Day to day maintenance

You will probably get told to search, so definitely do that. I will share some basics, though.

If you let is sit for a month or more, you will need to charge the batteries. If you get trickle chargers for the main and chassis batteries, you can plug whenever it's parked and ignore. Check your battery water monthly, though.

Check tire pressure every time you are going to use it (very important for tire life) and make sure you know how to put on chains.

If you don't NEED your water running, then winterize your pipes and leave the water off. If your lines freeze, they can burst or fittings can bulge and leak. Water leaks are the bane of RV ownership! You can always take along a couple gallon jugs of water for toilet flushing.

If you will have shore power, take along electric heaters and cooking gear (hot water pot, coffee maker). If you will run on generator power, then be sure you have enough fuel. Mine pulls from my main tank and the suction hose runs dry at 1/4 tank.

That's a few good starter things to think about.

Jose

I don't think you will have lots of additional maintenance using it that often but will need to take steps to prevent plumbing from freezing between trips. Winterizing and un-winterizing that often would be a pain.

I'd suggest parking it where you can keep shore power plugged in. Run a electric heater on setting which keeps inside temps warm enough to prevent pipes from freezing. Set your furnace thermostat on lowest setting as fail over if space heater fails. Open cabinets to help get heat to where the plumbing is. You can shut off water heater bypass and drain water heater tank. If parked near your home, see if a remote temp sensor will transmit into home so you can monitor temp inside coach. If not, maybe look into one of those monitors that use cell/wi-fi or something to monitor temps.

If your Class C is equipped with one, exercise your generator if it isn't used often.

Thanks so much. I did a search and couldn't find specifics for this scenario
I think my main concern was addressed. When we go skiing we are gonna want the convenience of the four season camper and the water that comes with it………….. Could I some how "winterize" after every trip that is not a hassle?
Have antifreeze in holding tanks (grey black) and drain the fresh and fresh lines? Sorry if this is a ding a ling question, Ive never done this before and appreciate the advice.

Most MH's are set up ao it is easy to put RV anti-freeze to the fresh water lines. If it is not set up to do so there are kits to put one on, not hard to do.

Dusty

Check for traces of mice and rats every so often. They can make a rig completely uninhabitable if not caught and dealt with.

Run the furnace every so often to ensure that it works.

As above, the main things to address are winterizing, keeping the chassis and house batteries shipshape, running the generator (Onan has a method to fog it for storage, but it will work to run the generator every couple of weeks for 30-45 minutes under a half load (an electric heater should do the job.) Just don't let the gas sit stale too long.

I've always wanted to place a fuel petcock on the generator's line. That way, I can turn the valve off, then let the carb run dry, which means no gas in the bowl to turn into varnish, and require a new carb rebuild.

To be sure nothing freezes, I winterize when there is any possibilty of temperatures going below freezing, detwinterize and use plumbing only when using in temperatures above freezing. Can't help with the taking it skiing issue, my winter runs are in the direction of someplace warmer.

Take out anything that might freeze and burst. I take out all edibles for storage, all liquids for cold storage, don't want to welcome critters in for a feed.

Batteries need periodic charging, also helps drive train and tires to run highway speeds 30 minutes to a couple hours every month or two. Mine is out of storage, in the driveway for battery charging right now, because it got warm enpugh to do so, and had not been out since end of October. Took it for a 50 mile ride ride to warm it up, warm up and flex the tires, redistribute plasticizers that leach from tires at the rubber surface.

If you want to store freezing, you need to winterize. If you want to use plumbing, you have to dewinterize. It is only as much of a hassle as you want to make it. For some rigs and storage conditions, draining is enough. Blowing out lines with air would be more work, some people find that is more work than putting in antifreeze, but it is less work to dewinterize if you don't use antifreeze. I've tried blowing out lines on mine, it is about 3x the work of pumping in antifreeze and the experience left me no confidance that the lines were dry where they needed to be dry.

If you can't do this yourself, it definitely will be a hassle, trying to schedule dealer service for the job at each end of every trip. What you can do yourself, what maintenance you require someone to do for you, will be a big factor for how usable any type of RV is for winter trips every 1-2 weeks.

All my experience is dewinterizing, rewinterizing, in temperatures above freezing. I suspect either process is trickier with temperatures 10, 20, 40 F below freezing. Think about that, with respect to what you want to do. With most Cs or many TTs, there will be temperatures below which plumbing is not usable, even with heat on. There are motorcoaches that are used continuously in very cold weather, but they are designed for it, all plumbing in heated spaces, and those spaces heated all the time the coach is out of the garage.

I check tire pressures every time the RV starts a trip. I check tires, engine fluid levels at the start of every driving day. Really, should do that for the car too, rather than just at the start of trips.

If the rig is stored at home, I've read about some people sticking a 1500 watt Vornado space heater (an electric heater that blows -warm-, not hot air) underneath the rig to keep that section warm coupled with a 1500 watt space heater inside. There are caveats about this (such as making sure the heater underneath isn't directly on the pavement so rain doesn't hit it), but apparently some have used this with some success in lieu of winterizing.

Of course, this will come with a price on the electric bill, but I can see this being done for people who use their rig fairly often and don't want to bother winterizing/dewinterizing every time they get home.

Hi erdvm1!

Your RV use sounds just like ours. We use our RV about once a month. So it sits in storage the rest of the time. Living in north Alabama, we can use our RV all year long, but it does get below freezing here in the winter time. It was 15 degrees this morning.

This means that I drain the tank and lines every time I finish using it, and during the winter months I pour anti-freeze in all the drain traps (bathroom, kitchen, and shower) after every use.

Draining the water is trivial and all I have found necessary. My RV has four drain valves, and once they are pulled I open up all faucets in the RV to prevent a vacuum and the water all drains out. I have tried using a blow-out fitting but no additional water comes out so I no longer use it.

So winterizing for me takes about 10 minutes when I'm putting the RV away. Pull 4 drain valves, open faucets, and pour some anti-freeze in the drains. Done.

I always clean everything after each outing so otherwise the RV is ready to go.

I have installed cut-off switches on my house and engine battery to stop parasitic drains from draining the battery while in storage. So all I do is disconnect the batteries when I'm done and they are good to go when I reconnect them when I go to get the RV.

Steve

I only winterized my ROO the first season I had it. I then made the decision that I would use it almost monthly through the winter. So, winterization then became draining the water lines and maintaining a low temp heat to keep things from freezing up. That worked for 5 years until I bought the MH. I figured if it worked for the ROO it would work for the Sunseeker and three winters later, it does. I still go camping every month and am always RTG for the most part. But in between I do drain the water lines and as others have suggested use space heaters to keep things from going totally polar. I have one heater in a cargo bay which opens to the underbelly and both black and gray tanks. That heater is on a temperature trigger that is used in exposed plumbing applications to turn on around 35 degrees. I have it set to stay on no more than necessary but it keeps much of the plumbing from ever freezing. In the coach itself the space heater normally is set to come on at 40 degrees. Keeping cabinet doors open in the kitchen and bathroom makes a difference. Even though MD is not exactly the Great White North I have yet to have any issues with freeze issues and we have experienced single digit temps a lot recently. I do an almost daily inspection of the rig to ensure that the heaters and any other electrical components are working properly. I also love just hanging out in the MH to tinker or spend the night so having an ambient heat source helps as well.