Rookie questions about the cold
My wife and I are going to be touring Arizona and New Mexico next month. We live in Southern California and dry camp a lot in our deserts during the winter. It's not unusual for our camping temps to b...
Forum Discussion
Thanks everyone.
A couple of things I should have mentioned:
The "rookie" part only refers to camping in parks with hookups during the winter. We've been doing this for many years, but at least 80% of our camping is dry camping in the high deserts from Fall through Spring.
Next, the dog bowl is outside when it freezes. :B That's when we're boondocking in our local deserts and we let the dogs run feral during the day (as long as we're in camp and not out riding), so their water and food (empty food bowls) stay out at night.
We've camped in plenty of cold temps here in our high deserts and even had snow, but usually these are just overnight temps of 20s and daytimes in the high 30s and low 40s.
We got quite a bit of snow last March when we were in Utah, but it never seemed cold enough to worry about the pipes freezing.
Usually when we dry camp near home, we use the space heaters in the front bedroom and the garage to conserve propane and batteries. We'll be staying in parks with hookups though, so refilling the propane won't be hard and we'll have all the power we need.
We'll go ahead and run the furnace. I like the idea of leaving cupboards open to spread the warmth. I usually set the temp to 55 at night, but I'll turn it up to warm the belly.
As far as ducting goes, our furnace ducts run through the belly under the floor but above the tanks and up to the vents. The duct runs to all but the last 12' of the trailer (the garage). The fresh water and gray/black tanks are in the main belly of the coach, and then the two gas tanks are under the garage in the rear.
I'll keep a good amount of water in the fresh tanks just in case, and I always leave the gray/black valves closed until I'm ready to dump and leave.
Thanks for all of your input. Happy camping!
A couple of things I should have mentioned:
The "rookie" part only refers to camping in parks with hookups during the winter. We've been doing this for many years, but at least 80% of our camping is dry camping in the high deserts from Fall through Spring.
Next, the dog bowl is outside when it freezes. :B That's when we're boondocking in our local deserts and we let the dogs run feral during the day (as long as we're in camp and not out riding), so their water and food (empty food bowls) stay out at night.
We've camped in plenty of cold temps here in our high deserts and even had snow, but usually these are just overnight temps of 20s and daytimes in the high 30s and low 40s.
We got quite a bit of snow last March when we were in Utah, but it never seemed cold enough to worry about the pipes freezing.
Usually when we dry camp near home, we use the space heaters in the front bedroom and the garage to conserve propane and batteries. We'll be staying in parks with hookups though, so refilling the propane won't be hard and we'll have all the power we need.
We'll go ahead and run the furnace. I like the idea of leaving cupboards open to spread the warmth. I usually set the temp to 55 at night, but I'll turn it up to warm the belly.
As far as ducting goes, our furnace ducts run through the belly under the floor but above the tanks and up to the vents. The duct runs to all but the last 12' of the trailer (the garage). The fresh water and gray/black tanks are in the main belly of the coach, and then the two gas tanks are under the garage in the rear.
I'll keep a good amount of water in the fresh tanks just in case, and I always leave the gray/black valves closed until I'm ready to dump and leave.
Thanks for all of your input. Happy camping!
