# What To Do For Cold Weather Dry Camping.



## ranier1315 (Jan 4, 2008)

Were getting ready to take our new to us 21RS out for her first trip this week end. It will essentially be dry camping and it is only for Friday and Saturday night. The tanks and plumbing are winterized so I will have to de-winterize before we go. The biggest problem i have is that the temps are going to be in the lower thirties and maybe in the upper twenties by this week end. What can I do to prevent the under belly water lines from freezing? Does running the heater in the camper keep the lines warm? Since this is our first trip with a used camper i plan on sanitizing the fresh water tank before we go. If i keep the furnace or a small ceramic furnace running in the unit will this keep the tank and lines from freezing till we're ready to go? Thanks for the help in advance.


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## OregonCampin (Mar 9, 2007)

We camp like this all winter long - in fact, over Thanksgiving we dry camped for 5 days with no issues and the over night temps were in the high 20's (ice on everything in the morning)

If you run the OB heater overnight it should be enough to keep your lines from freezing overnight. If you do have hookups, make sure you un-hook the water line at night (it will freeze). Not sure where you are camping, but as long as it warms up a little during the day you should have no problems with your lines.

We do not use pink stuff in our lines - we blow them out and then run a space heater with the cupboard doors open to allow the heat to get near the pipes. We are actually getting ready to head out this weekend for a cold weather camping trip, so we will do exactly what you are talking about - fill the tank and run the heater overnight to keep them from freezing. Again, as long as you do not stay at freezing temps all day, you should be fine. The only other thing I want to mention is that if you do have a cover on your OB make sure you take it off before you light the hot water heater / furnace - it does melt.









Have a fun trip!

Shannon


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## ranier1315 (Jan 4, 2008)

Thanks Shannon for the information. I feel much better.


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## Oregon_Camper (Sep 13, 2004)

If you're not comfortable with all the dewinterizing and then rewinterizing...you could alway leave the lines winterized and simply grab some portable water for wash down with and to dump into the toilet. Not the best solution, but an easy one.


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## Scrib (Jun 28, 2005)

We camped in the mid-20's with our Outback - just make sure you have enough propane to make it through the weekend







(luckily there was a 24-hour gas station near-by)

Also - you might want to spread a blanket out underneath your matress, for a little extra insulation.

good luck!


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## skylane (Oct 28, 2007)

Scrib said:


> We camped in the mid-20's with our Outback - just make sure you have enough propane to make it through the weekend
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Batteries might be your biggest problem dry camping in the cold wx propane should last quite awhile but batteries running the heater fan...... unless you have a couple of batts, 1 night would be my guess
Mark


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## OregonCampin (Mar 9, 2007)

skylane said:


> We camped in the mid-20's with our Outback - just make sure you have enough propane to make it through the weekend
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Batteries might be your biggest problem dry camping in the cold wx propane should last quite awhile but batteries running the heater fan...... unless you have a couple of batts, 1 night would be my guess
Mark
[/quote]

Yes - I will second the batteries - we upgraded to 2 6volts, so this has not been a problem for us, but over Thanksgiving we had a neighbor that ran out of battery in the middle of the night and froze his butt off. Fortunately for him the Outbackers came to the rescue - we kicked on our Kipor and plugged him in to get him through the night and then charged his batteries for him the next day - gotta love having friendly neighbors!


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## BoaterDan (Jul 1, 2005)

Even if you're not dewinterizing, I suggest you might want to heat up the trailer at home plugged in to shore power. In my experience (doing some testing, not actual camping) it's the intial warmup from 30 degrees that is going to kill the battery, as the furnace is going to run solid for quite a while.


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## ranier1315 (Jan 4, 2008)

Thanks for all the help. I do have two batteries. Series 24 deep cycle. Should these last two nights?


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## Oregon_Camper (Sep 13, 2004)

ranier1315 said:


> Thanks for all the help. I do have two batteries. Series 24 deep cycle. Should these last two nights?


Hard to say...but new batteries should make it. Big variable is how long will you run them and their condition.


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## Airboss (Jul 14, 2007)

ranier1315 said:


> If i keep the furnace or a small ceramic furnace running in the unit will this keep the tank and lines from freezing till we're ready to go?


Ummm...I'm pretty sure running a small ceramic heater won't work unless your on shore power.

From experience, if you have plenty of propane and a full charge on the batteries you'll make it two nights. Well, hopefully.


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## 3MurphsOutbackin' (Sep 26, 2006)

ranier1315 said:


> Thanks for all the help. I do have two batteries. Series 24 deep cycle. Should these last two nights?


 Assuming your Tow Vehicle is set up with the proper connection, you could always hook up the truck to the trailer on day two and run the truck for a few hours to top off your battery charge on your trailer. That is assuming you are not taking along a generator. I've done this before with my Chevy and it seems to charge the batteries enough to give you another day of furnace running. Remember, don't keep the trailer plugged into the truck overnight - you could kill the truck batteries.

Enjoy your cold weather dry - camping, we always do!


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## BoaterDan (Jul 1, 2005)

ranier1315 said:


> Thanks for all the help. I do have two batteries. Series 24 deep cycle. Should these last two nights?


I would expect you'll be fine if they're true deep-cycle. (Unless maybe they're the Interstate junk that came with the trailer.)

I'm guessing from the original post that your trailer is at home able to be plugged in. So, just experiment. Turn on the heater and see if it will last for two days without 110V power. As I recall from other threads here, when the batteries get drained the furnace may sound like it's trying to start but keep shutting off.


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## California Jim (Dec 11, 2003)

If they are newer 12v batteries and in perfect condition, and properly deep cycle charged, then I would have pretty high confidence that you can get two nights of furnace operation out of them in those temperatures. If they are older, or have had a hard life, then it's more sketchy.

Remember that as the temperature drops, so does the capacity of your batteries. And even great batteries can lose much of their storage when you get to freezing and below.

A quick little energy saver we do when dry camping in the cold is to remove one bulb out of each light fixture. Voila', instant 50% reduction in lighting energy. Takes me less than 5 minutes to do the whole camper.

Good Luck









ON EDIT: Here is an excerpt about battery temperatures I dug up on The 12 Volt Side of Life website:

"Battery capacity (how many amp-hours it can hold) is reduced as temperature goes down, and increased as temperature goes up. This is why your car battery dies on a cold winter morning, even though it worked fine the previous afternoon. At freezing, the battery's capacity is reduced by 20%. At approximately -22 degrees F (-27 C), battery AH capacity drops to 50%. Capacity is increased at higher temperatures - at 122 degrees F, battery capacity would be about 12% higher."


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## BigBadBrain (Aug 26, 2004)

Interesting topic.

Making the jump to two golf cart batteries sounds like a great idea but there are some issues that have to be dealt with. For those of you who've made the change how did you handle the following:

1) Where to mount the batteries (considering there is only room for one in most of the mounting locations on the Outback),

2) When storing for the winter I like to use a battery tender - how will it work with two six volt batteries? Do I connect it as if it was tending a single twelve volt?

3) Wired in series to achieve 12 volts, I assume there is no doubling of the Amp hours like there should be when wiring a set of parallel 12V batteries. Is this true and if so, where is the benefit of the 6V over 12V? It seems as if it would be minor rather than major.

Just wonderin'

BBB


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## Y-Guy (Jan 30, 2004)

If you are concerned about making it two nights, make sure your vehicle is setup to charge the batteries while plugged for towing. That way you can charge the batteries a bit while running the truck. Don't assume it is setup, check with a volt meter - most newer rigs don't have the right wiring or needed fuse for this to work. The fuses used to be included.

BBB

1) I'm not sure how the newer Outbacks were setup, on my previous one we had room on either side of the LP tanks. Is yours different? 









2) Basically you treat them as one single battery, you will have a wire between the two, so the "one" battery will have one terminal as the hot and the other open terminal as the negative. I never had problems charging mine with that setup.

3) The benefit is the 6v batteries are better designed for frequent deep discharges and recharging then the 12v type. They naturally have more Amp hours. The website that Cal Jim listed, "12volt Side of Life" is a wonderful resource, I always highly recommend book marking it and reading it a couple times to really understand batteries. In a nutshell the average Group 24 battery has 70-85 Amp hours, so two would give you 140-170 where as the Golf Cart/T-105 gives you 180-220.


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## OregonCampin (Mar 9, 2007)

BigBadBrain said:


> Interesting topic.
> 
> Making the jump to two golf cart batteries sounds like a great idea but there are some issues that have to be dealt with. For those of you who've made the change how did you handle the following:
> 
> ...


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## BoaterDan (Jul 1, 2005)

Y-Guy said:


> 3) The benefit is the 6v batteries are better designed for frequent deep discharges and recharging then the 12v type. They naturally have more Amp hours. The website that Cal Jim listed, "12volt Side of Life" is a wonderful resource, I always highly recommend book marking it and reading it a couple times to really understand batteries. In a nutshell the average Group 24 battery has 70-85 Amp hours, so two would give you 140-170 where as the Golf Cart/T-105 gives you 180-220.


In my OPINION, based on many hours of research, there is no superior design per se in the 6v batteries. They use the exact same technology as the 12v. It's just the physical size of the case relative to the number of volts that provides for some physical advantages in terms of AH per cubic inch. In fact, a new 12v AGM battery is going to be vastly superior technology than a 6v wet cell. (Of course, you can get 6v agm too).

Not speaking of Y-Guy here, but I've heard people make claims about the 6v Trojans, like they're made to be discharge them fully over and over again, which are directly contradicted by the manufacturer's own information.

Lest anyone think I'm a 6v hater, I've said numerous times it's a rock solid solution with decades of successful use. If you want the utmost AH in a proven solution, it's a no-brainer to go with 6v. But you're going to pay a lot more for the 6v solution.


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