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Old 09-12-2005, 07:36 AM   #1
Montana_3730
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Winter camping

My wife Dawn and I rented a winter seasonal campsite for this coming season beginning on Nov. 1. We own a 3695 RK that we purchased in the spring and have taken several trips and absolutely love it. We are novices. We would welcome any tips or insights as to what we should do to prepare our camper and our winter site to maximize our fun and enjoyment. We are avid skiiers and will be storing our snowmobiles on site. The site is in the Pocono Mts. in PA. All responses appreciated.

Regards,
Clark and Dawn
 
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Old 09-12-2005, 11:04 AM   #2
CountryGuy
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First, welcome to the forum!!!

Many will have many opinions. My suggestion, contact other site rentors where you will be staying, and ask them what they do!

You don't say in your sig line what year rig you have, the newer units do have better protection for the water lines.

We used to winter camp in Gaylord Michigan for cross country skiing. We NEVER put water in that unit, we dry camped and used the facilities at the campground for all showers. Man, they sure spent a lot of coin on the heat in that shower house! It was VERY warm and comfy to shower in!

Even if you think you can use your own water in your rig, you will need to winterize every time you leave it and go back to the stick built, or run a LOT of heat and your propane bills will be painful.

For this family, even if we decide to go north instead of south for the cold months, we will never winter camp with water in the rig. If we cannot find a campground with great heated shower houses, we will not go!

But, we know several full timers that have spent some time in cold weather, with a lot of prep to their rig. And there are also a number of members that do what you will be doing, winter camping and skiing.

Try the search function here at MOC and go back to the main page and look for Archives yellow boxes along the right side and search them as well.

Have fun!
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Old 09-12-2005, 11:21 AM   #3
Montana_3730
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Our rig is 2005 3650RK with Arctic insulation package. We positioned ourselves within 50yds of the showers/indoor swimming pool/hot tub facility which will be open year round. I was wondering what to expect with leaving the slides out and what, if anything ,one needs to do to protect them against ice/snow.
Is there really any significant value to enclosing the bottom of the camper with skirting or the like?
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Old 09-12-2005, 11:41 AM   #4
CountryGuy
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Have no idea about skirting, there is another thread going on now in the forum somewhere about that, I have not read it at all.

50 yards is good!

Slides need to be moved periodically. I thought I remembered once a month. Slides will move slower and sometimes there is a bit of trouble with the fuses popping in the cold weather. That hydralic fluid is COLD too! We have put our slides out and in during the colder weather, and they do fine, if that fuse pops, it cools off quickly and you can start the slides moving again in a short time, say 10 or 15 seconds. There is a LOT of stuff in the old posts about this too, would be good to check, in case I have my facts a bit off (Al is the electrician, and he is not here right now for me to verify my verbage).

Do you have slide toppers?? If so, the snow and ice will just slide off, but don't stand real close, you might get hit in the heat with a hunk of ice. OUCH! If you do not have slide toppers, you will have to figure out how to get that snow and ice off the slides when you move them in. Snow probably would not be a huge problem, but, I would think that if you had ohhh, 1/2 inch ice or more, that it might mess up the slides from going in?? Maybe some of the other members have had experience brining in slides with NO slide toppers and snow or ice on them. Hopefully one of them will happen along and give us some insight on that.

Our unit is a 2004, and as I have stated here a number of times, in our opinion the Artic package is very good about keeping the unit cool in the summer. But, we don't notice much of a difference in comfort level in the rig during the really cold weather. Since we do not use water in ours during the cold weather, we cannot address any possible freezing, etc. But, there are a number of MOC members that can, they will happen along soon, I am sure, and share their experiences.
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Old 09-14-2005, 05:33 AM   #5
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Just a clarification.. The fuse Carol refers to is an auto resetting circuit breaker. It will reset soon as it cools down. If the slide mechanisms are kept lubed you'll likely not have a problem moving them. They may be slower but we all are in that kind of weather.

As Carol said, if you don't have the slide toppers you will likely want to sweep off the snow and chip off the ice. We have the toppers and they just roll off the edge, as Carol said.

If you are going to spend quite a bit of time with the furnace running you might look into getting a 100 lb propane bottle (external) and the extend-a-stay hose connection or similar. We've found many CG's provide the 100 lb bottle, often at no cost. You pay for the propane. We use one of these for our Nov/Dec stay in the Kansas City area and used on in Colorado for October, 2003.
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Old 09-14-2005, 08:07 AM   #6
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Clark

We have wintered almost 10 days with 3 of the nights being 6 degrees with wind, last December down in Oklahoma with our family for the holidays, we had no problems. Ours has the Back To Montana package and I dropped the enclosure and added 3 1/2 inches of fiberglass insulation in the entire bottom. On the big rear window, we covered with window covering,with heat shrink film. We also put styrofoam on the bedroom window near our heads between the windows and screen. The crank up vents, we used those vent pillows which are insulated which can be purchased at any RV service store. We also received a gift of a Down bedspread, and kept very warm. (In fact, thought we were home with the electric blanket)! You just don't want to turn your thermostat too low and use the electric heat, as it's not heating your basement as well where your tanks and water lines are.When we arrived back in NE. it was very cold and we did have the low point drains freeze but just used a cordless drill to drill up through the pipe to drain, being very careful. I now replaced the drains with frost free sill-cock drains which works great now even to wash the bugs off the front of the camper in the summer between campsites. Hope this will help you in some way. Larry & LaVonne
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Old 09-14-2005, 08:11 AM   #7
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Welcome to the group!

I think the only thing as far as the slides are concerned in sevier weather is to make sure the rubber gasket is all the way out and resting flat on the top of the slides, I will set my ladder up and look if it is rolled in slightly, I use the awning pull and slide it under the gasket it rolls it out prefactly. if moisture is going to come in it will be in a rolled area where the hole is. I do this to get the gasket from getting a memory also. I was in a snow storm and had 8- 10 inches of snow on all my slides and no leaks. This of course is my remidy and you will hear others that might be better or worst so try and pick the one that works for you.

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Old 09-20-2005, 08:34 AM   #8
sreigle
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I'm going to steal Cruizin's idea and add insulation blankets in the belly on ours. I also plan to put the foam pipe insulation on those pipes in the belly. I've already done that in the basement storage area.

The low point drains hanging below the belly are a weak point. They freeze early on. That's ok if it doesn't get too cold. Then it freezes up into the belly where those lines T into the wate rlines and that stops water flow. I never tried drilling them out but a hair dryer works pretty well. I've since heat taped those low point drain lines on ours. That works very well so long as you have 110v to plug into.
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