Late Fall boondocking?

Welcome to the forum and your plan is doable, but it is going to take some work and a bunch of $$$$$$$. If your plan is to do this for work, in the general area where you are going to camp, great. If your plan is to do this and cut your costs down and save some $$$, that is a mistake. I have lived in park service trailers that were prepped for subzero weather and we still needed to take steps for long durations of cold. All parts of Utah will have those type of nights. Like many parts of the west, things will warm up in the daytime, but once the long nights come, it will be cold and for the size of a Toy Hauler, well, I see a number of problems. 1. Two small of propane for that much of square footage and high ceilings. 2. Type 27 batteries will get hammered by the furnace and other uses. 3. Water usesage and “Bail Plan” for those unexpected nights of drastic temperature drops. What are your plans, do you have a compressor? Do you have enough knowledge and familiarity of your TH to know before it is too late to pull the plug?

What puzzles me is you shared you have 20 years of experience in doing this and just the school of hard knocks should provide you a good start already. You mentioned you have put insulation on the pipes. That is good to a point, if you have warm water or heat running through them. Think of how a thermos bottle works. If you have something cold inside it, the thermos keeps it cold, Warm it keeps it warm. So the insulation can actually work against you.

I don’t recommend you follow the advice shared above in turning down the temps for cold weather. This is good advice if you have your water system blown out. If you have your system still charged, this is wrong advice. At night you should actually turn the heat up. This keeps the cold creep out of your trailer. Think of an onion. As the cold gets colder outside, the rings where the heater is can only struggle to stay warm and the outer rings get invaded by the cold, layer by layer.

Winter time it is important to be aware of humidity. If you stop breathing, you are not putting moisture in the air, as other things are too. :B Pets, propane heaters, showers, cooking. When you can, shower early in the day, on a sunny day. Get the towels and anything wet, outside to dry. Same for cold and wet clothes. Get them out of the TH. Cook early in the day, as it also heats the TH up in the morning too. Move all clothes, bedding and organic matter out of cabinets and away from the walls. Stuff bags makes it easy to do this. Weekenders are not going to see this, as they allow the camper to dry out between trips. If you plan on staying in yours, you will see this. Whenever you can, open up the windows and vents on Sunny days. Get some air coming and going.

Yes, solar is great! Love it. But, you need a plan and you already said your budget is small. Bummer. Spend the money for some better batteries and an auxiliary battery charger. Learn more about charging batteries effectively and follow a regime. It can be done, I did it.

Good luck and there is a lot of really good information and people here. Just be sure to weigh the information of whether it is from someone with experience in what you are doing, or planning to do.

Again, welcome to the forum.

b

We're in about the same boat as Dan. Except we have a truck camper without the 4-season package. I know, not a bumper-pull, but the plumbing is similar if not as extensive. When it starts getting cold (say, 15 deg. F.), we pull the plug on the fresh water system entirely. Blown dry before getting into cold country. This means no showers until we get to a warmer place; drinking/cooking water stored in the camper in H.D. 1-gal. plastic jugs (variously 10-20 gals.) and use straight minus 50 deg. F RV anti freeze poured straight down the commode to flush the toile. This works until we get to about 5 deg. F, and then all bets are off, we throw in the towel and traipse to warmer climes. We have thick down comforters and, yes, "who is going to get up and get the hot water for coffee going?" If it's not too cold, the hot coffee water helps warm the cabin. It's gotten down below freezing in the box over night a couple times, but that's not my idea of a good time. You sure don't dawdle. We run the heater sporadically in the evening if it's cold, but not enough to need to recharge batts as we're usually on the road the next day. (looking for a warmer place). If we know it's going to be cold for an extended period, we always bring the Honda ie2K generator and run it for a couple hours every other day. We use a big separate lamp with 8-D cells for evening light for game playing and have very little draw on the system. The only time this ever failed me is when I left the fridge on DC after a long drive across the desert. It took my 3 batteries only 5 hours to go flat. I'll never do anything that dumb again. I have done some aftermarket insulationing with minimal results.
regards, as always, jefe

One big energy saver is to go easy on the heater. We boondock a lot in semi-cold weather (around 20 degrees -- rarely lower) and we rarely run the heater, except during shower time. At night it can get down into the 30s inside the trailer -- it is very well insulated, but not like an Arctic Fox or a Nash. The secret is a down comforter -- the colder it is inside the trailer, the better we sleep.

We keep some warm clothing with us, under the comforter, so that we can put on a warm layer in the morning before crawling out of bed.

In the evening, even though it is quite chilly in the trailer, we wear warm ski hats and warm clothes. My wife has discovered that a hot water bottle (easily purchased at a drug store) is a great source of warmth -- she sits with a blanket on her lap and a hot water bottle under the blanket. Down booties complete her lovely ensemble.

Is this extreme? Yes. But we use almost no electricity to power the heater. (The propane is no problem - but the furnace fan uses a lot of juice.) And yes, an Olympic heater or other catalytic heater will do the job -- but I am worried (probably needlessly) about carbon monoxide, so we bundle up instead.

Where in Utah do you live? Much of the state is Boondocking Heaven. Let us know, and we can make a lot of recommendations about good areas for camping. You probably already know them!

I have the sleeping bag for cold weather but I was hoping to be a little more comfortable then my heavy sleeping bag and Big Buddy heater just to take the frost of my pants before I put them on. I guess I'm hoping to be able to get up in the morning and take care of business without first getting dressed up like an Eskimo, not sure its practical but I would hope I can have more with the trailer then my tent camp.

Not sure I can work solar into the budget this year but I will start studying up on it and have a plan for next spring.

I have covered the important pipes under the trailer with pipe insulation.

Thanks for all the info so far.

From what I have read so far....the posters before said solar and that's a fact.

I see that you have a pretty exposed system tho. I have no idea how much effort would be involved, but any way you could wrap the pipes with some of that insulated foam piping from Home Depot/Lowes. That's what's gonna kill ya. The tanks will be fine to about maybe 25, but the pipes...that's your weak spot. That and the pipe connections. There is a heat tape, but then you have to use power to keep them working.

The fan motor on your furnace is a real power pig. Keeping the rig at 60 all night long, while you guys are sleeping, is not needed. You might be ahead of the game to get some good warm bedding and then flip a coin to see who gets up to make the first coffee. And your inside pipes won't freeze up and bust.

And just a hint...even if you were to wake up one morning with no juice..open the oven door and light'r up.

Gary Haupt

agesilaus wrote:
I'd keep an eye on the long range forecasts. Last I saw they were predicting an early, very cold, and snowy winter except for the west coast. There have been lots of record low temps this summer so far.

Utah may end up in the west coast warm region tho. The predicted El Nino has been a non starter, maybe a weak one in the spring of '15.

I never know what the weather will be like up there, 2 years ago I thought we were going to have to build an Arc and float home due to the rain. Last year we got 8 inches of snow the third night which melted off in 2 days then dumped another 10 inches 3 day before we packed up. I will have enough steel to chain up all four tires in case I have to drag the trailer off the hill and when all else fails the quad might get me out.

I'd keep an eye on the long range forecasts. Last I saw they were predicting an early, very cold, and snowy winter except for the west coast. There have been lots of record low temps this summer so far.

Utah may end up in the west coast warm region tho. The predicted El Nino has been a non starter, maybe a weak one in the spring of '15.

Your inverter should be ok. Probably have to run generator for a few hours.

I charge the batteries with a 400 watt solar system and keep warm with a Olympic Catalytic Safety heater.

SunElec.com

Call and ask about 12 volt panels, and try to get some in the 100 - 150 watt range.

Home Depot sells 2" angle aluminum, and cut into 6" lengths, and drill 3 each 3/16" holes for #10 screws into the roof, and 5/16" hole for a 1/4-20 bolt to the solar panel frame.

Your trailer will use 35 amp hours per day to run the CO meter, propane detector, and refrigerator. That is about what one of my 120 watt panels will put out in 24 hours.

Usually if you are running a generator, then plug in the RV and it will charge at about 45 amps for a few minutes. IT will slowly go down in amperage as time goes by. It would take several hours to fully charge a battery, so that is why solar makes so much more sense. You can use the generator to get the battery from 50% full to 75% full, then use the solar to top it off.

Fred.