Cold weather travel

[cpaharley2008]

Years ago, Pennsylvania used to use "slag" from the steel mills on the roads, not anymore!

[Ian and Sue]

Originally Posted by cpaharley2008

Years ago, Pennsylvania used to use "slag" from the steel mills on the roads, not anymore!

It makes great "gravel" as well. My uncle near Cleveland used to get it for his drive.

[Allan Bornestig]

That is amazing.
I grew up in Sweden.We had a big garden with walk ways.My Dad got slag from the local mill and put it on the walk ways.No weeds would grow there.Good thing for me since I had to do all the weeding.
Allan.

[HABBERDABBER]

My parents built a new home, circa 1953. My uncle poured the basement, and someone got free fill for the basement floor pour. It was cinders from the local coal burning power plant. FREE! And likely free delivery.
60 years later, those cinders ate up the cast iron sewer pipes which the cinders covered. It took jack hammers to bust up the concrete floor and a healthy check book to fix things.

FREE HOT LUNCH!

Don't believe it.

[Ian and Sue]

Originally Posted by HABBERDABBER

My parents built a new home, circa 1953. My uncle poured the basement, and someone got free fill for the basement floor pour. It was cinders from the local coal burning power plant. FREE! And likely free delivery.
60 years later, those cinders ate up the cast iron sewer pipes which the cinders covered. It took jack hammers to bust up the concrete floor and a healthy check book to fix things.

FREE HOT LUNCH!

Don't believe it.

Beware of anything like that being free!
A school in N VT got some free gravel from a mine nearby....years later they found that the free gravel from the Asbestos mine also had asbestos in it!

Another example...a public water system got free gravel from some nearby road blasting and put it around the access to their well....later during testing for perchlorate they found it in the well...likely from the blasted rock since perchlorate is an accelerant commonly used in, among other things, blasting powder....

Nutting is free...

[rlg303]

Originally Posted by Paul L

I have a question for those of you who are used to traveling in cold climates. We are taking our 5.0 from Minnesota to sunny Florida at the end of February. Our plan is to not use the water systems in the trailer until we are far enough south to de-winterize. I am wondering about all of the liquids that we normally carry in our trailer. This includes things like water jugs, sunscreen, olive oil, shampoo, canned goods, etc. Will these items freeze if we’re driving down the road in below 30° temps? We will be using the furnace at night to keep things cozy. Any suggestions?

When traveling in winter weather, I use the furnace at night and open the bench seat where the water pump is located. Never had any problem.

[Farmerdoug]

We will also be traveling to Florida for a March escape. We did get a surprise when returning from our last trip, also in March.
When we reached Dayton, Ohio we were back into freezing temperatures, so be prepared to deal with it, and consider winterizing if real low temps are expected..

We had no issues with anything in the camper, like foods and liquids.
When I winterize our camper, we pretty much empty it, before taking to storage.
Have a great Escape.

[brroberts]

Single digits at night, teens to low 20’s during the day and run the furnace. We like running water. The new furnace runs just fine underway if needed, but often the trailer will stay warm for a while.

[Little Richie]

We go from Chicago to Penscola. We have a 5.0 without basement insulation. We stay in hotels. We do food and water shopping when we get there. We have a box of cleaning fluids (laundry detergent, bleach etc. ) and some miscellaneous stuff, which we keep in the truck until we stop for the night. At night I just move it to the camper and turn the heat on low. It works for us.

On a related note:
1 you may have Rxs which are temperature sensitive.

2 propane may not flow when very cold because of pressure or frozen valves.

[rubicon327]

Originally Posted by Little Richie

propane may not flow when very cold because of pressure or frozen valves.

It has to be REALLY cold to impact propane. Just wondering if anyone has ever had an issues with RV or home tanks and at what temperature.

[Iowa Dave]

-20 Fahrenheit for a half a dozen times about every year here for the last 16 years and for 8 years when we were on propane in the 70s in western Iowa.
Never a problem with flow. Good regulators are important and good ignitors essential. We always fill at 20 percent if we get that low on house propane. Only one tank a year now as we
have geothermal heating and cooling and only use propane to cook with and heat some of our hot water needs.
On the camper I start the season with two full tanks and my 11 lb tank that
I use on the Weber Q, or Everest camp stove or campfire in a can. When one runs out I get it refilled at the hardware store in my home town or a a propane depot on the road. I have never exchanged tanks from a cage vendor. I like my tanks and know how they have been treated since they were new. YMMV
Iowa Dave

[brroberts]

Lived in the Arctic 15 years. -68F was the coldest I saw. Weeks in a row of -40F. Propane tank sat outside. Copper line exposed ran into the house. Propane never froze up.

[Little Richie]

Yes, I agree. In general it should work. I have noticed blog reports of regulator failutreoat sun zero temps.

[BobG]

Had house cooking propane freeze one or two times in winter 67/68 in Fairbanks, AK. I don't know what the temperature was but it was below -30°F.

[alanmalk]

Originally Posted by Little Richie

We go from Chicago to Penscola. We have a 5.0 without basement insulation. We stay in hotels. We do food and water shopping when we get there. We have a box of cleaning fluids (laundry detergent, bleach etc. ) and some miscellaneous stuff, which we keep in the truck until we stop for the night. At night I just move it to the camper and turn the heat on low. It works for us.
...

I know for a fact that liquid soaps will freeze and expand their container until they crack. The result is not a pretty sight. Now I remove them from the trailer for winter.

[cpaharley2008]

Originally Posted by Iowa Dave

-20 Fahrenheit for a half a dozen times about every year here for the last 16 years and for 8 years when we were on propane in the 70s in western Iowa.
Never a problem with flow. Good regulators are important and good ignitors essential. We always fill at 20 percent if we get that low on house propane. Only one tank a year now as we
have geothermal heating and cooling and only use propane to cook with and heat some of our hot water needs.
On the camper I start the season with two full tanks and my 11 lb tank that
I use on the Weber Q, or Everest camp stove or campfire in a can. When one runs out I get it refilled at the hardware store in my home town or a a propane depot on the road. I have never exchanged tanks from a cage vendor. I like my tanks and know how they have been treated since they were new. YMMV
Iowa Dave

You mean you can refill the individual tanks on the camper? Here I was buying a whole new camper to get my tanks refilled.....

[Rockhead]

Finally he sees the light

[Iowa Dave]

Hi Jim
I’ve pretty much lived by the mantra “waste not want not”. When my Boy Scout troop had an adopt a highway segment we had a separate bag for pop and beer cans. We cashed those in for a nickel apiece. One day a kid showed me a big wheel weight he’d found that came off of a semi tractor. It was about a ten ounce piece of lead. He gave it to me and I gave him the weight of it back in assorted fishing sinkers. Pretty soon word got around and I traded away a lot of sinkers over the years. Young kids have good eyes when they know what they are looking for.
That was 30 years ago and now when I see a former scout they are quick to remind me of the simple lessons they learned from me.
I’m most proud of my naturalist lessons where I taught them to pick up deer vertebrae to clean up and paint for a personal neckerchief slide, whitetail deer front shoulder scapula for a soup spoon and deer skulls for their trophy shelf. “The skull, the last track the animal ever makes.”
Been filling propane tanks for many years, the 11 pound tank eliminated my irresponsible purchase of the throw away one pounders.
Also still using the wire toaster and George Schrade Boy Scout utensil kit from the 50’s.
Iowa Dave

[cpaharley2008]

Nice to hear from you Dave.... I have to break my habit with those 1lbs bottles for a 10-11lb model. Next time I'm near a refill station or Southern States I'll pop in......stay healthy til May.

[Brian B-P]

Originally Posted by Jill

We got a Mr Heater Little Buddy which is rated for indoor use. One won't be sufficient to heat our trailer but if it can take it to 60 inside in the dinette area we will work with that.

A Mr Heater Little Buddy is only "rated" by Mr Heater for indoor use. It burns propane, produces lots of carbon dioxide and some carbon monoxide, and is unsafe to use unattended or without substantial ventilation... but could work for this intended purpose with suitable precautions.

I have a small portable propane heater intended for emergency backup use in RVs; I would not consider having an RV with that as a normal heat source.