Slow Thawing Recommended for Late Snowbirds

The past three winters we have left the frozen North when the temperatures have been in the 5 to 15 below zero (F) range. The following are some suggestions for people who will be taking their units out of storage and heading South:

1. Warm up your RV slowly. If you try to go from minus 10 degrees to 75 degrees too quickly you might have trouble with cabinets cracking and furniture seams splitting. Be careful of anything that is directly over a heat duct.

2. Open your bathroom door to let some of the heat circulate. This room is often the closest to the furnace and will get hot the fastest. (We had our cabinet door above the head split.) You might want to get adjustable heat ducts for this room or just put a towel over the duct during the initial thawing.

3. Open all the doors to your cabinets and closets. This will help get the heat evenly circulated. Having stored cold inside the cabinet while the other side of the door is warm might cause some woodwork to split.

4. Don't use your flat screen TV until your RV has been thoroughly warmed up.

5. If you will be traveling a long distance the first day in frigid weather and want to crash into bed for some sleep, warm the bed with an electric blanket before going to bed. If you don't have a generator and are staying at Wally Word or a Rest Stop, use a 12 volt electric blanket and a portable jump start battery, to warm the bed.

Jumping into a bed that has been stored at 10 degrees below zero is not comfortable. It takes a long time to warm up the bed with body heat.

6. If you store your power cord in a small compartment, you might not be able to get it out or in in below zero weather. The plastic is too stiff to bend. Carry a spare power cable somewhere that is heated.

7. Your bumper storage compartment might open by itself if the cover is plastic. A rubber end cap is better. (We dragged our red stinky slinky down the expressway until we could get out of the construction zone).

Please feel free to add more suggestions to this list.

I don't know how you guys live up there! ; )

We hauled ours down to Central Kansas and left it in a storage lot there for a couple months. Found a great place with a fenced, secured lot in a small town and our BC is about 50 feet away from the owners' house. It should be maybe 40 degrees when we pick it up to head farther South. If we pulled it out of here it would have had 30 plus inches of snow on it, the temps are in the single digits and the roads are covered with salt. Easy one day drive to hook it up and away we go....Don

cashb said:

I don't know how you guys live up there! ; )

Click to expand...

Ask again when the next Cat. 5 hurricane blows you out into the Gulf. Michigan winters...where the strong survive and the weak are eaten On second thought, that's year 'round.

JohnDar said:

Ask again when the next Cat. 5 hurricane blows you out into the Gulf. Michigan winters...where the strong survive and the weak are eaten On second thought, that's year 'round.

Click to expand...

After experiencing your winter blizzard a few weeks ago John, I think I will put up with a little rain and wind down here.
Besides, I can sweat better than I can shiver.

As far as the OP, that is good advice...The only thing I would add is once hooked up give everything on that trailer a chance to warm before hitting highway speed. Especially the wheel bearing grease. Drive slow for a few miles.

OP - Great post, although for those with temps into -30 and below there maybe additional warnings.

Michigan - Can't wait to visit, (Tim Allen very inviting)

Cashb - I live up here because it keeps the riff raff out. As well as Roaches, killer bees, fire ants, and most rats...

Great advice. Our day-time temps haven't exceeded 17F or so for the past few weeks. I've fired up the furnace a few times and quickly determined that I couldn't open any of the external doors. My main entrance door was frozen and I ended up breaking the door handle off (because I pulled too hard). It took about 6 hours with the furnace running non-stop to get the interior warmed up to about 65F. Had I opened the sliding glass door to the garage, it probably would have taken 8 hours or more (since there aren't heat ducts back there).

For me, the most difficult aspect of moving the 5th wheel has been the snow. We had upwards of 3' and now that snow has frozen solid, making for a fair amount of shoveling to clear the wheels and path..

When we leave in the cold of winter
1. At home getting the unit out of the snowbank needs a 4 x 4 most of the time.
2. I always check the roof of the RV to make sure there is no Ice, don't want to drop any on other vehicles. Cleaned before at a warm sunny day will help.
3. We use water in jugs if you want to use the toilet, we do it all the time. Usualy bring 4 one gallon jugs, enough for 2 days.
4. We never make the bed till we are ready to bunk in and use flannel sheets. We are still using them now in Florida.
5. We usually travel south till its at least 10F, then we heat while truck idles to keep batteries up, and then set the furnace at 50F for the night. Keep slides in and the furnace heats quite fast, but we only heat to about 50F and usualy are comfy most of the night. The 40K BTU furnace kills batteries fast if it runs all night, so lower heat setting works for us.
6. The holding tanks usually never freeze while traveling south but the water tank is usually left emptied. Fill it at 40F.
7. Alway make sure that there is antifreeze at the dump valves so they will not freeze and crack, usualy done when winterizing.
8. We never had to stop at a campground when traveling in the cold, its not worth it anyway.

Its been good for us most of the trips south in the cold of winter. Only this 40K furnace that has been hard on my batteries.

Hey, I was just kidding!! Didn't intend to step on a nerve! Glad people do live up there cause we are nearly wall to wall down here! But I still seriously don't know how you do it...

cashb said:

Hey, I was just kidding!! Didn't intend to step on a nerve! Glad people do live up there cause we are nearly wall to wall down here! But I still seriously don't know how you do it...

Click to expand...

No nerve struck, that is just why I live here.

Take a look at this;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_population_density

Washington DC tops the list with 9830, North Dakota 9.378... I'm actually jealous of Alaskan';s and not just because their state is beautiful.

I'm not even from here I've just chosen to stay.

Cheers

No nerves hit here, either. I was just funnin' ya. Winter cold and snow is just something you get used to dealing with.