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Winterizing
I’m spending this winter work camping in a fifth wheel in Wisconsin. Can you help me with ideas on how I can better insulate?
Tags: cold, insulation, weather, winterizing
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Kat on -
What I've seen of trailers and RVs that are set up for overwintering up north, the critical things include insulating the water pipes and underneath the vehicle. Adding a "skirt" or even piling hay bales around the underside ought to provide some protection. Windows and vents would be important places to check for heat leaks, but be sure you don't restrict air exchange too much, and if you don't have one, invest the few dollars to add a carbon monoxide detector as well as a good smoke detector. Make sure you keep enough propane to run gas heaters, since electric heat just won't cut it once the temperature goes below about 30° F.
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Permalink Reply by Ron Buckner on -
A good follow up to Kat's discussion might be a supplemental heater like a Catalytic heater. She's right about any type of heater with a fan, the chill factor they create actually cools the air before warming it and 3/4's of the furnaces cyling is spent reheating the air that was already warm. That, in addition to the inefficiency of the gravity flow burner systems all RV's have, makes the typical RV furnace about 60% efficient when it comes to ambient heating. The heater's cycling will leave you either to hot or frozen. A catalytic heater is radient (like a fireplace) and the temperature it works at is approximately 450 degrees, rather than the 650 degrees it takes for combustion, therefore the danger of carbon monoxide poisening is not a threat (unless you keep the rig closed up). The by-product of the catalytic reaction IS carbon dioxide, so you will have to leave vents open because it can be a very wet heat (which shouldn't be a problem for winter in Wisconsin). The real positive here is that these heaters are 99.98% percent efficient.One 6000 btu heater will run on high for 15 hours on one gallon of gas, but you'll never leave it there, once you get the rig warm you'll turn it down to low and that number goes up to about 45 hours per gallon! In a cold dry climate I've found nothing better (eastern Washington). I use a couple small fans to keep the air moving and the one I have now is one my dad had in his shop back in the 1960's.
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