Very cold weather driving

[Jewelsinmo]

Hi All! Trying to leave Kansas City, MO are for Florida tomorrow and I am very concerned about the cold! Supposed to be down to 9 deg tonight.

We have a 2004 Itasca Suncruiser and this is our first big trip. Have never used the furnace and not at all sure how to heat the coach while driving and when stopped. Also carrying water in the holding tank. Coach is still winterized at this point.

Would so appreciate some advise regarding can we fill water holding tank? Is it ok to use water while traveling as the coach will no longer be winterized. Worried about water lines, etc.

How to heat the coach while driving and while stopped at night? I have two dogs, one with very short hair - she and I are FREEZING!

Any and all help with system info or advise is so very much appreciated!

Jewels
Any help or advise is very much appreciated!

[gray ghost]

In cold weather I run the furnace while traveling. When we want to travel without filling the freshwater tank, we just fill some jugs with water and use that for flushing. We left TX for GA at the end of December and had no problems from not being winterized. We still haven't winterized and are pleased to report that it has not been a problem yet in Kissimmee FL.

[Jewelsinmo]

Thank you for your reply! When you run your furnace ( I know yours is MUCH newer!) do you run the generator to rower the fan, or do they run off of the batteries? Also, any problem with water lines in this weather?

Thanks Again!
Jewels

[Bruce C]

Your furnace will run while your motorhome is in motion it will be running on your house batterys they will be charging while your engine is running but will stop charging when you shut off your engine. Good luck on your trip.

[Hikerdogs]

We drive from Wisconsin to Florida during the winter months (usually between 10*F and 20*F through Wisconsin and Illinois) and have never had a problem with keeping the coach warm or with frozen water lines. If you use the LP furnace it will keep the water tank and lines from freezing. Ours has heat ducts to the main outdoor storage cabinet on the passengers side, the electrical cabinet and the water cabinet. It also has a duct to the area of the black and grey water tanks.

The furnace blower is powered by 12 volts from the house batteries. When the engine is running the alternator keeps all the batteries charged. If the house batteries are in good shape they should last through the night even if you're not plugged into shore power.

You probably also have a motoraid system which runs off the engine coolant. In ours there's a heater core/fan assembly that feeds warm air to the floor register behind the engine compartment cover. The fan is controlled by a switch on the dash.

[rream]

Also in the bitter cold, we use lap robes and thermal underwear. Some close the door to the bedroom if they have such a door.

[Jewelsinmo]

Thank you, thank you, thank you! All GREAT INFO! Temps are to be 9 degrees tonight, and it is very windy. Going to try to leave tomorrow. Supposed to be high of 34 and can' t WAIT to be out of here!

Jewels

[wa8yxm]

Regarding water: Till you reach warmer places carry containers INSIDE the coach, do not de-winterize, If you have some way to aux heat the tanks, (Epically black and gray) use it. I have a few hundred watts worth of small light bulbs (well about 150, plus a 100 watt. lamp) in my wet bay. That, and the furnace (I have heated bays) takes me down to around 10 degrees. NOTE that to run those lights you need power, I have an inverter, but still, can't run 'em overnight, don't have enough battery.

But carry water INSIDE till you get farther south.. Say, South Carolina.

Now, the furnace.. The first time or two it fires up there will be some smells, You may thing this odd, or alarming, So I recommend you fire it up NOW, make sure it works (BIG IMPORTANT THING, make sure it works) Let itrun for at least a few hours and make sure the rig gets nice and toasty warm.. You can then vent any bad smells. Which by the way are caused by a combination of dust and oil used in machining the parts.. The oil will be a one time thing, dust an eery year thing.. DO monitor it and make sure nothing bad happens.. Before firing the furnace light a burner on the stove to insure the gas lines are full of the proper gas.. Turn it off once it's burning steadly.

THEN fire up the furnace.

To give you an idea of the dust issue... I had a small electric heater (Actually HAVE) which I plugged in after a couple of years in storage.. It blew a solid white stream of dense smoke for like 5 minutes... (I plugged it in outisde on clean concrete so if anything bad (like a fire) happened it was easy to address.

Been good since.

Some people worry about runnign the furnace while on the road.

So long as it is an Automatic Spark Ignition type (NO pilot light) there is no danger, if the burner should suffere a blow out.. The ASI will re-ignight it, if it blows out again and again the unit will go into a safety shutdown mode to protect you.

Read the manual for more info.

[skigramp]

We leave Wisconsin in the middle of winter with our rig winterized.

We generally get to places where we can de-winterize the second or third day. I dewinterize as soon as the overnight temps will be in the middle teens. Until then we need to have water to drink and brush our teeth and be able to flush the toilet.

I buy two jugs of windshield wiper fluid ... we flush the toilet with that.

We buy a case of bottled water ... set it in the shower ... we drink and brush our teeth with that ...

We eat on paper plates.

Last year we got caught by a storm and cold weather after I had dewinterized ... it turned very cold (-3 F) and windy ... when we got up in the morning we had no running water ... fortunately nothing was broken ... a few minutes with a strategically placed ceramic heater thawed the frozen pipes ...

The point of this little tale is to tell you to pack a couple of trouble lights and or a small ceramic heater for some extra heat near your water pump and water inlet bays ...

[txdutt]

does your rig have a motoraid coach heater? If you have a dash switch labeled something like "coach heat" you'd be good to go with it. Basically it's a heat exchanger plumbed into your coach's cooling system that will provide heat thru your floor vents when you're driving down the road. No need to run your furnace...if you have a heat pump/ac system, you can also run your heat pump zipping down the road but you have to have your generator running...

[Jewelsinmo]

Thank you both for the excellent advise. I started the furnace today. Smelled a bit bad, but lit quickly and warmed very well! Thankfully, as we leave tomorrow am. All of your advice is well heeded, and again, I thank you both for taking your time to share!

Jewels

[dirko]

Hi Ho: Actually in our coach you do have to run the LP heater. The reason is that it alone heats the basement. The safest thing to do is to simply us the LP heater and remember to get more propane when it gets low.

[DAN L]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jewelsinmo Thank you, thank you, thank you! All GREAT INFO! Temps are to be 9 degrees tonight, and it is very windy. Going to try to leave tomorrow. Supposed to be high of 34 and can' t WAIT to be out of here! Jewels

i have 3 wired inside-outside temp gauges in my basement water compartments to monitor temps. i should have used wireless. i think wally world sells a 3 channel wireless system.
the only compartment that i am concerned with freezing is my aft water service compartment when using 3 ceramic electric heaters in the coach. i find that a 60-75w bulb in a trouble light takes care of that problem nicely.

[bachler]

We done a lot of winter travel (snowmibiling). One thing we all can agree on, the Engine heating systems it motorhomes (Stinks). And does not give off near enought heat. Unless you wear A snow suit.. We solved that problem by installing a heater (water) inthe back of the coach, We put 2 in both under the bed;; It was a joy to travel. and it was allways nice and warm in the coach.. It may cost a couple Hundred bucks. It's well worth every penny;;