Looking for Advice on Purchase and Winter Set-up

I recently found this forum while researching campers and I must say I'm impressed. So many of the forums I've used seem to thrive on trash-talk and "flaming". Nice to see the cordial nature of this forum.

I'm in the market to purchase a 5th wheel as my temporary home. I estimate we'll be living there for 6 to 9 months...so I'm looking for something with nice living and cooking capabilities. Just two of us most of the time with occasional visits from an adult daughter. When permanent housing is complete, I'll make a decision then on whether to keep or sell the camper.

1st Question: I've found a 2005 Landmark Grand Canyon that is in beautiful shape at a dealer. It looks new inside with only cosmetic (peeling vinyl stickers) issues on the outside. From those of you familiar with this unit...any reason why it wouldn't be a good choice in my situation? Are there any known issues with this unit I should be checking out?

2nd Question: I've camped all my life...in tents and pop-ups; not this type of rolling house. So a lot of these complex systems are foreign to me. Will I have any issues related to the cold living in the unit through winter? It doesn't get that cold in the Piedmont of NC...but I'm sure we'll have several days below freezing at night. Should this put a damper on my plans?

Thanks to all for reading this far and any input you may have.

Hi happyappy,

Welcome to the Heartland Owners Forum and hopefully to the family. We have a great bunch of people here with lots of information and all willing to share their knowledge when needed.

You are correct about the forum, as we do monitor all the post and try our best to keep this a friendly, family oriented forum with lots of friendship and knowledge to pass around.

The Landmark is the best made. The 05 is a classic and if it has been maintained, and it sounds like it has, then you should have no problems.

Since I don't live up North, I don't need to worry about the freezing weather. But some of our other members will jump in and give us some ideas of what you need to do.

Enjoy the forum.

Jim M

Hi happyappy,

A lot depends on how far below freezing it gets.

On nights where it's going to freeze, you'll need to either have a heated water hose, or disconnect and drain the water hose to keep it from freezing.

Keeping the furnace running at a comfy temp inside will also pump heat into the underbelly which should keep the holding tanks from freezing if temps briefly dip into the 20s. That said, it's probably a good idea to dump the gray and black tanks before the freeze, just in case it gets colder than expected, or in case something goes wrong, like you run out of propane in the middle of the night.

If you leave the flexible sewer hose in place on a freezing night, and flex it before it thaws, you may break it. But apart from that, I think it will probably survive.

Some people like to leave faucets dripping, but that's probably not necessary unless it gets really cold. I don't like doing that because it's too easy to make a mistake and create a flood. Also, if an ice dam builds up in the sewer hose, you could get a flood inside.

Good luck.

Thanks for the warm welcome Jim. I look forward to learning more from the team here as we get closer to making the purchase.

Dan, I appreciate your response. Doesn't sound like I'll have too much to worry about given that we rarely have a hard freeze. I'll just have to be mindful of the weather forecasts.

Would still love to hear anything I should be looking for on the Landmark. I did read where there should be support added under the fresh water tank....I'll check for that in our next trip.

danemayer said:

Hi happyappy,

A lot depends on how far below freezing it gets.

On nights where it's going to freeze, you'll need to either have a heated water hose, or disconnect and drain the water hose to keep it from freezing.

Click to expand...

Since I try not to deal with freezing much, I hadn't looked. I just ran across this at Tweety's. Looks pretty cool. Trace

http://tweetys.com/pirit-heated-hoses.aspx

Thanks Trace...that would definitely take away my concerns of the hose freezing.

On a related note...we went through the landmark from stem to stern and it checked out great. Looking to finalize the deal this weekend and moving into my "mobile apartment" 1st week of December.