Wintering in the Pacific Northwest

[billnelke]

We may be wintering on Vancouver Island, British Columbia this winter in a 38' Fleetwood Discovery. What do I have to do to keep my motorhome from freezing up? I will be in a park with full hook up, but only 30 amp.

[RoyM]

If you are near the water it rarely gets cold enough to worry about. I you will be parked for an extended period of time you may want to consider skirting the unit, it will help keep the floor warm.

[Cilrah]

I agree with Roy, if your by the water your not going to get a lot of freezing temps. If your worried about it you can heat tape your water line. I found that just leaving the sink trickling works just fine for us. The water line froze up with heat tape on it the one week we did have freezing temps and didn't run the water inside over night.

Have fun on Vancouver Island, been there twice and can't wait to go back

[Mr_D]

We're down in Vancouver, the older one in WA.
Temps rarely get low enough to really worry about. Even just dead storage at home I don't drain the lines, put antifreeze in or do anything but keep heat in the unit. In fact I leave the storage bay freezer on and the refer on. I do put a 100 watt bulb in the wet bay. Beyond that, nothing.

BUT, a Newmar is better insulated than most and we have optional roof insulation too so YMMV!

[sirpurrcival]

It might be helpful if you could give us a somewhat clearer idea of where you plan to winter. Vancouver Island is a big place. As some have mentioned, certain locations are not likely to be a problem, others are so it really all depends on whereabouts you are going to be staying.

[randyranger]

Like sirpurrcival says Vancouver Island is a big place and depending where you will be will have an impact on the amount of weather proffing you will have to do.

I live in Victoria on the southern tip of the island and on the water, the conditions here are usaly quite mild with teperatures rarely falling below freezing and only for very short durations. the further up island you go the colder and longer the freezing will be. Many people come to winter here so it can't be that hard.

You will most likeliy want to tape up your water lines coming into your unit, use a short a hose as you can on put some kind of insalation over them. As you probably have heated waste tanks, only dump them when you need to to prevent trapped water in your drain hose from freezing, aswell suport the hose so that there are no dips to trap the water.

Vancouver Island is a great place to be and there are a lot of great things to see and do even in the winter.

[billnelke]

We live in Qualicum Bay which is about 10 minutes south of Bowser and across the street from the water. We used to go south for the winter but this year may stay here. We used to have a 2008 Citation travel trailer with the polar package and would have not experienced any problems if we skirted it, but we now moved up to a motor home. I understand they love the warm weather and the cold, well, not so much. Just want to cover all my bases and have as good a winter experience as we can have. Thank you for your responses.

[Fred1609]

I live both on the Island and the mainland. The temp rarely goes below freezing for Check out the weather network on line to view the average temps. I think we had one day of snow this last winter. There are some great CG on the Island where we spend a lot of time. Great fishing too. Safe and Happy travels and send a message if I can help you out

[sirpurrcival]

Here is a link to weather data for Qualicum Bay since Fall 2010. You can see that there are occasions when the temperature has dropped as low a minus 9

Qualicum Bay, Vancouver Island, BC weather

[Possum]

Originally Posted by billnelke

We live in Qualicum Bay which is about 10 minutes south of Bowser and across the street from the water. We used to go south for the winter but this year may stay here. We used to have a 2008 Citation travel trailer with the polar package and would have not experienced any problems if we skirted it, but we now moved up to a motor home. I understand they love the warm weather and the cold, well, not so much. Just want to cover all my bases and have as good a winter experience as we can have. Thank you for your responses.

Slip south and then west on Memorial Drive in Qualicum. Travel hwy 4 and head out past Port Alberni and turn left about 50 miles out near Kennedy lake and head out to Toquaht Bay. Great places to camp right on the beach to storm watch and I can guarantee plenty of horizontal rain.

Bring lots of fresh water and propane because your furnace and coffee maker will be going constantly. Denise and I and friends go out for a couple of long weekends every winter. Great place to summer visit too as there are lots of fresh oysters, crabs and clams to be had.

We use our unit (see on left) all the time and rarely worry about freezing up. We live half way up the Beauforts , a little over 900 feet ASL. There are two places to watch closely in winter, the top of the hump and Sutton's Pass both can get snow covered in a hurry during winter but just pull off and wait it out like we do.

[BobGed]

Originally Posted by sirpurrcival

Here is a link to weather data for Qualicum Bay since Fall 2010. You can see that there are occasions when the temperature has dropped as low a minus 9

Qualicum Bay, Vancouver Island, BC weather

The -9 is celsius. Converting to fahrenheit it's ~16 degrees, which of course is still below freezing, but not quite a -9F.

[sirpurrcival]

Originally Posted by BobGed

The -9 is celsius. Converting to fahrenheit it's ~16 degrees, which of course is still below freezing, but not quite a -9F.

Sorry, took that as a given since we are talking about Canada where we use proper units of measurement

[Possum]

Originally Posted by sirpurrcival

Sorry, took that as a given since we are talking about Canada where we use proper units of measurement

Wow when did we switch back to Imperial; I missed that e-mail.

[BobGed]

Originally Posted by sirpurrcival

Sorry, took that as a given since we are talking about Canada where we use proper units of measurement

Gotcha, but how would we know where you or the OP live?