Staying Warm in the Winter

OK, this is for all you full-timers or any of you brave enough to weather the winter in your Cat.

We have a 32QBBS, so we have a bedroom upstars and a bedroom at the back of the 5er. We are trying to figure out the most economocal way to keep the WC warm at night when the temp is dropping to 32* and below already.

The rest of this week, we should have milder temps, but we want to be ready to go when winter gets here and we are experiencing 45*+/- temperatures during the day.

Please let us know your tried and true methods for keeping warm. We pay for our propane, of course, and our electricity. We are leaning towards using electric vs the propane, however, we only have 30amp service. There is an additional outlet at the meter box outside, but still there is only 30 amps at the site.

Thanks for your input!
Julie and Henry

I use a small electric heater and a small box fan on low to help circulate. It's not much, but it REALLY cuts down on the propane use. The furnace only kicks on when it gets really cold. Of course, we like to sleep with it rather cool.... can always pile on more blankets. I'm not fulltime, but we do camp in the winter. Having only one bedroom, our guests sleep on the fold out bed with the electric heater in the kitchen area. So far, no complaints. But we let the temp get down to 65°-68° before the furnace will start. btw, I point the box fan toward a wall so it will force colder air off the floor and up to the ceiling, thus forcing the warmer air to circulate down. No ceiling fan for me.

I like BobnPi also camp year round and the coldest I have had this year so far is 28* with a heavy frost on the ground I have used plexiglass on my fixed windows this has cut down on condensation, I also use 2 convector heaters during the day when it is cold but only leave 1 convector on over night. the coldest temp we experienced in the cat was 55* which is a nice temp to sleep in, and of course this is also more comfortable foe our dog. over the course of a week with the temp around freezing at night I never had the furnace running.
Sean

We use an electric blanket at night.In the day time we use a ceramic heater and a small fan to spread it around.Some times it gets too hot in the upper bed room so we shut the door to keep the heat in the lower part of the cat.

Insulate every nook and crack you can find.

If you look underneath just left of your steps where the low point drain is I'd insulate your exposed pipes there the best you can.

I used a ceramic heater when I couldn't get my gas heater to fire and it was hovering right at 32* deg out, It kept the camper warm but I'd go for the window covers like sean and the others do to keep the sweating down. You'll probably have to run a seperate HD cord to the ceramic heater though from the CG power box. Stuff pillows or cut a piece of foam to fit in the roof vents.

nothing to add, but love the window cover idea! I may do this even though I don't use camper from mid November-April! Tint those babies up and they would have to help in summer as well? Good mod, can't belive I haven't seen this one on here before!!

OK, so we have been trying out a Duraflame InfraQuartz portable heater.

It is advertised to be able to heat up to 1000 sq ft. (Same as the Edenpure and other similar box style heaters.) They are really safe around kids and you can actually use it as a table. However, it can not keep the WC warm when the temps outside start to drop below 50*.

It is also advertised to only cost about $1/day. Instead it is costing us up to $4/day. So don't buy one of these. It is a waste of money.

Thanks for the suggestions. I still don't know what we are going to do. We are trying to find the most efficient way to keep warm this winter as well as keeping the area safe for our 19 month daughter.

We have also tried a 1500 watt radiator at night, which worked well, but obviously we cannont run it during the day because it gets so hot.

We can run another cord to the CG box, but still the meter base still has a max of 30amps, so it still might kick if we run two 12.5amp heaters. (And the fridge, etc.)

We are also insulating everything we can find to insulate, and sealing any drafts we can find.

Thanks, guys.

Any other suggestions?

We use foil back bubble wrap. Just cut it to fit window. Easy to do & it help a lot with heat lost & gain through the windows. we do this where we sit to keep the draft off of us. Everyone above has good ideas.

We have an electric mattress pad to keep us warm at night. To keep the trailer warm inside, we have a small electric heater and the gas furnace. The furnace doesn't run real often, but it does run enough to keep the pipes from freezing. We haven't camped in anything less than about 23-25 deg.