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Jetstream's avatar
Jetstream
Explorer
Apr 29, 2014

Openrange Travel Trailer/Winter Camping

Hello All,

Well, we're back in the RV business! Going to be somewhat full timing-spending about half of the month in the trailer for work, staying around the St. Louis area. This will include the winter months. Just curious if Openrange owners can comment on true 4 season capability. Probably going for the Lite, but may go with the Roamer, both 308BHS models. Looking for success/failure with winter camping. If you have modifications or suggestions to make it a successful/fun experience, I would appreciate it. We have always found this forum to be great for info and have tried to contribute where we can when we can help too:)

Thanks for all info!
  • What you need is electric heat pads on the tanks. Just having them wrapped with insulation and being heated means you'll have to run the furnace to heat them. That's fine for short term, but long term it would be expensive and noisy.

    I wouldn't worry about a local dealer with an Arctic Fox. Northwood will let you have any warranty repairs done at any approved RV repair shop. I had one warranty repair done and they sent me to a local RV repair shop about 4-5 miles from my house. My dealer is 300 miles away.
  • Lantley wrote:
    While my OR has a decent amount of insulation, I do not consider it a true 4 season unit regardless of the marketing hype. Using space heaters the unit does pretty well down into the 20's nevertheless. It is not as well insulated as Artic Fox, Excel,DRV and others.
    Or has just introduced the 3x' line which is claimed to be a true 4 season unit

    I saw the new 3X line on their website. I hope Open Range offers these in a smaller trailer someday (specifically the RT288FLR). While I would consider an Arctic Fox trailer, it is out of the question since there are no dealers anywhere near South Texas. I'd rather have a dealer that is somewhat local, and the OR dealer is only 75 miles away.

    I will be watching this thread with great interest...
  • While my OR has a decent amount of insulation, I do not consider it a true 4 season unit regardless of the marketing hype. Using space heaters the unit does pretty well down into the 20's nevertheless. It is not as well insulated as Artic Fox, Excel,DRV and others.
    Or has just introduced the 3x' line which is claimed to be a true 4 season unit
  • Jetstream wrote:
    Hello All,

    Well, we're back in the RV business! Going to be somewhat full timing-spending about half of the month in the trailer for work, staying around the St. Louis area. This will include the winter months. Just curious if Openrange owners can comment on true 4 season capability. Probably going for the Lite, but may go with the Roamer, both 308BHS models. Looking for success/failure with winter camping. If you have modifications or suggestions to make it a successful/fun experience, I would appreciate it. We have always found this forum to be great for info and have tried to contribute where we can when we can help too:)

    Thanks for all info!


    I just inked an order for a 2015 OR JT337RLS which includes the mandatory option of the "Four Seasons Package" What this generally entails is an enclosed underbelly with a heat duct ported into the area. It also generally includes additional insulation though most of them state that it is a calculated R value. This is a result of using the foiltex material over the insulation underneath. Scroll down for details on OR items in the package. Even though it says "four seasons" you might want to see what the average temps are for the St. Louis area in the winter.

    I have had Keystone/Jayco with the cold weather packages and the winter season had better be in the south unless you do lots of mods to keep everything from freezing. It can be done but I personally am not interested in doing any of this. The only unit that I would even consider to be a "four seasons" unit is an Excel. I believe they are guaranteed to a minus 10 degree temp. Not cheap and very heavy also.