Below freezing camping

[rmayhew]

I am planning a trip in late April for some fishing. I know it will get below freezing at night. What precautions should I take or do before I head out? I have never camped in freezing weather. Thanks for your help, and happycamping.

[Bob Pasternak]

RMAYHEW: The bass fishing in Florida is good I've heard and it seldom freezes!!

[ols1932]

quote:Originally posted by rmayhew

I am planning a trip in late April for some fishing. I know it will get below freezing at night. What precautions should I take or do before I head out? I have never camped in freezing weather. Thanks for your help, and happycamping.

Assume you won't be connected to a water source. If so then all you have to be concerned about is inside the rig. Make sure your furnace is on and set at abou 60. This is so the heat under the floor will keep the pipes from freezing. You don't really have to be concerned unless the temp drops down to about 15-20 degrees.

We have been overnight in 5 degree weather and did have one pipe freeze but it wasn't so bad. It thawed out the next day by itself.
Orv

[rmayhew]

Thanks for the help.

[fulltimedreamer]

rmayhew,

As stated above, keep the heat on to keep the belly warm. Make sure the water and sewer connections are disconnected to prevent freezing when the temps dip at night. Frozen fresh water hoses are bad enough, I don't even want to think about a frozen sewer.

[Garin1]

What state?? How long??

[sreigle]

Rmayhew, what year is your Montana? Up until a year or two ago the Montanas had two low point drains hanging below the belly. Those are the first thing to freeze on ours. They froze on ours when temps reached about 17 degrees. The real key may have been that it was below hard freeze territory (27 or less for four hours or more). If that happens to you they will thaw out but only when temperatures rise above freezing long enough to thaw them. A hair dryer is the usual method for thawing them out more quickly. I heat taped mine and no more freezing of the low point drains. Just insulating them didn't buy me much. Newer Montanas have low point drains in the basement storage area where they get some heat and do not freeze.

As others said, I'd keep the furnace running enough to keep heat in the belly. The furnace does a really good job of that if you let it run enough. I've had the belly pan open in very cold weather and the furnace puts plenty of heat in there.

You might consider putting plastic over your windows to keep things a bit warmer inside. With windows covered we were comfortable. Lowest temp was minus 5 F.