was hoping a heat tape and insulation would work.  Don, you mentioned that you've had your pipes freeze?  Did it not cause any damage?  I guess PEX is less prone to breakage.

Jon... It was in my prior RV, but the same PEX plumbing.   No, it did not break.    It froze overnight in San Angelo when the official overnight temp was 7 degrees.  We were at the KOA there.   The next night we stayed in Dumas where it "only" got down to 18 overnight.   The day after Dumas as we were headed over to Raton, NM, the temp got to low 20's, we'd been driving for severs hours and the inside got warm enough for the water to start flowing again.  No damage.

We were headed back from Daytona where we had been for a week at the Rolex 24. (hrs at Daytona race) and the night before we got to San Angelo, we stopped in Beaumont and it was above freezing so I hooked everything up, including sewer and water.  I left the gray dump valve open so we could take longer showers.  Woke up the next morning.  It was 22 degrees (8 lower than predicted) and the outside water line got icy (but not solid) so was a pain to get off and drained.   The Grey water valve froze open and after about 20 minutes with a hair dryer aimed at it, still wouldn't close so I so I put the cap back on the outlet.

That didn't unfreeze until the day after we got home in Denver.  Again, no damage.

We had been out several times over the years where Temps were in the 20's and upper teens with no problems.

Anyway,  l got my experience in really cold weather the hard way and thus have learned to empty all tanks and water lines when Temps below 20 degrees are expected.

Yes on shore power.  The KOA in Camdenton is open and $20/night.  Even the cheap hotels are over $100 if you want to stay longer than a week.  It seems to be the only place in the world where volume doesn't get you a discount,  The Red Roof where we paid $50/night to be their only customers for two nights before Christmas wanted $100/ night if we stayed a month!  Weird!  AirBNB rentals started at $150.

Oh well...

So I guess the consensus is to not even try to use a water connection?  I was hoping a heat tape and insulation would work.  Don, you mentioned that you've had your pipes freeze?  Did it not cause any damage?  I guess PEX is less prone to breakage.

Are you hoping to leave soon? !0 day weather forecasts are remarkably reliable (as long as you look every day or two) and this link

 https://weather.com/weather/tenday/l/Camdenton+MO?canonicalCityId=bb925b38875ffe3fe1ce13840ae4883270b67edb9820e260c979ddba4a48bd60

shows Camdenton MO to be mighty moderate for that future, except for the 13th (cursed of course.)   

PC are very well insulated, best I've ever had,  and if you have shore power and a good, safe plug in heater ( I still recommend an oil filled one, no noise, no smell, no flame)  you will be fine. I'd use the water system if you have heat, no worries.  Also, the black holding tank tends to generate it's own heat.
My phone has more weather apps than anything else due to my former love of flying, where weather is everything (and altitude.) Don't leave home without them.

Do we regularly camp in evil cold? No.
Have we done it successfully time and again? Yes. (We're bad at keeping to Moderate temps, we try...)
Can your Phoenix handle it? Yes, but you have to help.

Be aware of what the temps are doing (and prepare for worse). Be proactive in getting extra heat in and keeping cold out. Accept the fact you may need to put on a sweater, drape a blanket over your shoulders and maybe bring warm slippers (the floor gets very cold).

We wouldn't hesitate to take the rig into the cold for a trip like you're planning (and have done it for a wedding, family visits, etc.)

Here's what we would do - weather dependent (and it may change almost daily):
- Camp in an open spot with one full window side facing South if possible. You want as much solar heat gain as you can get. Blinds up to let Sun in during the day, down before dusk. If you have magne-shades and any sun is hitting the cab, leave the shades off.
- Drape the cab area with a blanket or insulation. The Ford truck insulation is not good. If it warms during the day, open a truck door to let the cold out (Leave blanket in place).
- In super cold weather you can use magnets to drape the house door and inside step area with a thin Mylar emergency blanket once you are inside. You can also pull in the slide if you know the temps are diving. This depends on your heating system. If you have ample heat, don't worry about it.
- Put insulating material in the outdoor shower cabinet, this is a freeze risk
- Use your three inch dump valve if you plan to stay hooked up.
- Put a little pink antifreeze through black & grey valves after you hook up to get that antifreeze in the valve area. Do it again after each dump (no worries if grey is left open, just treat the black)
- Leave your hot water tank on if you're dropping below freezing for more than a few hours. This is another freeze risk. We hate leaving it on and would probably cycle it on and off to keep it "warm enough".
- Fill your on-board water tank. We only drain it for storage. If your house is warm enough for you, it's warm enough for your inside water lines. If it gets bitter cold and your heat can't keep up, open the cabinets to circulate air better.
- If you use electric space heaters, watch your amps. Our 30 amp rig handles two small heaters, no problem (I can't remember if our tank heaters were on but those are pulling from your house batteries which will recharge from shore power - John and think we had two space heaters AND the tank heaters going). NOTE-turn something off before turning on the microwave, the power is not unlimited. If we were in this situation again, we'd hook our 100w solar suitcase panel to the battery for daytime recharging. We DO NOT leave space heaters on when we are gone, we unplug them. We turn on the propane furnace and set it to 50 then switch to space heaters when we return home. If you have a pet on board, make them a blanket nest or buy a little pet heating pad (not a human one) or do both. They'll be fine at 50 degrees... Heck, you'd be fine at 50 - that's our sleeping temp in bitter cold. At Big Bend it dropped into the low 20's. We didn't have hook ups and didn't do any of these cold weather steps. We closed bathroom and bedroom doors, set the propane furnace to 50 and snuggled under the blankets. One night the furnace kicked on for a few minutes around 4 am. The other night it never turned on. It was low 20's outside but stayed above 50 inside.
 
Hooking up your hose:
- Talk to the campground
   - is the water supply insulated and available for use when it is below freezing?
   - is there a 15 amp outlet on the post that is available to you?
   - what do they suggest you do or buy to enable staying hooked up to water (heated hose, etc)
   - do they sell propane if you need to refill?
Most cold area campgrounds close down or set up their pipes to avoid freezing. If they suggest a heated hose, it needs to plug in. If their heat strip is using the 15 amp outlet, you may need an outdoor extension cord that reaches the outdoor outlets on your rig. NOTE: we always use a water pressure gauge... One froze, we should have wrapped it. If you need to pull your hose, pull your water gauge too.

Insulating your hose: heated hose, pool noodles and duct tape, upside down insulated trash can, straw bales, etc. I've seen all these used. The campground manager can best advise you to what works. For overnight stops in the freeze zone we've been told to leave one faucet dripping... Day and night... All night. Drip, drip, drip. Besides a massive waste of water, it drives me crazy. We avoid that and will pull our hose if needed. We ALWAYS have water on board.

Hope this helps.

Just found this online, much better I bet than my home-made model...
https://www.amazon.com/Camco-Insulator-Skylight-Reflective-Standard/dp/B0024E6QX0/ref=as_li_ss_tl?creativeASIN=B0024E6QX0&imprToken=PusoBM8--VQ18GF39qmJ8w&slotNum=39&ie=UTF8&qid=1511595203&sr=8-1&keywords=rv+skylight+insulation&linkCode=w61&tag=waterskyland03-20&linkId=fea475aa9e2eb4d81f410e7c7122211b

I don't have a gap to stuff things in. It is screen then fan blades then cover. Don't all Phoenix Cruiser vents have fans in them? That padded thing would be awesome if you don't have a fan. I considered trying to glue metal strips or dots around the fan opening (in a color to match) then make insulation pads with magnets to snap up there... But I'm lazy so we don't do anything with the vents.

I don't have a gap to stuff things in. It is screen then fan blades then cover. Don't all Phoenix Cruiser vents have fans in them? That padded thing would be awesome if you don't have a fan. I considered trying to glue metal strips or dogs around the fan opening (in a color to match) then make insulation pads with magnets to snap up there... But I'm lazy so we don't do anything with the vents.

Ya, you're right about the screens. I use velcro to hold my surface mount ones up there. One vent  has an inch of recess, hence the plug type insulation pictured above. One I had to build up the edges to make it sit below the crank handle. Really have reflective properties as opposed to insulative.