Winter RVing

SpaceCowb0y · 15-10-2015 9:53am #1

Sooo...

Just wondering if anyone has any experience with this, myself and my friends were finding it extremely difficult to find anywhere reasonably affordable to stay in Whistler over Christmas. We had to do 3 days in one place and then look to find another 3 days somewhere else and with ski pass etc the price was becoming a bit too much so instead we have now rented a 6 adult RV to stay in instead.

I guess what i need to know are any tips for survival. I mean do many people do this? I assumed they did as the campsite offers winter RV camping. Basically I want to know am i going to die of hypothermia in an RV in the Rocky Mountains in the depths of winter.

Any and all input welcomed and appreciated!

SpaceCowb0y · 16-10-2015 12:03pm

Anyone?

Timmaay · 16-10-2015 1:03pm

Having stayed in plenty of campers over "cold" Irish winter weekends (during my motocross days), I can tell ya there is a huge huge difference between a modern fairly high spec camper and older ones, nothing worse than a night spent awake utterly freezing your ass off ha! I've been there done that by now ha, and certainly wouldn't fancy the hassle of it somewhere like up the rockys/alpes, unless it was the likes of March on and fairly low down, in a nice shiny 100k+ camper ha. But anyways survival tips, long johns, extra sleeping bags, and expect your running water etc to freeze over.

SpaceCowb0y · 16-10-2015 1:15pm

Timmaay wrote: »

Having stayed in plenty of campers over "cold" Irish winter weekends (during my motocross days), I can tell ya there is a huge huge difference between a modern fairly high spec camper and older ones, nothing worse than a night spent awake utterly freezing your ass off ha! I've been there done that by now ha, and certainly wouldn't fancy the hassle of it somewhere like up the rockys/alpes, unless it was the likes of March on and fairly low down, in a nice shiny 100k+ camper ha. But anyways survival tips, long johns, extra sleeping bags, and expect your running water etc to freeze over.

I lived in a mobile home during the Irish winter myself in the past and it was cold alright! It had an electric heater which heated the place quick but retained nothing once it went off.

This is the van we have booked: http://m.campertravelcanada.com/quote/vehicle/?vid=29

Seems fairly modern/liveable in. But as you said i dont think even the Irish winter will compare to December in the Rockys. We have already been told we wont have a working toilet or shower but the camsite has full facilities with heated floors etc so hoping that wont be too bad. Plus we will probably use one of the wellness spas regularly considering we are saving so much on accommo.

To be honest it gives it a bit of an adventure feeling, but i dont want to die either haha

sheesh · 19-10-2015 6:22pm

you have a lpg heater in it. sure your sorted! sounds like a cool idea.

SpaceCowb0y · 20-10-2015 9:26am

I had to google what that was but yeah seems like it should do the job, I actually had one of these in the mobile home i lived in and while they certainly do a good job of heating a small space i can imagine the van will retain little to no heat once its switched off again. Extra long johns and sleeping bags for night it is ha:D

sheesh · 21-10-2015 12:07pm

SpaceCowb0y wrote: »

I had to google what that was but yeah seems like it should do the job, I actually had one of these in the mobile home i lived in and while they certainly do a good job of heating a small space i can imagine the van will retain little to no heat once its switched off again. Extra long johns and sleeping bags for night it is ha:D

could you leave it on?

SpaceCowb0y · 21-10-2015 4:32pm

Dont think it would be too safe leaving a gas heater running all night?

Timmaay · 21-10-2015 5:33pm

you'd certainly want to be careful, huge number of deaths caused by Co2 poisoning. Diesel night heaters are alot more common as a result here in Europe.

SpaceCowb0y · 21-10-2015 5:56pm

Yeah i doubt we'll be running it all night, we'll be layering up to sleep by the sounds of it ha.

MadsL · 23-10-2015 8:26am

http://www.amazon.com/Mr-Heater-MH18B-Portable-Propane/dp/B0002WRHE8

I use this all night in my tent, safe for enclosed spaces as it has an o2 monitor built in.

omicron · 24-10-2015 12:30am

MadsL wrote: »

http://www.amazon.com/Mr-Heater-MH18B-Portable-Propane/dp/B0002WRHE8

I use this all night in my tent, safe for enclosed spaces as it has an o2 monitor built in.

O2 monitor isn't enough, it's not lack of atmospheric oxygen that gets you its carbon monoxide poisoning. Overnight you could be in trouble from very low concentrations of CO.

MadsL · 30-10-2015 7:03pm

omicron wrote: »

O2 monitor isn't enough, it's not lack of atmospheric oxygen that gets you its carbon monoxide poisoning. Overnight you could be in trouble from very low concentrations of CO.

Battery operated CO monitor
http://www.amazon.com/First-Alert-CO400-Battery-Monoxide/dp/B000N8OYXI/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1446228193&sr=8-2&keywords=Battery+operated+CO+monitor

MadsL · 30-10-2015 7:56pm

Don't most RVs come fitted with a CO monitor anyway, at least those with propane cooking?

SpaceCowb0y · 02-11-2015 11:31am

I dont think we'll be running the gas heater all night. we'll probably look at picking up a cheap electrical one

SpaceCowb0y · 22-12-2015 1:33pm

D-Day tomorrow! nervous and excited!Just watched the orientation video for the van, its huge i hope we dont crash and die :pac: Or die of hypothermia, all that aside! 7 days in Whistler! Bring on the powder!! 47cm in the last 72 hours :cool::cool::cool::cool:

SpaceCowb0y · 05-01-2016 1:53pm

So we got back yesterday. Will i go Winter RVing again... not a hope in hell! Was it fun, eh... lets just say it was an experience. The RV itself was great and a road trip in one of these during summer would be great fun i'd say but living in 1 in -12 in the mountains was not exactly the easiest. First 3 days no issue, on day 4 the furnace broke, nothing wrong with the gas r anything as the cooker still worked fine but the RV crowd said we'd need to return to Vancouver to get the issue fixed which just wasn't feasible as we would have a lost a day on the slopes. No mention of sending someone out to us or anything they did try to trouble shoot the issue but no joy there either.

We spent 2 nights without heating and had to sleep in full snow gear as well as with 2 sleeping bags each (i have a new found respect for the homeless after this experience!) and in the morning there was ice inside on the curtains and all bottled water had frozen solid, as did a bottle of olive oil:eek:

We pretty much had to drink ourselves to sleep to actually pass out in the cold and at times it genuinely felt like it might be warmer outside than it was in the RV. We ended up leaving a day early and spending a night in hotel which in fairness the RV company covered as well as gave us the cost of 1 nights rental back too.

There's one thing i know for sure now though, we may not be anywhere close to the best snowboarders on the mountain but we would definitely give Bear Grylls a run for his money when it comes to survival ha!

cormee · 05-01-2016 2:31pm

Sounds bloody awful! Well done on surviving.

SpaceCowb0y · 05-01-2016 3:45pm

The nights were rough. But my God Whistler is an amazing place and the days on the mountain more than made up for it!

cormee · 05-01-2016 6:26pm

Yeah, I watched their anniversary video on their website a few months ago, it looks amazing. I don't fancy the hardship you endured though, it will make me think twice about complaining about the dry air in the hotel rooms! (I bought a portable air humidifier anyway

)

prunudo · 05-01-2016 9:06pm

Sounds like a bit of an experience alright. I had been keeping an eye on the thread with possible idea of doing it in the future. If it wasn't for the broken furnace would you have enjoyed the rest of the week staying in it? Would a spare old school fan heater have made any difference?

CardinalJ · 05-01-2016 9:11pm

If the furnace hadn't broken would you think everything would have been ok?

Bummer it didn't work out.

SpaceCowb0y · 06-01-2016 9:43am

jvan wrote: »

Sounds like a bit of an experience alright. I had been keeping an eye on the thread with possible idea of doing it in the future. If it wasn't for the broken furnace would you have enjoyed the rest of the week staying in it? Would a spare old school fan heater have made any difference?

CardinalJ wrote: »

If the furnace hadn't broken would you think everything would have been ok?

Bummer it didn't work out.

If the furnace hadn't of packed it in it would have definitely been a lot more enjoyable at night. it does use a lot of gas though so running it through the night every night would see you needing to refill every 3 days or so when you add in using the cooker etc too (just to be aware) but that wouldn't have mattered to us, i'd gladly have paid it to stay warm. Once it was running the van was quite cosy.

An electric blow heater could definitely help but i don't really like those things and definitely wouldn't want to fall asleep with one on all night, i've heard loads of stories of those things catching on fire/melting from being run too long.

A better service would be for the rental company to have on the road service engineers or at least to have mechanics dotted around the place they can call close to tourist spots to take a look into the problem. I would have thought that was standard but apparently not:rolleyes:

I'm not saying it ruined the trip, i had a great time in Canada but those few nights without heat were tough. Definitely not something you'd want to go through with small children!

sheesh · 06-01-2016 1:29pm

dude you could have died! You should not be drinking Alcohol in those situations it lowers you core body temp.

Still it sounds like a great adventure!

SpaceCowb0y · 06-01-2016 1:51pm

I blame my friend Jack Daniels. it was his idea! He made promises of warmth and decent sleep!:pac:

Winter RVing

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