I have a long list of posts to make, but life this winter has been anything but conducive to sitting down and writing – until now. This post takes us from the Gulf Coast, to single-digit temperatures in north-central Wisconsin. We would normally winter somewhere in the southwest, where, though it might not be especially warm, is usually dry. Instead, we chose to stay on the gulf coast, central in this country, so we could make a run to the ancestral home if we had to. One of my brothers was quite sick with cancer.
We spent over a month near Gulf Shores braving the clouds, fog, rain – with just a few days of sunshine. Then we headed west to Galveston Island in hopes of a little less fog and a little more sun. By chance, our GPS headed us through the Bolivar peninsula – headed for the Ferry. When we first realized we were headed to a ferry with our 34-foot Class A and Toad, we pulled over and mulled whether we should turn around and take “the long way around”. A phone call informed us this ferry could handle us easily and was free and likely saved us a couple of hours and a lot of traffic over going the long way around.
Galveston Island is a pretty nice place, with lots of beaches – far enough west, some you can even drive on. We were in a nice park – albeit a bit far from town on those days when we needed to go shopping or “touristing”. There were plenty of good grocery stores – even a Costco within driving distance (1+ hours away). We had our bicycles and our metal detectors and made use of them.
Meanwhile, we monitored conditions in Wisconsin – and decided to leave Galveston with a week to go into February. We took two days to get to near Champaign, IL where we live part-time. We had been studying the weather in Wisconsin and starting two days after our intended arrival, they were forecasting temps down into the 5 to 8-degree range – for three nights. We hadn’t experienced anything like that in this RV. In fact, the lowest temperatures we had experienced, was 24 degrees and 20+ mph winds in a Walmart parking lot halfway between Galveston and Champaign. The furnace ran almost continuously, and we had no other source of heat. Temperatures in the right water bay went down into the lower 30’s. The plan was to stay in Illinois for a few days to collect supplies for the cold siege and get a couple of other errands done. The COLD plan – pick up some heavy tarps in the garage and pre-cut them for installation up north. Before we left Texas, I ordered three rolls of 3M outdoor no-residue tape (delivered home) so I could tape the tarps to the RV and hope they came off cleanly. I also picked up a couple of 20-pound propane tanks from the garage and the external tank adapter I had previously purchased for the RV and got installed. I also collected the heaviest extension cords and all the electric space heaters from the garage. Lastly, we picked up a couple of 1-inch thick pink board 4 x 8 ft sheets. We planned to bring the main slide in on the coldest nights, but to wrap the sides of the bedroom slide with the foam. I measured, pre-cut and stored them in one of the pass-through storage areas. Lastly, we picked up a pressure mounted curtain rod and heavy insulating curtains. We would use this to provide a barrier between the front driving area and the main room of the RV. So, went the plan.
The drive up was uneventful. Mom’s place has a 600-foot-long uphill driveway. We asked mom to have it sanded before we got there – and we made it up without difficulty. Turning around was fun, but a few sawed off branches and we made it, backing in next to the garage (barn) where there was an outside 15-amp socket. Placing the tarps started in earnest the next day and was finished the day after that. It might have gone quicker, but there were other things with my brother that took priority. The tarps didn’t go as well as I hoped. I had planned to use Velcro between the sections – but the stuff I had didn’t stick well in the high 30-degree temps I was working in. So, everything got taped and every bit of the three rolls of a special tape got used and then some.
As I was about to place the last pieces of tarp the second day, I saw a field mouse attempt to run out from under the RV – but ran back in. Crap! We do carry some mouse traps, so after that last tarp went on, 4 baited traps were left inside. The next morning there was one clean untriggered trap and three victims. I cleaned and rebaited all – and got a fourth mouse, but none after that, so the tarps were doing that part of their job. I was pretty sure the RV was mouse-proof as I had gone over very carefully – but one can never be entirely sure.
So, I need to diverge a bit. Propane tanks on RVs are always in unsealed compartments 
so any leaks can disperse. My main tank would be inside the skirts. When I installed the external tank adapter, I very carefully checked ALL the fittings on the tank to make sure nothing was leaking. Most of the time there, we used the external tanks, saving the internal tank in case we couldn’t refill the portable tanks for some reason. There is one issue with the external tanks. All propane tanks store as a liquid – which boils off to gas for use. That liquid to gas conversion absorbs heat, cooling the small tanks. The lower the propane gets, the faster the tank cools. One morning early, the furnace was “missing” or “flaming out”. The 20-lb tank was about ¼ full and wasn’t generating enough pressure to make the regulator keep up with the furnace. I didn’t take the thermometer out that morning but other times I measured tank temps down as low as -18. I’ve read you can buy tank heaters, similar to water pipe heaters, but I didn’t have time to catch up to any of them.
Since we wanted to move the main slide in/out and we had to have the engine running to do that – when the skirt got around to the
engine exhaust – I wrapped it with some fiberglass insulation and taped around it – and to the skirt. I also checked the temperature with the engine running – and it wasn’t very warm at all. We did the same with the generator in case we needed power that we couldn’t get from the garage but never needed it.
We also took a couple of smaller tarps up to the roof and bungee’d them over the Air Conditioners.
Lastly, the steps retract when the engine starts – with no easy way to turn them off – so the tarps had to go over the steps so they could move in/out and still seal. That ended up a pain in the end, but there was no good way to seal the tarp to the frame underneath. I did tape a couple of doormat pieces to the steps so they weren’t too slippery, but there were still a couple of near falls. For future functionality I’m going to find a way to completely disable the steps.
When the temps got down to 5, we were using the furnace, the electric fireplace (on low) and a space heater in the bedroom. The furnace also kept the water bays above freezing. We were only plugged into a 20-amp circuit, so we also put an AC amp-meter on the line and had Deb turn on each electrical appliance so we knew what we would be drawing. One good thing – the 3000-watt Victron inverter we installed has an assist mode. I programmed the max amount of current for it to draw from the outside power and it used the lithium batteries to supply the rest of the current demand from inside appliances.
Did the skirt work? Sure did. When it was 5 degrees outside and 20mph winds, it was a good 15 degrees warmer inside the skirt, thus the entire bottom of the RV was only seeing 20 – and no wind.
Was it absolutely necessary? Don’t know. We might have survived without it, using multiple circuits from the garage and several space heaters. Might have.
Would I do it again – hope never to have to. We did look at a skirt kit – one where they give you stick on mounts and the material and you cut and install it – but it’s expensive ($1k+) and it was unlikely they could have shipped it in time. I think our Tiffin 32SA can probably do better in the cold than we thought it could, but I think I would never take the chance willingly. We expected to have to stay for weeks, which we did and bailing because it was cold wasn’t really an option.
As it turned out, we lost our brother. It wasn’t unexpected, but it did happen literally without warning one morning,
James G Gardner, you will be missed.
mike