Storage below the snow belt

[BartonT]

New to RVing. Previously a sailboat cruiser. I have bought a 36' ClassA. We have camped within a 3 hour radius of home (Ottawa, Canada) this summer and I am getting fairly comfortable with driving my motorhome. My plan/hope is to go south for the month of February BUT, I'm not comfortable with the idea of driving in winter from Ottawa to a warmer climate. I am thinking that maybe it would be better to drive south at the end of October and store the motorhome somewhere where the weather would be above freezing in February. Then, in Feb pick it up, travel to warmer areas, return it at the end of February and bring it back home in May. Not sure just how far south to look for storage. I'd appreciate any comments, suggestions, recommendations from anyone one with more experience than myself (I.e. Everyone lol). Thanks.

[obgraham]

BartonT, as an ex-Canuck, we all know driving in snow is not impossible if you have to. But we RVer's are usually on a flexible schedule. I drove my Class A south several winters in a row without incident, just was ready to delay if the roads were bad. I was only caught in the snow once, in mountainous Utah -- I didn't like it, but the rig was heavy and ran just fine.

Most all the Interstates and major Canadian routes are bare surface within a day or two after a snowfall. It's not that far down to say, mid-Indiana where bad weather is the exception. I didn;t even try to de-winterize until I was in a warmer area.

That said, I also stored my rig 6 months in Raleigh NC and flew back and forth to continue our trip. That worked okay, but I wanted indoor storage and that was not cheap.

[BartonT]

BTW, thank you all for your comments. They are all very helpful. I guess I have a month or two to decide what to do. I fully expect to winterized the RV no matter where it is stored my main concern is driving on winter roads.

[BartonT]

Joebedford, how do you find winter driving with your RV? Is it similar to driving a car or truck? I'm concerned that a 36' bus might be difficult to handle with cross winds on snowy or cold roads.

[joebedford]

We've driven south from Ottawa numerous times in the winter. The key is to pick your window. Winter storms last two or three days then it's usually clear. We'll wait for bad weather to clear before hitting the road or even if we are already on the road and the weather is bad, we stay put.

[Community Alumni]

I've stored both our motorhome and our current TT in Myrtle Beach at Coast RV for 2-3 months at a time while we traveled back to Montreal. Never had an issue.

We still winterized because there are times when the temps get into the 20's F for the odd night.

[John_Joey]

That's a tall order. To avoid freezing in Jan/Feb you'll have to store the RV south of I10. Even then I would drain all the water out of the house part, and if compressed air is handy blow the lines.

If you're OK with a fair shake at winterizing the rig, then south of I20 would work for you. If you want to gamble on driving in a snow storm that time of year, then south of I40.

[almcc]

Not sure this is a great help but we head south in early November from Ontario and we are able to get down south without winterizing the RV. Our first location that we consider "warm" is at the KOA in Bowling Green Ky, it's open all year and you may want to check temps over the winter there.