Traveling Tips - Cold Weather

We have been on the road now for a little over a week.  We have, like most of you, been experiencing cold weather.  In an RV, that can make life a little more difficult.  There are a few things we do that make it cold weather living in a RV doable and quite enjoyable.  It is all part of the adventure.

We left Virginia Beach and drove south toward Florida.  The farther south we went we noticed the front heater aka as "dash heat" was not blowing warm air.  Hmmm.  We forgot that we had the reverse problem last summer in the heat when our air conditioner would not blow cool air.

When we took it in to Bay Diesel at Red Bay, they added freon and serviced the A/C.  A tech also told me about the yellow shutoff valve near the transmission back underneath the engine.  He gave it a half turn to block the flow or warm air through the hose to the front.

I forgot all that.  In the last few days, after Pam and I experienced some cold driving in the front of the coach, we stumbled upon our conversation with the tech.  I didn't remember where the shutoff valve was located exactly.  The weather has been rainy and nasty so I wasn't anxious to get down on the ground and wedge myself under there to poke around.  We waited until we were in a better spot to do anything about it.

I called Bay Diesel yesterday morning and talked to the man himself.  Nice to talk to Chris.  He explained where the engine heater shutoff valve was:  near the bell housing and chassis frame.

Since I did not know what bell housing was, I looked it up on Google and figured out what it looked like.

It was freezing cold outside at our campground in Houston, but we were on a dry concrete pad and I figured it was as good a time as any to see what I could do.

l bundled up with gloves and work jacket and got a moving blanket to lay on.  I didn't know how long I was going to be on the ground but it doesn't take long to get cold laying on cold concrete.   I also put my headlamp to good use.  I have recently started using it more to free up my hands.

I wanted to see if I could squeeze under the coach since it was leveled and sitting pretty low to the ground.  I was able to wiggle my way under the tight space.  I looked up and around and just tried to get my bearings.  I looked where the hoses were and were they were leading.  It wasn't too long before I found the yellow shutoff valve.

I was able to get one arm raised and turn the valve where it was in line with the hose.

Then I crawled out from under the coach, picked up and put away my things.

I was surprised:  I turned a simple 5 minute job into a simple 5 minute job!
I thought:  I am winning at life!!  Yes!!!! :)
I only got excited because I have learned that things that seem simple often times aren't simple and if they are simple, I know I often have a way making things harder than they need to be...

So there it is - how to open the valve and get hot air blowing into the front dash heater.  We verified it worked and were a lot warmer on the drive to Cowtown RV Park in Aledo, TX, where we are camped for a few days.

While we are at it, I thought I'd note our own version of winterizing.  Since we live in the Roadrunner 24/7 even in cold weather at times, here are some of the things we do to make our home warmer.

Pam devised a curtain hanging system with a standard rod that is held in place with 3 self adhesive plastic Command-brand plastic hooks.  Kelly gave her a two curtains that she no longer needed and it fits in place and keeps the cold from the window and door at bay.

I got a Snuggy years ago and keep it over my leather recliner in cold weather.  Instead of cold leather, I sit on a warm blanket.

If you look real close, you can see a small blue comforter that I also drape over me.  Just like at everyone else's house, we use throws/afghan/comforters when we read or watch TV.

Last fall we got new carpet installed at MSRV in Golden/Red Bay.  Daniel did a great job with the install and put a binding on a couple of pieces of extra carpet.  I paid him extra to put binding on two long pieces I keep rolled up in the basement.  During cold weather we keep them unrolled and minimize the exposure of those cold ceramic tiles.

 Heaters.  We have a large electric space heater for the front area

In the back near the shower/bathroom, we have a smaller ceramic heater.  We turn them both off at night and pile on the blankets if necessary.

The DS bedroom slide has some drafts around the rubber seal from the outside.  Pam puts some rags and towels in strategic places to cover the holes.  Most of the time we don't even notice it and its no big deal, but in the cold weather when it is windy we can tell where the drafts are coming from.  This simple fix takes care of it.

Those are some of the things we do to keep warm in cold weather.  I left out the best way to stay warm -- stay in places that are 80 degrees and above!

Thanks for joining us today on the Roadrunner Chronicles!  We hope you are well and warm!

Roadrunner in 7 Degrees!

The temperature outside said 19 degrees but 'feels like 7 degrees'.  Which meant it was cold outside.  We had been preparing for it for a couple of days and now after a couple of nights of cold weather -- so far so good.

We have a lot to learn in winter camping in the Roadrunner but I thought I'd tell you a number of things we have done:
Heaters:
First of all, we made sure we had a couple of good electric ceramic heaters.  We already had a small one from Walmart.  Believe it sells for about $16.

We weren't too sure about our larger oscillating one we use up front, so we replaced it with one from Costco

This one is listed at $60.

Plug the holes:

Next, we spent time fill up every nook and cranny where air could come into the Roadrunner.  Pam stuffed some 8" foam insulation.  She cut off lengths of it and then folded it under the seam where the slide outs overlaid onto the floor.  

There is a thin strip folded under the PS slideout area beneath the sofa.

On the DS bedroom slideout, we put a $2.97 pillow and some towels down to fill up some gaps to the outside.

 And some more strips of the 8" foam along the lip of the PS slideout.

 Finally, underneath the bed on the DS nearest the closet, there is a area that can collect some cold air from the outside, so more towels went there.

Cover the windows:

Another project she took on was to get a couple of curtains and hang them over the front door and the Passenger Side (PS) window and console near the front door.

Pam found a small curtain rod and then engineered a way hang it up so she could thread a pair of drapes over the windows and door.  We pull down both the day/night and blackout shade, then pull out the curtain.  We used to do a variation of that in our sticks and bricks home years ago.

In the bathroom, I cut a couple of pieces of leftover from the water heater blanket and taped them over the bathroom windows.  It looks pretty bad from the outside, but works well on the inside.

Pam wanted to make curtains for the bathroom so she took down the blinds we had there.  New look and warmer!
Insulate and heat the wet bay:
I put a lot of effort into making it as warm as I could in the wet bay.  I got an 8" roll

Get commercial heated hose:

The water pipes were frozen when we arrived a couple of weeks ago. I don't know how much difference it made to wrap the handle and top of the faucet in fiberglass insulation, but so far so good.

The real difference is probably the commercial heated hose that we have hooked up and plugged in.

One of life's joys in the midst of cold weather is turning the faucet on in the morning and see the water come out in the kitchen sink.  

If it freezes, we have a back up with a two gallon jug of water on standby just in case.

Consider pulling in the Slides:

The main reason I pulled in the slides was to protect the new toppers over the slideouts.  We just had new toppers put on and I know ice and snow tends to take their toll on them.  

We were expecting 8"-12" so I knew I'd probably have to get up on top of the Roadrunner and get all the snow off.  Pulling in the slides meant I wouldn't have to do that. 

The other reason we thought it was a good idea was we thought it would be warmer inside with less space to heat.  We kept it closed up for a couple of days.  It was cozy but not a big deal.

Put away the sewer hose:

I like to put away my hose when it is freezing outside.  It might crack or I might step on it and then I'll have to repair it or get another one.  Also by capping off the sewer connection in the wet bay, we have one less exposed hole/pipe into the RV.  If the tanks fill up, you dig out the sewer hole and hook up the hose, empty and then put it all back.  Takes 10 minutes.

Go easy on the gas heat:

Some installed an adapter to their propane gas tank so they can connect portable propane tank to their RV.  We've chosen not to do that so far.  But that means we have to keep an eye on how much we are burning with the hot water heater (for showers) and we watch the heater furnace.  If it is kicking on too much, we turn it down and rely on our electric heaters.  Our experience has been the coach heat pump is pretty worthless in cold weather.

One thing just started doing is leaving the portable ceramic heater turned on at night so the gas heater doesn't engage.  

We know we will have to pull in the slides and drive about 2 miles over to the KOA and fill up once or twice during the winter, but that is OK.  Its not a bad idea to fire up the Roadrunner and let it run a little bit once every few weeks.

Wear more clothes:

Hate to state the obvious but I will. Winter time is when I pull out those T-Shirts that are too snug on me.  They are great as undershirts.  I usually then have a long sleeve T-Shirt over it with a fleece or sweatshirt over that.  

Put a Snuggie on the Lazy Boy:

Makes a big difference to me when I sit down in the leather Lazy Boy.  I hate to sit on a cold chair and this really works.  I also manage to put a throw blanket on if I need it.

Pam usually has an afghan/blanket on her legs most of the time and she especially does during cold weather!

Flannel sheets and an extra blanket on the bed:

This shows the flannel sheets with a blanket, bedspread, another blanket and a blue throw afghan on top.  Layers work, especially with the flannel sheets!

Heat engine switch:

If you have one of those switches on your Driver Side console, you might want to keep it turned on during the really cold weather - even if you are not planning on going anywhere any time soon.

Ours is turned on and is the second one from the left on the top row of the console.

There are probably some other things we could do to make it warmer inside the Roadrunner, like add more rugs or get carpet for the main area.  And that cold ceramic floor in the morning IS cold!  But we don't intend to spend winter in the cold too often, so we'll probably not do that.

There is a look at some of the things we do to keep warm in cold weather.  It is all part of the adventure.  You probably have some other tips - so please share them!

Thanks for taking a look today and joining us on the Roadrunner Chronicles!

Chillin in Virginia Beach

This week marks our tenth week in Virginia Beach.  Its been a mix of different kinds of weather and we have learned that we are not such pansies after all.  We have toughened up some and can do this.

Yesterday my early morning job was to dump the tanks.  I had stowed the sewer hose but could not find the hole in the ground until I poked around and dug it out.

The day before, I had to carefully get up on top of the Roadrunner and remove the snow.  Its not good to have the snow on top settle over the slide outs and freeze on top of the toppers.

I have removed 5" or more of snow from the top of the Roadrunner twice now.  The first time I used my long car ice scraper and 1/2 of a broom.

The snow was wet and I spent most of my 3 hours up there on my hands and knew slowly pushing the snow off the top.  The toppers were a little more of a challenge, but I slowly go the job done.

Two days ago when I tried to get on top it was just too slippery and the snow wasn't moving.  So I got down and gave it another try later in the day.

Much better.  This time I delicately and slowly used our plastic snow shovel. It took a while as I went very slowly.  The next few days are going to be warmer.  Today we have a high forecast for 33 degrees and a low of 26.  But it fluctuates the next 10 days before we are through with the cold winter weather.

Meanwhile, we have been spending some time at Kelly and Jon's with Brooks.

Thanks for joining us today on the Roadrunner Chronicles!

Lessons Learned - Frozen Pipes etc

I am guessing it is or has cold where you are if you are in the upper half of the country.
And it has been cold here too in Virginia Beach.  Here's my account going back and forth between thinking about things and what I did in our most recent episode.

Since we are here, I want to learn how to do this cold-weather-camping smartly.  I want to learn to adapt and live in the cold weather if we have to.  We will be here for at least a couple more months through the coldest part of the winter.

Here is what I am learning about living in our motorhome in freezing weather.
- First thing we want to do is get our mind right.  Think through it for a minute.
-- It helps to have a good attitude.  Complaining, whining and all that doesn't help things.
-- I need to remember, this is camping.  Camping is inconvenient at times.
-- The rewards outweigh the hassles.  (It does for us and just adds to the adventure...if that's the right word to use.)

- I take the position that we have a lot to learn and I will probably make some mistakes.  Despite our best efforts, some things may not work.
- Even I try to do the right thing, I may not quite get it right.

My mistake(s) from a few weeks ago?

I have two mechanic lights in the wet bay, but when I pulled out the tray with the ladder in it. In the process the electrical extension cord came loose.  It was plugged into my inverter outlet in the front bay and threaded through stuff to the wet bay.  But I did not think to go back to the wet bay and ensure that both lights were on.  When I looked at things after it became evident that things were frozen, I saw my mistake.  My extension cord was unplugged.

Other things I try to tell myself:
-When I think of something else that can be done - do it ASAP
Pam suggested I take one of our small ceramic heaters and put it in the wet bay.  I did that in the darkness of the morning shortly about 6 AM.  The sooner I get heat blasting onto the water pump, the plastic pipes and the area, the better.
-Since I inadvertently disconnected the extension cord that was threaded underneath through the bays I found another solution.
I decided to use the 30 amp circuit on the pedestal for the extension cord.

I needed a 110 adapter and then made sure the heater and lights in the wet bay were on.

- We also looked at the water pipe and faucet coming out of the ground and with the help of the Camp Host, we wrapped it up with a heated cover, plus a blanket, along with a small tarp.

That seemed to work pretty good.
- I picked up some home building blue insulation a few weeks back and decided to try to tape it around the wet bay pan.

It is not pretty, but seems to do the job.

One thing I find useful is thinking through things and taking it to the logical conclusion.  I ask myself, 'What's the worst that could happen?"  Frozen pipes.  Frozen tank.  Repairs.  $$$.

- Not sure what we'd do with frozen pipes but that can be fixed.  We'd figure it out.  We'd find out where the leaks are and see if we could replace them ourself.  If not, we'd find a motorhome repair shop and take in.
- Same thing with a cracked or broken water tank.
- Or a cracked shut off valve from the clear water tank.

Yikes!  That is exactly what we ended up with -- A cracked shutoff valve.

Once I determined we had no water coming from the hose, we traced the issue back to a frozen pipe near the reel.  I thought some how it would help things to get water flowing through the clear water tank think some of it might flow into the pipes and maybe melt some of the ice.  So I tried to drain the clear water tank a bit.  Instead, though I thought I was turning it very easy, I somehow managed to break/crack it.

When I put the knob back into the shut position it still trickled out and I knew I had a problem.  I shut it back off and used duct tape to hold it in place before it completely broke.  And it water wasn't surging out of there at the moment.

Next, I did some research on shut off valves for RVs.  After a few phone calls to Tiffin, a local dealer and visiting Home Depot, I learned I could replace the ball shutoff valve with a standard one from Home Depot.

I also learned:
- Use PVC not CPVC for the extension of pipe going from the bottom of the shutoff valve through the floor of the Wet Bay pan.
- Get PVC not CPVC glue.  The purple cleaner/prep is the same but you want to use the correct glue.
- Pay attention to the outside temperature.  It was 38 degrees when I was making my repair and the glue (the wrong CPVC kind I had, wasn't going on too well.)

But I was committed at that point and used it anyway.
- If mostly worked.  A 95% solution. I had a very very slight amount of water drops coming out.  I used 'Rescue Tape' for that and wrapped it up tightly.  No water leaks.

When it gets warmer I will probably re-do the glue and pipe extension.

For now it doesn't leak and we are in good.  We filled up the water tank again and have plenty if it gets really cold again and we need to shutoff the outside faucet.  I don't envision that happening again since we have the heated hose wrap working well and the faucet covered up.

Another series of lessons learned and no leaks.  In cold weather.

Roadrunner Camping in the Cold Weather

We are in very cold weather right now as are many of you.  Three nights ago the temperature got down to 14 degrees.  Right now in the early morning it is 23 degrees.  But the good news is that we are doing fine and are warm in the Roadrunner.

We are currently at Cedars of Lebanon State Park not far from Murfreesboro, TN.  We will be here until Sunday morning and go to Maynardville, TN for Thanksgiving.

But back to how we have handled the cold cold weather and some things we have done to get ready for it.  The issue is freezing weather.  We need to be prepared when it gets below 32 degrees.

Attitude
First thing we did we face the fact we are not going to be in Florida during the winter and get used to it.  We adjusted our mind and accepted it.  And we don't complain about the cold weather.  No one likes whiners and 200 million Americans are in very cold weather right now.  And so are we.

Heaters
One thing we did was to re-evalutate our heaters in the motor home:

• Gas/propane furnace heater.  We made sure we filled up the propane tank last week at the Holiday Trav-L-Park campground outside of Chattanooga.  
  
• Electric ceramic heaters.  We have two space ceramic heaters and put them is use during the day.  We have to monitor things so we don't have them both turned on plus the micro wave etc. We don't want to pop a circuit breaker.
• Space heater.  Not sure what to call this but it also is electric, just not a ceramic heater.
  

We felt we needed to get this Soleil heater heater at Lowe's.  We set  it a certain degree temperature during the night and have some confidence it would go on and off properly.

Water
A major concern is freezing water and broken water lines.  Its not something we want to deal with. To make sure that didn't happen we:

• Filled our water tank to 80+ percent.  The more water in the tank makes it easier to keep it from freezing.
• Reeled in the water hoses and drained the water.  We just keep the water pump turned on.  (Note:  if you are an earlier rise, you may want to fill the coffee pot the night before so you don't wake anyone up.)

• When the tank gets below 50 percent wind out the hose, hook it up and refill refill the clear water tank.  We wait until the middle of the day when it warms up.  It is going to get below freezing most every night, we again empty the hose, drain it and rewind it on the reel.
• We also hooked up two mechanics lights (50 watt) and placed them in the wet bay and keep them turned on all day.  That small amount of extra heat helps keep the pipes and tank from freezing.
  

Sewer Hose

• We don't have hook ups at our site at the State Park, but even if we did, we wouldn't bring out the sewer hose and hook it up when its freezing.  We keep it stowed. We will hook it up and use it to empty the tanks in a few days when we get ready to leave this campground.

Ceiling Fans/Skylights

• We have two ceiling fans that having an outside opening in the roof:  one in the living room and one in the bathroom.  In cold weather we 'plug' the holes with tight fitting foam cushion fillers that are made especially for that purpose.

• The skylight above the shower also gets plugged up with a similar tight fitting cushion.

Clothing

• Layers layers layers.  Inside we both wear an assortment of long sleeve tee shirts, sweat shirts, fleece sweat pants, wool socks etc.  If my neck is warm, I am usually fine, so I wear mock turtle necks or zip up my light fleece jacket.
• Afghans/comforters.  Always nice to have one laying around when we read or watch TV.
• Hats/gloves.  Need to pull out the gloves and baseball cap or stocking cap. Those $1 pair of knit gloves work great so I have a few pairs to those.  A scarf is a good idea too.

Curtains/Shades

• We got the day night and black out shades mainly for the direct sunlight on the windshield.  The currents we had at the time weren't cutting it.  But these two kinds of shades deflect the hot summer sunlight.  They also serve to block some of the cold air off the glass windows in the cold weather.  After the sun goes down, we pull the shades, even though it is not completely dark outside.  It does help keep some of the warm air inside.

Snow

• I really don't want to think about that too much, but in case that happens, we will need to keep our toppers over our slide outs cleaned off so they don't sag from the weight or melt and re-freeze.
• We also want to keep the heater/air conditioner units free from any snow as much as we can.  The main thing here is getting on top of the RV and being very careful so one doesn't slip and fall or worse..

How We Have Done So Far:

So far so good.  The gas furnace heater in the front worked great the first night but stopped mid morning the day after we got here.  We left it alone for a day and tried turning it on again when it wasn't so completely cold and it has worked fine ever since then.

No freezing pipes or clear water tank.  We find ourselves adjusting a little bit with a sweat shirt or a blanket if we are sitting around watching TV but we would be doing that at our old house too, even by the fire place.

That's about how it's going at the moment and really its not bad at all.  There are thousands and thousands of people living in mobile homes and RVs in the winter time, I've just never met them.  So I don't know exactly what they do to keep warm.

But this is what we are doing.  Hope you are enjoying your weather, wherever you are and are warm!

Thanks for joining us today on the Roadrunner Chronicles!