First "camp out" in cold weather

[Montana_2785]

So, as I have mentioned in other posts, my wife and I got our meat hooks on a nice 2002 3575RL last November. It has been at a dealer waiting for parts for various repairs ever since.

WE WANT TO PLAY!!!

Soooooo, Mary Lou has presidents day off and I have a goodly amount of vacation. We are planning to take advantage of this and take a trip out to the Mississippi Palisades State Park near Savanna IL over presidents day weekend.

I know that a Montana with an unmodified belly is prone to having the water lines freeze up sooner than one would wish, but if I run the propane furnace exclusively to pump as much heat down there as I can, how cold do you think it would need to get to start having freezing problems?

Once warm weather hits I will drop the belly pan and insulate, but for now I won't do any more than tape some kind of exterior insulation over the low point drains where they protrude.

By that time (late February) we should be reasonably past the bitterly cold part of winter for this part of the country (on average...) I'm hoping that we should be able to handle lows at least to the mid 20's at night.

Do you think this is doable or am I overly optimistic?

Eric

[jackw87]

Eric I can't speek for your RV but I have taken mine to aouthern Indiana in Jan and camped in the snow more that once and I used the furnace to heat and did not have any freezing problems I did how ever fill the fresh water tank daily and use that for water I was in a 2003 3255RL so I don't think you will have a problem If you use the park water hooked up in may feeze

[Montana_2785]

Yes, I didn't say it but I was planning to only use on-board water.

Eric

[sreigle]

Eric, before we did the modifications to ours our water would freeze up at about 17F. The low point drains are what got us. A few minutes on my back with a hair dryer (thanks Samantha!) thawed things out. I think those drains did freeze at a higher temperature but it's not a problem until they freeze up into the belly enough to reach the tee, at which point it shuts off water flow.

We have not dropped the bellypan. I think some of our lines are laying on the frame and freeze at that point. By running the furnace on 60 all night with electric heater (downstairs) turned off, we were good to 5 degrees F. However, I have filled the openings in the belly pan with expanding foam insulation to keep some of the cold air out and wrapped the low point drains with electrical heat tape and insulation.

Jack's advice sounds good to me. Looking at wunderground.com's seasonal averages chart for Savannah, IL, it looks like that area has "normal" lows in the upper teens to low twenties with highs in the upper thirties to low forties around the time you plan to be there. If things stay normal you'll probably be ok although you might be sure to have a hairdryer along. Keep in mind that at those temperatures and keeping it that warm at night you'll probably go through a propane bottle in 3 to 5 days or thereabouts.

You can use onboard water and refill as needed. Or hook up to water during the day, if above 27 or so, and disconnect the hose at night, using onboard water then.

Good luck. We fully understand how exciting it is to get that first trip in.

[Montana_2785]

Yeah, I was expecting to go through a boat load of propane for the weekend. I'll spend as much on propane as I will the site

But, it gets us on the road.

Eric

[sreigle]

If you have hookups, an electric heater upstairs and another downstairs can help reduce propane usage if above freezing or nearly so. If below freezing we shut off the downstairs heater to make sure the furnace runs. But we'll close the door to upstairs and use an electric heater up there and turn the furnace down to 55 for the night.