Winter camping in a popup?

[ruthiebaby88]

Has anyone tried this?

These campers are so much lighter & less expensive that it's tempting - but I still want liquid water.

I saw a 2011 Palomino Bronco for sale. The tanks are under the dinette bench so I thought perhaps the heater would keep them liquid.

It has something like a 10,000 BTU heater. Salesman thinks 5g propane would last 5 days? 3 different salesmen said they thought it would be plenty warm enough for weekend trips.

Anyone with experience in hardside vs. popup - under similar truck driving conditions what sort of difference in mpg did you realize?

Other pros/cons?

[DanoT]

I have a custom Phoenix popup camper, built for the Canadian winter. Most popups offer an arctic package for the popup portion. Mine is two layers of a Thinsulate knock-off sandwiched between two layers of fabric. The hard walls are 2" thick with rigid styro insulation

I carry water in 2.5 gallon collapsible jugs and I use RV antifreeze instead of water in the porta-poti.

I heat up water on the stove and use a "Hot Juggz" primitive shower which is a 2 gallon pump-up plant sprayer with a low flow shower nozzle and pressure release valve. I can shower with less than 2 gallons of water!

I have a 18k btu furnace and a 2000watt Honda generator so I can turn the furnace off while charging the 2 AGM batteries and also run a 1000watt heater or a heat gun if needed. I almost never need to use my electric mattress warmer.

I have 2 20lb propane tanks.

I have been able to maintain 65F inside when it is 0F outside.

Ready, set, let's go skiing!

[homefor2]

Some people winter camp with a ground sheet, sleeping bag and a tarp for cover. Others won't leave home unless it's in a 45 ft motorhome with 4 slides and satellite TV. Many of us are in between. The older you get the closer to the 45ft motorhome you get. I'm done with being uncomfortable. Your mileage may vary.

[hedgehopper]

Our previous camper was a Phoenix popup. Now we have a Northern Lite 10-2 hardside. The 10-2 is called a four-season camper. But the Phoenix was easier to care for year round. When we returned from a trip, we drained the fresh-water tank. That's all. There was no gray or black tank and no basement.

In freezing weather, we winterize the Northern Lite when it's not in use. This means putting antifreeze in the tanks and lines, draining the hot-water system, outside and inside showers, etc. If we want to use the camper and don't want to de-winterize, we do without fresh water and drain tanks. So far we have not done that.

With the Phoenix, when we traveled in the winter, we filled the fresh-water tank, which was under the sink. On one such trip, the overnight temperature dropped into single digits. Because we had shore power, we used our portable electric heater, not the propane furnace. Nothing inside froze. The five-gallon bucket that stood outside to catch the gray water froze but that was no problem.

What about mpg? With our Phoenix on a 6-cylinder, stick, std cab, longbed Tundra, our best was 18 mpg (on gas), keeping at 65 mph or less. With our Northern Lite on a Dodge Cummins diesel dually automatic, our best mpg was 15.5, driving 55 mph on the interstates. Of course, the two outfits are not comparable. And diesel fuel is a lot more expensive than gasoline.

Other considerations: The Tundra/Phoenix had ideal weight distribution and handled beautifully. The Dodge/NL, not so much.
Climbing into and out of bed in the NL is much easier than with the Phoenix. Also, in the Phoenix, condensation was a problem in cold weather. So far, in the NL, condensation has not been a problem. But we have not camped in very cold weather.

Would we want to go back to the popup? No, but it was fine for us until recently. We are ten years older now than when we got the Phoenix.

[Deb_and_Ed_M]

My Palomino Bronco will be 20 yrs old next yr. Considering it had several years of sheer neglect, I think it's in pretty good shape. The fridge doesn't work.

[bcbouy]

my sunlite is not as good as a palomino and its 25 years old.its all about maintenance.

[ruthiebaby88]

In my area I only see Palominos for sale. How long do those guys last? I've heard they are bottom of the line.

[ruthiebaby88]

Wow, sounds like the Outfitter was made for staying out there!

[dadwolf2]

wintersun wrote:
Remember that the cubic feet of air that needs to be heated is extremely small so a high output heater is not needed. A 5 gallon tank of propane should have for at least 2 weeks of cooking and heating and to power the fridge.

There are two drawbacks to popups, the amount of storage space and the size of the fridge and holding tanks. If you can live with those aspects then winter camping is not going to be a problem.

When I had an Outfitter with one 20lb tank I never had an issue running out of Lp. But I did have a very tiny 7.5 cu ft (sarcasm) compressor refrigerator that didn't use propane so that helped.

I can't speak for all pop-ups and I'm not sure which brand/model being referred to is but the Outfitter Apex 8 had more storage than any hardside of comparable size I've ever seen. In fact it easily has as much, maybe more storage than my bigger hardside I have now.

The pop-up also had a 40+ water tank with 16 gallon black/grey tank. Comparable or bigger than name brand hardside campers in it's size group.

[wintersun]

Remember that the cubic feet of air that needs to be heated is extremely small so a high output heater is not needed. A 5 gallon tank of propane should have for at least 2 weeks of cooking and heating and to power the fridge.

There are two drawbacks to popups, the amount of storage space and the size of the fridge and holding tanks. If you can live with those aspects then winter camping is not going to be a problem.

Even a hard side camper is not a great winter use RV. The walls are much too thin to provide effective insulation. In weather down into the teens for several days and nights in a row our water pump inside our hard side camper will freeze up.

[bcbouy]

Bumpyroad wrote:

bcbouy wrote:
and its not too bad at night.

I always get amused when people use that term. to translate, it sucks but I survived, etc.
bumpy

if it sucked we would have only done it once.what sucks is getting the wife out of a nice warm bed to start the cofee without her complaining too much.

[Bonesquatch]

My wife and I did in our old Palmonio popup. She's from Connecticut and I'm from Wyoming so we're used to cold winters. Overall it was like sleeping in my ice fishing shack. Not horrible, but could be better. Frozen water bottles and other cold -related issues as you'd expect. Now we have a hard-side but we haven't had it out in cold conditions yet. It definitely holds a constant temperature a lot better than the popup though.

[Dave_Pete]

ruthiebaby88 we had a pop-up camper for 10 years and loved it. But now want hard sided and a few improvements over the pop-up.

That said, we winter camped in our pop-up for a 10 day trip to Alaska, and a 10 day trip back from Alaska, both in the winter!

We took water precautions (transferred 5 and 1 gallon containers from camper to truck cab) and had the fresh water system winterized. No grey water tank, just drain into outside jug that could freeze no problem and thaw later overnight. Black water was a porti-pottie with it's fresh water consisting of -40 degree windshield washer fluid. Yes the black would freeze, but thaw well enough to empty after all night with the furnace going. During the day we would have the furnace off.

The pop-up window plastic CRACKED at -30, but was quite flexible at -5. You live and learn. Read about our return camping trip/adventure here...

http://www.rv.net/forum/index.cfm/fuseaction/thread/tid/27339362.cfm

[Bumpyroad]

bcbouy wrote:
and its not too bad at night.

I always get amused when people use that term. to translate, it sucks but I survived, etc.
bumpy

[bcbouy]

the wife and i have camped in our sun lite pop up in winter a few times. i use a little buddy heater with a one pound propane cylinder.no battery power, and its not too bad at night.my main tank tends to freeze,but i use bottled water for drinking anyway.the portapotty hasn't froze yet either.it stays surprisingly warm inside with minimal heating.i've never tried to use the main heater.one thing tho is i need to vent it or it really builds condensation over night.