Traveling in cold conditions

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dtsims

Member
Joined
Aug 28, 2017
Posts
5
Location
Harrodsburg, Kentucky
I will be traveling through the mountains of Weat Virginia and Virginia over the Christmas holidays. My question is do I need to completely winterize my fifth wheel or can I just leave my heat on while driving so I don?t have a lot of frozen lines when I arrive.
 
  You will get many varying opinions.... but we do a bit of winter travel (sometimes below zero). We have water in the tanks and water system in service, so....keeping the heat on is a must!!!  ;). It truly depends upon “how well” your unit is insulated....and how warm you can keep your tank and water line area in the basement.  This will “not” be very comforting, but.... you may never know until tried!  Good Luck on the trip!
 
dtsims said:
I will be traveling through the mountains of Weat Virginia and Virginia over the Christmas holidays. My question is do I need to completely winterize my fifth wheel or can I just leave my heat on while driving so I don?t have a lot of frozen lines when I arrive.
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I just did a quick search of what the weather may be in December on ACCUWEATHER.COM in Harrisonburg VA and came up with this.

https://www.accuweather.com/en/us/harrisonburg-va/22802/december-weather/336229?monyr=12/1/2017

I wouldn't totally depend on this because they are showing averages I think.  You'll just have to watch the weather real close as the time gets closer.
 
The problem with traveling in cold weather is that there is definitely wind under the trailer. The moving air will pull heat from the trailer a bit faster than if it were standing still in a sheltered area, or skirted.  Lines run under the floor will be more likely to freeze. If you want to be on the safe side you could blow them out before getting on the road, without draining the fresh water tank, so you can just turn on the pump when you stop. A portable air compressor run off your generator would let you blow them out again when you break camp to move.

I lived in a mobile home in Kansas for years. You can tell when one or more of the skirt panels come loose in the winter. You feel it when you walk across the room.
 
For the past 7 years we have been heading to the southwest for the winter.  (2 Weeks away, O'boy..O'boy!)  Since the DW won't leave Ohio till after Thanksgiving and every other year, Christmas, we have to travel south for a couple of days before I feel it is safe enough to de-winterize.  So I'll winterize the 5'r in October and leave it that way.  Taking several gallon jugs of water to help flush the toilets and for drinking and cooking. I will store them it the shower so they somehow freeze and break the water drains in the shower.  This seems to worked well.  By the second day we're generally far enough south to avoid a hard freeze so I'll partly fill the fresh water tank for bathroom stops along the rest of the way. 
A couple of times, New Mexico the temp dropped into the teens at night so we needed the on board water for the toilet at night and dishes in the morning.  Since we were at a campgrounds with full hookup. We simply didn't use their water till morning to dump the tanks and flush.

Wi1dBi11
 
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