Canned Goods

[Chillbilly]

Supposedly there are no stupid questions, so here goes. I will be in an area where the temperature will get down to about 25 degrees. I will have to leave my motorhome parked on the street overnight. It will not be occupied. But, it will not have power. My question is, will I have to remove the canned goods from the cabinets? Or, will they survive one night without exploding, etc.? I have many different canned goods stored in the cabinets. I know some of you have been in this same perdicument and can give me good advice. Temperature will be between 32 and 25 degrees for about a six hour period of time. Thanks for your help!!

[Wire Wrat]

Can you put them into an ice chest for the over night duration? you can bake a few potatoes and put them in around the can goods. Potatoes hold their heat, and will keep the inside of the ice chest warm.

[SarahW]

I don't know if the cans would freeze solid in that period of time, but here's some info from the USDA... Freezing and Food Safety

[Arch Hoagland]

I don't think there would be a problem.

That short of a time frame is not enough to freeze stuff inside your coach.

[RanCarr]

Why not leave the furnace on on the lowest setting? You don't need to be hooked to electric power for the propane furnace to run. It shouldn't drain the battery in only 6 hours of running the furnace fan. And your rig wont be so cold and damp when you start out on your trip.

Once we load our RV w/food for the trip south each year, we run the small cheapo electric heater - but we're plugged into power at home.

[Dan DeBruin]

I agree with Arch, the temp inside the coach will probably never drop below 30 and nothing will freeze inside the coach in that short period of time. The coach itself kind of acts like the ice chest in the previous post. All the furniture, fixtures, couches, etc. retain heat and have to cool down before the inside of the coach temp drops. Takes quite a while for that to happen and by that time, it is morning and the outsdie begins to warm again. Enjoy your stay, where ever you are and don't worry.

[dieselclacker]

You will have no problems with can goods freezing at the temperatures you mentioned. At my previous residence, the nightime temps quite often got into the low 20's and high teens, I never had problems with anything in the pantry freezing, including goods in glass containers.

[JohnBoyToo]

As stated you shouldn't have a problem with canned goods...
your water lines (if not drained) on the exterior walls will be of concern way before canned goods... but at 25 for a few hours I wouldn't worry too much about them either...

There's two schools of thought on cabinet temps...

1) Open the cabinets where the items are stored to allow latent heat to get in them and moderate temps...

2) Close all cabinets to isolate them from the cold in the rv...

I know contradictory ,
but it really depends on what's warmest and where any heat source might be... 25 for a few hours won't freeze much...

you can go to www.weather.com/ ,
put in your location,
and review the hourly forecast to see that most of the time it won't be below freezing

[JudyH]

I agree you should not worry about your canned goods. I left a bottle of water on the counter of our 5er, one winter and it didn't freeze until the sub 30 degrees lasted for over 24 hours.