2006 Journey 36G doesn't handle 10F-15F cold very well.

[al1florida]

I have been wondering just how well my 2006 Journey 36G would handle 10-15 degree temps. NOT WELL! We bought the rig about 3 years ago and this is our first really cold time with the RV.

We live in San Antonio, TX and have the RV parked in our side yard with the gas furnace set to 45 F. Temps dropped to 9* early one morning. It might have helped if I had set the furnace temp to 65*, but I was afraid I would run out of propane quickly at that temp.

-- I had the water heater turned on so it wouldn't freeze.

-- I put a trouble light with 100 watt incandescent bulb in the water bay but there is no insulation in that bay so some some of the pipes froze.

-- I put another trouble light in the sanitary dump bay and it kept the dump valves from freezing, but it didn't keep the black water tank from starting to freeze up.

-- I also had trouble lights in the 2 passenger side compartments and they kept the pipes there from freezing.

-- However, the water pipes run from the passenger side compartments back to the shower, water heater and toilet area. There is no way to get heat to the area above the propane tank and below the shower. It appears the pipes froze in that area

-- It does not appear that the furnace blows warm air into the basement compartments, water bay or the sanitary dump bay.

Well anyways NOW I KNOW the RV won't tolerate really cold weather, so the experiment worked out.

However, since we were continuing to have very cold weather with days not getting above freezing, I spent most of the afternoon defrosting and then winterizing the RV.

Up until I was dumping and winterizing we still had electric in the house and to the RV to power the trouble lights. The next 48 hours or so the electric ws out.

The real fun part was dumping the black and gray tank. They were not very full, but I had to get them emptied before putting RV antifreeze in the tanks. I have a macerator pump, but all my garden hoses at the house were frozen so I couldn't pump to the sewer clean out pipe outside the hose. I dumped into a couple of large empty cat litter containers, carried them into the hose and dumped them into the toilet. It took 3 trips to the toilet with both containers to finish the job.

No damage seems to have been done by the pipes freezing. It probably helps I defrosted the pipes before they completely freeze solid.

It is about 11am and it is snowing again. Looks like we have had over 1.5 inches of snow in the last 2 hours. Very pretty. We had about 5 inches on Saturday or Sunday night. Most unusual for South Central Texas.

At least the electric is on today. Hope it stays on. It was off for over 48 hours. Supposed to be a rolling outage!! NOT!

I ran an electric cord in from the RV to power the TV and the Dish Network receiver in the house, the fridge from time to time, and a couple of times plugged in the gas furnace in to warm the house up. We powered the house off of our lithium batteries in the RV and then ran the generator for an hour or two to recharge the batteries. Worked out pretty good.

In the house we have a fireplace with gas and artificial logs that keep us somewhat warm in the den. Lots of blankets on the bed at night. Hey, we are in our mid to late 70's so we have our young love to keep us warm!

[gabbyh]

welcome from the balmy Va. coast rained all of Feb. and 40 degrees ,warming up Sunday to the 50-60's . we have the same coach thanks for your info about temps , we normally get down to the 20's so we always winterize. sorry for all of Texas, hope you warm up soon

[al1florida]

Originally Posted by gabbyh

welcome from the balmy Va. coast rained all of Feb. and 40 degrees ,warming up Sunday to the 50-60's . we have the same coach thanks for your info about temps , we normally get down to the 20's so we always winterize. sorry for all of Texas, hope you warm up soon

Monday or so we will be back to normal. The 60's & 70's for highs.

[Morich]

Since there is such a lack of planning for cold weather, we got several things on hand and did reasonably well at keeping most things from freezing but I did lose one faucet that I have not figured a way to winterize as it is poured directly into the slab and at the far outside corner of the garage where the only way I can see to get heat there is using electricity and that is a total bust when they don't do the work to keep the power plants online.
I'm not buying the idea that power companies can't figure it out for the moderate temps they deal with here. If you can do it in Duluth, it should be pretty simple to do it in Texas! They just do not spend the money to do the work and then cry a river to raise the rates to pay for their negligence! It's happened three times now since we've been around the area and every time there is going to be a change but then it is all forgotten until the next time!
We are gradually getting water supply but they can't build and pressure in the lines nor fill the tanks until a bunch of the broken pies are fixed so we expect that to be a week or more as people begin to come back home and find the damage.
Too bad we all can't just drop our jobs and head off to Cancun, huh? The political folks do have a few perks that most of us miss out on.

[creativepart]

Hey Al, I didn't know you lived in SA. We're in Spring Branch about 1/3rd of a mile from the intersection of 281 and Hwy 46.

We've been in Tucson for a month and slowly heading back home. We were due to be home tomorrow but postponed it until Sunday when the weather is warmer. We added a few days to our stop in Las Cruces, NM and it's 40 degrees here. Plus plenty of sunshine and no problems with A/C or water.

I went to the store today to stock up on gallon jugs of water and we will have 12 gallons with us when we return. Plus a nearly full 80gals of fresh water in the tank. There's been no water in Spring Branch / Canyon Lake areas since Monday.

We've found that pretty much any temps in the teens, even high teens is no bueno for the RV.

[al1florida]

By the time you get to Spring Branch all this cold should be over with for the season.

Maybe it will hit 100* before the end of February, like it did the last day of Feb about 15-20 years ago.

The RV we had before the Journey was a 2006 Winnie Sightseer. It actually had hoses that directed the furnace air down to the tanks and water bay. We spent a night in March at Red Rock Park right outside Gallup, NM where it went below freezing at about 8pm and was 9* at 6am. Nothing froze. We had the furnace at about 55 and the cabinet doors open by the kitchen & bath faucets.

It all worked out OK for our Journey, nothing damaged.

I did want to find out how well the Journey handled the cold and now I know.

[Oldchinahand]

Well, Al, now that you've done a dry run alongside your sticks n bricks, time to practice what you've learned!

We are out of Tucson. Our long trips are spring and fall. We like to be home in the summer so we do not miss one minute of the monsoon lightening and 114 degree temps.

Given our travel windows, cold is expected, and snow often finds us. Let me tell you, these trailer shacks can get cold! Luckily, like you, we 70 somethings find young love to be a big help!

In May, 2015 we were at West Yellowstone, temps in the teens and we were buying Command Strip hooks by the gross and hanging blankets on all the walls. Propane, for whatever reason, was in short supply and our two electric space heaters were struggling. Still, the park was just beautiful!

In October 2018, we rolled into Big Lake, AZ at sundown in a drizzling rain. The radio weather guesser said it would blow over by midnight. Nope! We woke up to a foot of snow on the ground. It snowed the rest of the day. We were unable to move our rig or tow for four days. Altho a FHU state CG, power came and went. Nice to have a dependable genset. Temps in the teens and 20s. HINT: If you expect snow, retract your slides. Snow will foul your slide toppers and not allow the slides to retract. The photo on our registry page shows us in the snow grinning like we had good sense.

In October 2020, a cold front blew us out of Sayre, OK and chased us all the way into Santa Rosa, NM. Woke up the next morning to 19 degrees and snow. I-40 to Albuquerque was closed. NM 54 was suggested alt route west. We left Santa Rosa @25mph with blowing snow. Supposed to clear up by Vaughn. Didn't. Snowed all the way to Tularosa. Had to stop every few miles and scrap ice from windshield. Through Alamagordo, Las Cruces and into Deming, sunny and warm. Stopped in Deming before the last leg into Tucson. You guessed it! Woke up to 19 degrees again and SNOW. Eased onto the I-10 @ 25mph and had blowing snow all the way to Bowie, AZ. Didn't prevent us from stopping in Wilcox for apple pie and wine!

Next week, we get our 2nd Chinese flu shot. With that out of the way, intend to head east for a lazy swing through Dixie. Watching that cold front. Hmmmm.

The point of that travelogue is that cold and snow can be just part of the show. Now, we don't have a big, luxurious 36 like you all, but we are very similar. We enjoy the journey (and Journey) and have not had any cold related mechanical issues or damage. You've touched on most of the common sense actions for cold prep. Water tanks as empty as possible, heat source (incandescent light?) in the water bay, perhaps the same in cargo bays beneath water tanks, trickle from a faucet, engine heater on, fire up the genset occaisionally, retract slides, no cargo shorts n flip flops.

Still good. Still lots of America to see. Still lots of great people to meet!

Fair Winds and Following Seas

[al1florida]

We also like spring, fall AND winter RV'ing where there is exposure to temps in the teens for several hours from time to time. Not as many crowds to deal with.

We also love to have snow come though while out in our RV, as long as we are prepared and don't need to travel in the snow. It makes everything so pretty. You can probably tell we have never lived in the north where we had to shovel snow multiple times each winter.

[RVwithDogs]

so if you encounter a really big snow, 6 to 12 inches, do you ever attempt to remove it from the roof ? And how ? The weight of snow per inch can add up depending on the moisture content, a wet 12 inch snow could amount to over 1000 lbs on the roof. and also block the plumbing vents and heat pump airflow. (assuming the air temp rises enough to use the heat pump)

[al1florida]

Originally Posted by RVwithDogs

so if you encounter a really big snow, 6 to 12 inches, do you ever attempt to remove it from the roof ? And how ? The weight of snow per inch can add up depending on the moisture content, a wet 12 inch snow could amount to over 1000 lbs on the roof. and also block the plumbing vents and heat pump airflow. (assuming the air temp rises enough to use the heat pump)

Interesting question. I think I would just let it melt. The heat from us living in the RV would make it melt fairly fast.

I would be sure to bring the slides in when it starts to snow. We were in Zion NP in Feb about 14 years ago in our 5th wheel and we had about 4-5 inches of snow overnight. It melted by the afternoon of the day after the snow (about 38 hours). It was great seeing the snow in Zion.

1000 pounds on my 36' x 8' roof would be about 3.6 pounds per sq ft. I feel the roof would support that w/o a problem as long as stationary. I wouldn't try to move the RV with all that weight.

Personally since I frequently go up on the roof and did the install of my two 72 x 52" solar panels I feel comfortable walking on the roof. So I if I felt I needed to I would just climb up there and push the snow off.

Not an option for someone not capable and/or comfortable being up on the roof.

If we started smelling gray and black tank odors I guess I would have to get up there and clean around the holding tank vents. However, I think there should be enough air space in between the snow flakes to still allow the vents to breath unless or until the snow packed down hard.

[Oldchinahand]

Folks who regularly subject their rigs to snow load might have better insight. However, .....

The only time we had enough to cause us to give it any thought was the early season storm in 2018. When you're snowbound you have time to dream up new worries.

I initially climbed up and broomed the roof. Pretty iffy. The ever delightful Miss Rose gave me "the look" and reminded me that there were only a half dozen other folks in the CG, we couldn't move the Winnie or the Ranger, the roads weren't plowed, it was 40 +/- miles to a hospital in Springerville/Eagar, etc., etc.

Not an elegant solution, but we tied a line (rope) to our rubber boot scrapper door mat, tossed up on the roof and dragged the snow off. Turned out to be more efficient and easy than you might think. (Make sure you hang on to the bitter end of the line when you toss the door mat)

Fair Winds and Following SeS

[Journey39n]

1st mistake, do not set your propane furnace below 55, it won't come on enough to keep your basement and water compartments warm. in extended cold spells we used a 100w bulb in the water compartment, with the heat set to 55 at night, we never had it dip below 36 degrees in the water compartment. just our experience.

We had a 2003 Horizon, and had no problem in colder weather, and even lots of snow on the roof caused no problems.

I will say, our 2010 model keeps a much warmer floor than the old 2003 did. We lived with our generator and propane heat for three days here in deep south Texas, I came here for the heat:-)

[Jos 56]

Originally Posted by RVwithDogs

so if you encounter a really big snow, 6 to 12 inches, do you ever attempt to remove it from the roof ? And how ? The weight of snow per inch can add up depending on the moisture content, a wet 12 inch snow could amount to over 1000 lbs on the roof. and also block the plumbing vents and heat pump airflow. (assuming the air temp rises enough to use the heat pump)

The dealers and most of the units parked in the lot in Ottawa Ontario, where I store my Minnie Winnie over the winter, leave the snow on the roof. We get
anywhere between 5ft and 8ft of snow over 6 months of winter. (we have 2 seasons: Winter, and Construction The main reason is that the fibreglass roof is extremely slippery and falling from 11 feet is high enough to break something. Even if you don't fall off, sliding into a roof vent or antenna is possible.

[Rick 99037]

In our northern climate, when the snow gets tall, that's a lot more than a foot by the way; we use a roof rake from our friendly hardware store. It's nothing more than an aluminum board, with a couple extensions of aluminum pipe so you can drag the snow off the roof from the ground with.
I doubt your friendly southern hardware store stocks such a thing, but I see no reason you couldn't go to Lowe's or Home Depot; and buy a 1/2" X 6" X 3' board, and a 2" X 4" stud maybe 12' long; and screw the board onto the stud with a couple 2" heavy screws or 2" X 3/16" lag bolts. I'd pre-drill my holes, and put a body washer on each screw to spread the load. Body washers are the flat washers that are really big, for the size of the hole in the middle. You could staple or tack a rag to one side so as to not scrap the roof if you like.
You will get the joy of climbing a ladder, and no doubt getting covered in snow, because there's no way this is going to work from the ground. And that stud with the board on it will be cumbersome and heavy too. But it will get the job done.
A lighter but far shorter solution would be to secure your yard rake to a board, by drilling pairs of holes across from each other on the board, and wiring it to the rake horizontal bar. Nether one will be fun to use, and don't take to big a bite at a time.

[MN Lakes]

Just a couple quick things from West Central Minnesota. We have a 2018 33' Winnebago Vista. We haven't been in real cold weather - last time in lower 20 degrees traveling thru SD. Since then have bought some reflectix aluminum bubble insulating material at Menards, cut it to fit each of the windows and used small velcro buttons or strips to attach to the window frames when needed. They are easy to store under the bed.

The second thing was to purchase a Taylor thermometer with three remotes. Two were placed in the basement near the holding tanks and general area and one in the bathroom. The remotes worked well between the basement and kitchen area. I was surprised at how warm the basement stayed when we ran the gas furnace - never close to freezing. Nice to be able to check without leaving the warmth.