Winter Camping Typical Daily Routine

[Jahna]

We did our first "winter" camping a couple of weeks ago and it wasn't so bad after all, in fact will do alot more of it. Working out where to put the extra winter clothes, coats and boots is fun but I am sure we will figure it out. Found out we need a larger carpet to soak up water in front of the door is on our must have list, as is a mattress warmer. Other then that it was a pretty normal trip for us, not much changed.

One question I have to our warriors, how do you all hang blankets in front of the doors. Seeing we have two of them and did notice even in mild winter temps we had cold air I want to look into stopping that. I also want Lost to work on reducing some of the draft around the slide, where my TV watching chair is seems to be a bit of an issue. Is this the tinkering part you all are mentioning, stuff you find on the fly?

Family day is our next planned trip, I hope my back is better by then so I can enjoy it a bit more.

[another_newfie]

One question I have to our warriors, how do you all hang blankets in front of the doors. Seeing we have two of them and did notice even in mild winter temps we had cold air I want to look into stopping that. I also want Lost to work on reducing some of the draft around the slide, where my TV watching chair is seems to be a bit of an issue. Is this the tinkering part you all are mentioning, stuff you find on the fly?

Yes we do hang 2 very heavy blankets around the door. We use 3M command hooks (the 5lb variety) strategically placed. We had some old blankets hanging around and we just cut some slots in them and hang them tightly stretched over the door when its bedtime. It really helps the drafts, also since our door is near our bedroom this was a must in colder weather.

Finding other sources of drafts and cold spots is an ongoing thing. I've found around my furnace which is under the jack knife is a source, if we were to keep this rig I'd solve that for next year.

[GoinKZ]

Big drafts can be killed off with rolled up towels or blankets. I found for draft areas around the slidout that the 1/2 inch pipe wrap wedged between the sliout and wall efectively kills off the little drafts as well.

Lots of fuddling to do....

[GoinKZ]

Is this the tinkering part you all are mentioning, stuff you find on the fly?

Yup

[shum]

Same here regarding the 3M 5lb hooks and then DW sewed some loops into a spare cheap quilt we had hanging around.

Yea that puttering around the camper Lots of drafts in these things but by the time I'm done with mine I think it'll float

Regarding the furnace draft I have that right around the exhaus/intake of the furnace and did have one but fixed the hole around the gas line. Need something that'll take the heat as well I have to remove the sofa to pull the furnace out to deal with it. Done it before on a mod but it's a PITA

[Jahna]

Aww words of wisdom come my way. I like the 3m stuff as I didn't want anything to obvious up along the ceiling. Gives me a project to do before the next trip as ya one door is in the bedroom. For the slide I have tons of scrap fabrics laying around even some polar fleece maybe I can make a less fiddly stop draft to work in a pinch. I am assuming it's the slide or come to think about it, the mouse hole because it's right there too. Maybe both. Can we stuff something into the mouse hole to lessen the drafts. From the outside of course and as a temporary while we are there and plugged in thing. While I don't want her to float I do want her kind of tight.

[another_newfie]

Shum, I'm in the same boat re: the furnace. I've dealt with the LP feed, but I have other areas that need attention. In order to seal it properly I'd have to remove the jack knife. I'll not bother now for obvious reasons .

Jahna, if one door is in the bedroom I'd seal it up tight and use the other entrance for winter camping. In addition as for boots etc, since we currently aren't using our shower in the winter in this rig, I've made some shelving and use the tub as storage, with the added advantage that if any water drips it will go down into the grey tank. As for the mouse hole, use whatever you have kicking about. Last winter I used some insulation I had because it was easy to remove since we were towing all over. This winter I did something a little more permanent with Reflectix since the rig is sitting for 5 months. Lastly, a hair dryer is one of the single biggest weapons to have on hand, not hot enough to melt things, but more than hot enough to thaw things. Keep one in your TV along with an extension cord, no since having the tools frozen inside when you need them

[Jahna]

Thanks AN re the tub. We put the water container in the tub last trip (I believe we were called chicken with an it for not filling our tanks up lol.) We have one of those water cooler jugs with a hand pump on it which can drip a bit so I thought going down the grey is better then my floor lol. I suppose it can be moved if we have more people on board, but with the three of us we seemed to make due with our current shoe tray. Though I do see a bar to hang coats in the shower in our future. The longer carpet is for when three of us come inside at the same time I would like something to stand on other then the floor. Dogs make enough of a mess.

A hair dryer, humm didn't think about that. I can see Lost using that a bit more in our future, not on his ummm hair you know.

[GoinKZ]

(I believe we were called chicken with an it for not filling our tanks up lol

Just my way of saying Welcome

Hey, it was above freezing-good thing you didn't though as I here Lost couldn't find the dump station

OK- back on topic....

don't forget re winterizing, which Id assume most of us have to a science by now, LESS then 5 minutes and even my DW who had no clue what I was doing at first has the basic procedures figured out now

[another_newfie]

OK- back on topic....

don't forget re winterizing, which Id assume most of us have to a science by now, LESS then 5 minutes and even my DW who had no clue what I was doing at first has the basic procedures figured out now

DW de-winterizes and re-winterizes our rig. Since I draw water from inside the rig, it's a matter of replacing water with pink and turning on the taps then pouring some into the traps, done. Reverse is just as easy. She's done it since the rig was on site at MAC.

Oh, sounds obvious but remember to have a shovel as you can't count on things being plowed/shoveled (unless you camp around here and snow is rarely a problem). Sunday at MAC the Dump station was plowed but the inlet itself was buired under quite a bit of snow.