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What I learned over the winter
As some may be aware, my wife and I are full timing it in our bus in Northern VA. This winter was a first for us and I learned a few things.
1) Heated water hose to spigot. Get one, you’ll appriciate it when the temps hit freezing.
2) Heated hose connection to bus fill line. Ensure you make the connections stay with in the bus access door. I did not and low and behold I had a freeze up that broke my bus fill hose. I replaced the hose and fixed the connection to fit inside the access door. Added a small towel in the access area to provide insulation.
3) Heat pumps are great to 34 degrees. After that it webasto time.
4) Webasto is great, especially after putting a new fuel pump, fuel nozzle and filter. 45000 BTU is way overkill but we really apprciated it on the cold nights.
5) space heaters (IR) are great for reguating the temp when out. The new stuff is very safe.
6) Running the bus every few weeks and taking it around the base to heat up and burn the miosture out of the motor and running gear.
7) Diesel prices thankfully are down, Yea!
8) Replace the window rod seals. Mine were pretty shot. Windy cold days caused a draft. Found rubber seals to replace those bad ones & stopped the drafts .
9) get the snow off the roof as soon as possible
10) ensure the sewer lines are empty when you drain the tanks. dont let them have any fluids as they shall freeze.
11) battery charger, get one for the bus batteries.
12) suspension parts hate the cold. bags leak down when not completely level. level sites are very important, since most rvs have jacks we are at a disadvantage. i used blocks to take the lop sidedness out of the site. worked good for most of the winter between run ups.
13) Try like heck to get orders South!! 2 more years to go and we will winter below I-10
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2 Replies
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Good to know Chip!
I’m just north of you in Crystal City. We plan to full-time starting Jan.’16, and will definitely heed your advice to “head south” in the winter”!
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This was our first winter too. We survived a couple of -10F nights. We only connected to external plumbing to dump and refill during freezing weather. I found that plastic brooms don’t survive being dropped off the top of the coach in freezing weather…
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