Cold Weather Travel Suggestions

[63Hotrod]

Going to make a trip next week in weather colder than we are use to. Coach is parked under our shed no water in it, pink in the holding tanks  light bulbs in the wet bay and tank bay etc. These generally stay around 40 so not worried there But not sure when to add water back into the coach. We have a couple of nights ahead in the mid 20’s before we leave.

Plan A

Water it up and set furnace at the low setting 40 I think. Leave the lights in the bays and turn on system heat

Plan B

Leave with no water and add it when we get to a warmer place

Suggestions

 

Bill

08 Endeavor PDQ

[Chargerman]

I would fill it with water just before I hit the road. Have a good trip!

[jacwjames]

What do you have for system heat??   Is it the small cube heater controlled by snap disc??

One thing I've done is put remote temp monitors in the wet bay, I have access to the passenger side of my tanks so I put the sensor there which would be the worse case scenario as far as temps. 

When I was heading north from E TN to N Michigan in 2011 I knew I was headed into cold temps.  I took the time to use some foam and seal all the voids in the front and rear of the coach between the chassis rails.  Monaco didn't do a good job here so sealing this up prevented the cold air from blowing through while driving, especially in the rear.

I securely mounted a 120 volt cube heater in the last large bay and opened the sliding doors going to the small compartment where most of the plumbing is (manablock valve, water pump). The small compartment does not have a ceiling so any hot air that blows in also helps the tank bay.    If you start seeing low temps you'd probably have to run the generator to avoid stressing the alternator/inverter/batteries. 

Probably don't have time to do it but I added some tank heaters, my coach was prewired for the heaters so adding them was pretty easy and cheap.  The come on when the system heat is activated.

I never saw temps below 40F even though temps got into the teens. 

I think if you take precautions you would be OK. 

[bobdinsmore]

My vote is Pan B.

We also do not have heat in the bays. We leave the water system winterized until we arrive in warm weather and take along three jugs of fresh water which we use sparingly, eg, we use rest stops for the toilets, just a wash cloth instead of showers, only fruit or muffins or cold cereal for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch, restaurants for dinner, etc. It's a little cumbersome but it's only for a couple of days so it's no big problem.

[Tom Wallis]

We live in Nevada and have had some very cold weather recently with night time temps as low as 5 and sometimes not above freezing even during the day. I have never winterized my motorhome. I have a wifi thermostat controlled 500W heater in the wet bay that's set at 40. Inside I have a 1500W heater on the same kind of thermostat also set to 40. On the nights that the temps go into single digits I set the furnace on 40. I filled my water tank the other day in preparation for an upcoming trip an it was 10 degrees since then and no problem.

I have traveled in similar temps and found that as long as the furnace is set high enough for living in the motorhome, no supplemental heat is needed in the water bay. It seems that the ducting in the floor provides enough heat in the basement to prevent freezing.

However, there are some big differences between motorhome designs so here is my disclaimer: "Individual results may very."

[PTTech]

On 1/25/2023 at 6:24 AM, jacwjames said:

I took the time to use some foam and seal all the voids in the front and rear of the coach between the chassis rails.  Monaco didn't do a good job here so sealing this up prevented the cold air from blowing through while driving, especially in the rear.

 

Jim, Could you expand on this? Where did you find the gaps to fill?