Very Cold Weather Tips
01-05-2016
Author: Blog Editor in JeepandRV
Sorry that it has been a while since I wrote, need to get caught up after the busy Nov and Dec we had. I thought I would start with our current location which is Truckee,CA and write about some of the tips I wish I knew before we came. I knew before we drove up from Colusa that it was going to be cold and snowy, we planned it this way as we both wanted to ski and this was on our route. What I was not expecting is for the temperatures to dip into the negative digits, not the wind chill but the actual temp. When we were researching RV's to buy I had a list of deal breakers, being able to handle extreme temperatures was one of them. The Travel Supreme Select was built with the "artic" package which means that it has a great "R" value, dual pane windows, basement heater, and a redundant heating system by using either electric or diesel through the hydro hot system. We also picked up a really cool fireplace space heater at Costco this year that has done an amazing job of keeping the living room/bathroom area warm by itself during the day.
Some of the mistakes we made were we used a diesel fuel treatment back in Montana but forgot to repeat before we came up, mistake #1. This mistake led us to calling Coachnet after we drained the batteries trying to cold crank the RV after it sat a week in temps that never got over 25 degrees. In addition we were not aware that we should flip the switch for the Engine Heater that is located next to our electric heat switch in our control panel. It turns out that we should have turned that on at least 24 hours before we planned to leave to allow the fluids to be warmed up. We did not pick up enough salt, mistake #2, so that after the snow turned to ice we were left slipping and sliding every time our pups needed to go outside (our Yorkies bladder shrunk with the cold so that meant every two hours). We did not adjust our basement heater when the temp hit single digits, mistake #3, which lead to our basement pipes freezing. Lucky for us we caught it quickly and were able to turn up the heater to keep them from bursting. We did have to go without running water for about 12 hours. On the bright side we did have a heated hose that we picked up at Camping World, unfortunately it quit working the second night. Some advice I would like to share is make sure to fill up your water tank and dump everything before coming up the mountain. It is not fun to hook up everything when you first get to the campground and if you are only staying a few days you won't have to hook up anything except your electric. We have filled up and dumped the grey every 4-5 days but don't stay hooked up as the cold would make the plastic to brittle and who wants to deal with frozen poop.
I am not writing this to discourage you from trying out snow camping, I actually encourage it. What is better than visiting snow from the comfort of your home then heading back down to warmer temps? In addition while the campgrounds were not empty they still were much more private than the summer and the prices were much better for our wallet. A night of fhu with 50 amp was $35, a two room cabin in the same area started at $250 a night. This is why we went on the road, to see more of America and enjoy everything she has to offer.
During the week we were able to ski Squaw Valley with 100% of the mountain open on the last day, we were able to relax in our rig watching football with the snow gently falling outside. We were able to play and have snowball fights. There is something special about snuggling with the man you love when it is cold outside but not inside.
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