Winter Usage On The Go

[baldeagle1356]

I bought a 2009 Beaver Monterey DP. I would like to use it to park at Ski centers 2-5 days at a time and move on to other centers as road conditions permit. I have made some winter modifications to my vehicle and would like to get/give advice on how to proceed. I have a 10 KW. ( 9 Kw. continuous ) generator and 2 propane furnaces. So far I have made cutout in the floor and added ducts to heat my water bay with the propane heaters and added 4 dedicated 15 amps outlets to accept space heaters when the genie is running. My heaters consume 12 amps each, so I can use 3 of them on side 1 and 2 on side 2 along with the battery charger when I run the genie.

Should heat up the RV in a hurry and then carry on with the propane heaters overnight. Hope to be able to use the genie only twice a day to jump start The heat and charge the batteries. My genie has 4.5 Kw breakers, so I should be able to use 36 Amps per side. I could not find similar topics ,so I took the liberty of starting a new topic. Hope this is all right.

[desertdeals69]

Years ago when we went skiing at Park City we would park in the parking lot for 6 or 7 days, We reduced the propane consumption by half by insulating the windows with 1/2 styrofoam purchased at the hardware store. I cut it with a kitchen electric knife to the shape of the window frames and pushed them in place. Also did the front from the ceiling to the dashboard. After 6 or 7 days we would go down the mountain to Salt Lake City to dump and then go back up for another week.

[baldeagle1356]

Desertdeals69. How long ago was that? Approximately what temperatures were you in? Did you have water and if so any problems with freezing pipes ? Thanks for any answers

[desertdeals69]

It was in the late 70's. Had a 28 foot Pace Arrow. All of the plumbing and water tank were on the inside. What did freeze was the holding tanks. We tried adding rock salt with limited success. When we went to Salt Lake we spent a night in the campground and put 2 large electric heaters on the ground facing up to the tanks and they were thawed out by morning. As I recall the temps were 10-20 degrees. We went for 3 years.

[pianodan]

We do a lot of winter travel. I have single pane windows that cover with shrink plastic, I put covers in all the vents, the waste tank compartment is heated by the rear furnace as is the water tank (which we use). I pour RV antifreeze down the drains to keep the traps open. In order to keep the water lines under the kitchen sink from freezing I use a piano 30w dehumidifier bar or 2 short ones 15-25w. I don't have large battery banks so I either have to run the genset when I stop or get plugged in. My coach has worked real well even in sub zero temps, stuck in blizzard conditions and so on.

[smokeater75]

Hi Baldeagle, I was just wondering , when you say propane heaters are you still talking about your furnaces or are you talking about individual propane heaters. Smokeater75.

[aztec7fan]

My dad used to tesch skiing at Winter Park Colorado, and we would frequently stay for the weekend in the parking lot in our 1957 Fitzjohn. We were very comfortable with the space heaters and never had problems with any water system freezing.

Just one bit of advice. Make sure your CO2 sensor is working fine and has good batteries. In Colorado, the winter weather can creat an inversion where warmer air is actually held at ground level and when this happens, there is no wind. Because of this situation, while we were running the generator at night, CO2 built up in the motor home, and we were wakened (thankfully) in the middle of the night with the dogs throwing up and splitting headachs.

I don't think this would happen in your case since you said you would only run the genny a couple of hours a day, but you can never be too careful.