little cold weather changes...

[Montana_1994]

Hello,
My name is Bob Pease, and I am the proud owner of a 2004 Montana 3280RL. I am very, very pleased with my new fiver, and I need to be. I am a full timer in upstate New York where the weather can be somewhat rough in the winter. My Montana has great insulation (arctic package) and very efficient in regard to the furnace. I have made a couple of small changes which may interest others.
1) I was disappointed that I could not divert the heat blowing through my floor registers. I went to Lowe's and purchased a set of new registers with directional control, as well as the option of closing one or more to increase the flow to other registers. The product is:
Manufacturer: Accord
Product line: Simplicity (the finishing touch)
Model: APFRTPL410
4" x 10" floor diffuser
Taupe finish, solid polymer construction for floor use, rustproof

This product;
*matches my interior better
*has a more finished appearance
*is lighter (I'm sure that is good for a trailer manufacturer)
*is versatile, flow can be redirected
*only cost about $3.50 each retail ( go to http://www.accord-air.com for catalog)

2) I insulated and sealed all of my windows with a frost king shrinkable window insulation kit. This was also purchased at Lowe's (I love that store) for very little money.
This product;
*dramatically reduced the amount of condensation on my windows.
*does not impair my view.
*when applied correctly is practically unnoticeable.
*completely eliminated ANY drafts at the windows.

I know these are very minor changes, and someone may have done them before, but I wanted to share them, because they have made me just a little bit happier with my amazing Montana.
Thank you for your time,
Bob Pease, Catskill Mnt. Region, New York

[Northstar]

Thanks for your post. Some great ideas. Keep us posted. Congratulations on your new coach. I know you will be very pleased. Happyrving......

[vickster]

Welcome aboard Peaceful Warrior. Congratulations on your new 3280 -know you will love your Monty. Even with the artic insulation package, you may want to consider making another trip to your favorite Lowe's and, purchasing and installing extra insulation around the exposed pipes in the basement.

[DHenry]

Good post, thanks. I can't wait until we get a Lowes in our area. That is a great store. We should have one in the next year or two as it is in the planning stages now.

[sreigle]

Good ideas, Bob. Thanks for sharing. We've done the same except haven't done the diverters yet. I think we may do those this winter. Besides what others suggested, a couple of things that will help - get a can of expanding foam insulation and fill any openings in the underbelly. Also in the basement storage area. Cold air gets into the coach by the sliding door area to the upstairs. Open your basement doors on a bright day, then look into the pocket, from inside the coach, where the sliding door is when open. If you see daylight, you need to fill openings from inside the basement storage area.

Weak point as far as freezing seems to be the low point drains. You may want to insulate those. I've done that and hope that eliminates the freezing we had there last winter. If it freezes hard enough those lines freeze up inside where it blocks waterflow. If this happens, a hair dryer works miracles.

Another thing I'm going to do this year after seeing what RC and Samantha (they winter in Michigan) did is to put some insulation along the outside walls of all cabinets in slides and along the back of the rig.

Welcome aboard. Thanks for sharing. I like your ideas and think I'll copy the diverter one since we haven't yet done that.

[Steve Ryan]

Thanks Bob for the info on the furance registers. I did the same thing on our old f/w. We are planning one more trip this year in a couple weeks.This will be our first trip needing the heater.Today I went out and made sure the furance worked, but wasn't to thrilled about the output.In our 2955RL the registers in the kitchen and living area are great, but in the bathroom and bedroom, not so good.I feel using registers that control the flow are a better way to heat.
Thanks again and welcome to MOC.

[dersequim]

YOU HAVE register in Bathroom of your 2955???

Does anyone know how to increase flow to Bedroom. In the 2955?

[Virgil]

As we don't have the louvered vents in ours either, we place a book or large magazine over the rear vent where the chairs are. I am a little disappointed that Keystone doesn't put louvered vents in there heating system. Anyway, the book forces more air forward in the trailer and we have been toasty up there since we did that. I am planning to replace the vents at some point but we are done camping for this year.

[sreigle]

Our 2001 2880RL had a register right in the water closet. Sure wish our 3295RK had that. We leave the door open a little to get a little heat in there for those middle of the night trips. Otherwise it's downright frigid in there in freezing weather.

[VanMan]

Here's a link to some vent covers and floor registers. I've never checked to see what we may need.

http://www.dwincorp.com/index.php

[nutts]

you should be carefull about closing down to many of your furnaces vents. the furnace people told me that that furnace needs a certain amount of airflow, if you cut it down to much it will have a tendency to over heat the unit and cause damage.

[Montana_657]

Hey Bob.. hope you had some help from the park in setting up. They should be the experts. Heat tape hose insullation etc.

I presume you nhave made arrangements for 100 pound propane tanks or larger. I suspect where you are about 7 days on a hundred in January.

I also hope someone told you to keep the tank valves shut untill you have a load to dump. If you leave the valve open there is just enough water trickleing down the pipe to freeze it solid.

I also hope you have some method of monitoring tank temperature. The key to keeping the tanks free of ice is the furnace. If your running on propane your OK. If you add a large amount of electric or other space heat and don't use your furnace, no heat gets to the tanks... then you get frost problems real quick.

Other folks have already mentioned skirting. I presume you know the floors of your slides are not insulated??? If you peak under the carpet, you find foam underlay,foil bubble wrap the wood wrapped in a black plastic material. Extending the skirt under the slides would be real helpful.

Best of luck... keep us posted as to how you make out.

[sreigle]

There are a wealth of good suggestions in this thread. Wanted to add to Gruffy's comments that most parks will loan you the 100lb bottle for the price of the propane. We are hooked up to one right now and have another sitting next to it, ready to connect to when the first one runs out. When we get into subfreezing weather those 30 pounders don't last very long at all. So the 100 pounders are very welcome.

[Virgil]

In response to Nutts:

Good point! I usually dont cover the back register completely but I do believe there is sufficient airflow through the remainder registers even if it did get closed off IMHO. Another way to better distrubute heat is to use the ceiling fan to bring warm air down to the living area. That makes a big difference.

One easy way to check back pressure might be to take a pocket thermometer and put into center register with all the registers open. Repeat the process with a register partially closed and check temp again. If there is much difference, that might indicate too little air flow.

[Bowie]

Thanks for all the good words in this thread. We're not winter camping this year--but it's definitely in the plans so you all are helping us get prepared.

[Montana_1892]

we did the diffuser thing in the main living area, trying to get more air up to the bedroom area. borrowed an air flow hood from work, and saw litterly no change in air flow to the bedroom area. did some checking and found that the 2inch hot air line that goes to the basement area had fallen off, repaired this with a better quality hose clamp designed for automotive use. hot air had been short cycling right back into the furnace, just one more idea to check

[Jim B]

I have a 2955RL and I do not have a heater vent in where the john is. However the bed room stays nice an warm since heat rise,so I leave my heater vents alone.