Camping in cold weather while driving an RV is often linked to summertime and warm-weather activities. However, it’s possible to enjoy winter recreation in your RV, provided you and your vehicle are well-prepared for the unique challenges of cold-weather camping.
As you might expect, RVs typically offer a different level of insulation than a four-season, capable RV. These versatile four-season models are meticulously designed with superior insulation strategically placed in critical areas like the floors, walls, and ceilings to maximize warmth during cold months. Including dual-pane windows is particularly noteworthy, as they provide a substantial barrier against heat loss; unlike their single-pane counterparts, which struggle to retain warmth in frigid temperatures, they help create a cozy and energy-efficient indoor environment.
Many of these four-season RVs may also come equipped with heated tank bays, which can help prevent your fresh, gray, and black water tanks from freezing in frigid conditions. Four-season certified BlackSeries RVs are designed to withstand cold temperatures better during camping trips.
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Regardless of whether your RV is four-season certified or not, there are several strategies you can employ to protect your vehicle while camping in freezing temperatures, as well as ways to keep yourself warm.
To start, let’s discuss how to maintain warmth inside your RV. First and foremost, it’s essential to learn how to use your furnace effectively and set it to maintain a comfortable temperature.
Proper heating is crucial to prevent freezing in your RV. Most RVs come equipped with a propane-based furnace that heats the living space and helps keep storage bays warm, where your tanks and electronics are located. Keeping this furnace running ensures all pipes stay thawed and everything functions correctly beneath your couch.
If you’re plugged into electricity, you can conserve propane using an electric space heater. We use a space heater in our RV to set the desired temperature, effectively warming the entire RV or just a particular area where we spend most of our time.
If electricity isn’t an option, propane space heaters are also available. These small, highly efficient heaters are, but leaving a window open is important to allow oxygen in and vent moisture and exhaust from the heater.
Another effective method for keeping your RV warm is improving insulation in poorly insulated areas. For example, consider filling skylights and vents with insulating pillows and placing the reflective side down to direct heat back into the RV. You can also use reflective material for your windows; cut it to size and put it to help retain heat.
However, keeping the RV warm can lead to condensation issues. With the RV closed up, breathing and running the propane heater can introduce moisture into the air. When this moisture meets cold surfaces, like windows, it can condense, creating damp spots that can lead to mold if not addressed.
To manage moisture, regularly wipe down affected areas, especially in dark corners and under the mattress. Invest in moisture absorbers and place them in cooler areas such as closets. Alternatively, consider using a dehumidifier to help reduce humidity levels inside the RV.
Another thing that you can try is running your air conditioner, which may seem counterintuitive when it’s cold outside, but it will do the same thing: pull the moisture from the air. You might have to tolerate it getting a bit colder here for a while and then kick the heat back on. Sometimes, you can’t help but let the RV get cooler when camping in colder temperatures, so you’ll want to layer up and invest in some good slippers to keep your feet warm. We love to use electric blankets; this is a great way to stay warm if you’re sitting in one place for a while or warming up that bed right before you crawl into it. It’s a great way to warm up a cold mattress and stay warm without heating the entire RV space. This is a very efficient way to keep yourself warm, and we even use this while boondocking because it’s so efficient.
So, now that we’ve talked about some interior considerations let’s step outside and talk about some of the exterior considerations for cold-weather camping. Cold weather can sneak up on you when you’re driving, whether for a day or a few days. If you’re planning on being in extended cold weather, however, there are a couple of additional things that you can do to make your experience much more enjoyable. This is our RV, and we have it set up for longer-term cold-weather driving. One of the first things that you’ll notice is that it is wrapped in this RV skirting. RV skirting refers to anything that blocks the space underneath the RV from the bottom of the RV to the ground. This provides an insulating air gap and holds that air underneath your RV. This will keep your RV warmer and prevent wind from pulling heat out of your RV. RV skirting can be made from various materials, including wood, foam board, and even hay bales. Anything that blocks the underside of your RV is practical.
The stuff behind me is a custom vinyl skirting that we have specially measured, which fits our RV. It uses a channel system, which makes an almost airtight seal around the RV, making that air gap-sealed and much more effective. The nice thing about vinyl skirting over some other materials is that it can be rolled up and taken with you and is more portable. Moving foam board and wood or hay bales from place to place is more challenging, so if you’re on the move, this is a perfect option. We got this skirting at Custom Skirting LLC in Rapid City, South Dakota. We stayed at their campground, and they came out, measured us, and then went back to their factory and custom-made this skirt unique to our measurements. Then, they returned with the skirting and showed us how to install it in the channels.
The skirting goes a couple of feet further than the ground so that it can fold under and be held down with stakes or water bladders that you put around the edge to keep it nice and sealed down. We have a small electric heater underneath the RV to help keep that insulative air pocket warm. We have this heater on low, as it doesn’t need to keep it hot; it just needs to help keep it above freezing, which helps everything in the underbelly, including our tanks and pipes, stay above freezing. This extra heat actually rises up into those floorboards, helping keep our interior warmer.
In addition to the RV skirting, one of the things that you can do to help in icy situations is to insulate around the outsides of your slides. The slide walls are much thinner and less insulated than the rest of the RV, so when your slides are out, they’re much more susceptible to that cold. Some people will install a foam board on the outside of those slides to create more insulation. The manufacturer of our skirting creates a product called ThermoSlides, which is vinyl that holds this foam board in place around those slides. Overall, I love having RV skirting. It reduces our propane consumption from running our furnace all the time, it reduces the noise from that furnace running constantly, which is excellent, and overall makes it much warmer in the RV and much more comfortable to spend much time in cold weather.
If you’re driving in freezing temperatures, you’ll have to think about your water and sewer connections. This RV has an insulated water bay, but not all RVs do. If you don’t have an insulated water bay that’s kept warm by the furnace, you will want to take a couple of extra steps to ensure those don’t freeze. If you have a standard water hose hooked up to your RV, it can freeze up and cut off your water supply. You have two ways to deal with this: either you can disconnect your water hose and rely on your warmer water tanks running your water pump, or you can insulate or heat that hose to ensure the water keeps flowing. This is a heated water hose. As you can see, it’s a bit heftier, and that’s because it is insulated and has a heated wire running its length to keep the water warm and flowing.
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This model also has a couple of electric pigtails on either end so that it can be wrapped around your spigot or your water connection to ensure that that doesn’t freeze as well. We got this hose from No-Freeze Water Hose, and it is rated to go down to temperatures of negative 40 degrees Fahrenheit. We don’t anticipate being in that cold weather, but it is excellent to know that this will keep flowing even in temperatures as low as that. A heated water hose needs electricity, so the hose’s electrical cord plugs into the 120 on the electric pedestal, or you can even plug it into your RV. This hose self-regulates its temperature, so as the temperature gets colder outside, the more power it draws to stay warm and unfrozen. Conversely, if temperatures warm up, it’ll use less energy, which is better for overall efficiency.
Now, let’s talk about the water coming out of your RV, your sewer. The best practice is to keep your valves closed unless you are actively dumping. This is because if you have some stuff dribbling out, it could freeze up and damage your valves or clog up your sewer hose, which nobody wants to deal with. If you have a smaller tank and want to leave your valve open to run the water as much as you want, you can get a heated sewer hose. No-Freeze Water Hose also makes these heated sewer hoses. If you’re in that situation, this is the best option for prolonged freezing temperatures, but it should be fine if you’re in intermittent freezing temperatures.
On the topic of water, you will also want to be cognizant of your water heater. We have an on-demand water heater, and we need to make sure that we leave it on so that all the components don’t freeze up, as it is located on the exterior of the RV. If you have a tanked water heater, you’re also going to want to keep that warm and on so that you don’t experience any freezing in that tank. Since you’re going to be running your furnace a lot, you’re going to want to keep an eye on your propane levels. This RV has two 40-pound tanks that last quite a while, but if you have different-sized tanks on your RV, you’re going to want to figure out what your burn rate is.
One way you can check the level of your propane tank is to pull it out and feel the weight of it. You could give it a good shake, but if you want a bit more precise measuring method, you can get a propane checker like this that will tell you how much you have approximately left in your tank so that you can plan accordingly to refill them. Now, suppose you have smaller propane tanks and you feel like you’re burning through them a lot, having to go and get them refilled every couple of days. In that case, you might want to think about getting an external propane tank—one of those huge ones that sits out front—and that will lower the number of times you have to go and get it refilled.
In addition to keeping an eye on your propane levels for your furnace, you’re going to want to keep an eye on your house batteries. Your furnace requires 12-volt power from your batteries to be able to run the electronics and function. If you’re hooked up to power, the converter will take care of most of this, and you won’t have to worry too much. But especially if you’re off-grid and relying on those batteries, you could lose your furnace if those batteries discharge too low or get too cold and freeze up. You do not want to have that situation when you’re in freezing temperatures.
Many RV battery compartments are vented to the outside because of lead-acid batteries, and that makes them much more susceptible to getting cold. All batteries suffer in cold weather because the chemical reaction inside them slows down. Lead-acid batteries can actually freeze up if they’re discharged too low, which can damage them. So, make sure to keep them charged or warm if you can. This is much easier to do with lithium-ion batteries, which you can install in an interior compartment that can be kept warm by the furnace or by the ambient heat inside the RV. So, make sure to keep your RV house batteries charged and, if possible, warm.
If you’re willing to take a few extra steps to make sure you and your RV are bundled up, cold weather camping is extremely doable. It’s a great way to enjoy winter recreation and extend your camping season.
