So-So in sub freezing weather
Since I routinely camp in Colorado Campgrounds at 9000 to 10000 feet from May through Sept and have done so for 5 seasons, I have a lot of cool-cold weather experience with a TM....most nights in the 30s, many in the high 20s to low 30s.
As a prospective TM owner, I am curious how TMs do in the cold.
We were in our pup this past weekend. Night temps in the 20's and 6" of snow outside. We had an electric heater going on 'medium' all the time. It did ok in the day, but the furnace would kick on when the inside temp dropped below 55 (at night). We would like to extend our camping into October, but it gets a little nippy up here in the mountains by then. So, my 3 questions (for now) are:
1. Do the bunk ends on the TM get colder than the rest of the unit like on a pop-up?
Yes, substantially so. The bed end of my 2720SL runs around 20 degrees colder than the rest of the trailer.
2. With 6" of snow on top of the unit, I assume I would have to find a way to get that off before closing down. (?)
Absolutely. I got 3 - 4 inches of wet, heavy snow on the roof one night in late August while camping at Colorado State Forest State Park (Ranger Lakes CG)...no real surprise since that campground is right at the base of the Never Summer Mountains. I swept/pushed as much of the stuff off the roof as I could but the shells still came down very hard and fast even so (not a good thing). 6 inches of super dry, fluffy snow wouldn't be a problem but generally snow that falls with temps in the mid to upper 20s is fairly wet & heavy so it must be removed before closing.
3. Is the plumbing insulated enough to keep it from freezing (ours got a little ice in it this time, but cleared out when running the pump a bit).
Depending on the model the
internal plumbing (fresh water tank, piping, pump, etc.) should
not freeze if the external temps remain in the 20s and there isn't much wind. However the water pump on the 2720 and 3124 front slide models is mounted on the outside wall inside the lower kitchen cabinet. Since that wall only has an inch of insulation, it could get cold enough inside the cabinet to freeze the pump if you had 8 to 10 hours of mid 20s or lower temps outside..
I respectfully disagree with Bill about the external tank grey water not freezing if you have sustained (6 to 8 hours) of temps in the 20s. I don't think an ounce or so of detergent is going to depress the freezing point of 20-28 gallons of water more than a degree, if that. And even though the water entering the tank may be warm, that tank has a huge amount of surface area relative to its volume so it will cool down very quickly. And even if the tank doesn't freeze completely solid, the drain pipe and valve area will. So on my last trip (with night time temps forecast to be in the mid 20s and day time temps in the 50s), I poured 2 gallons of RV antifreeze into this tank upon arrival at the campground. And although the nightime temps were around 25 for about 8 hours, I did not experience any freezing....the drain valve worked correctly and the tank completely drained at the dump station on the morning of my departure (with an ambient temp of 27). Since RV antifreeze is a pre-mix, it doesn't have the effectiveness of pure antifreeze but I suspect the 2 gallons I added when combined with about 23 gallons of waste water depressed the freezing point down to the mid teens. My recommendation is therefore to pour a gallon or two of RV antifreeze into the grey tank (via the tub drain) upon arrival if night temps will be in the mid 20s or lower.
I simply will not use water/sewer hookups when the night time temps are forecast to be below freezing. Even if the campsite has a water connection (very few of the campgrounds I use do), I just use it to fill the internal fresh water tank. I'll defer to Bill's recommendation about disconnecting the sewer as I hardly ever camp in any "campground" or RV Park that actually has a sewer hookup at each campsite.
As for supplemental electric heat, that presumes that you're at a campground that has electrical hookups. If you're fortunate to be in a campground that does have hookups, then yes, a small cube heater greatly reduces the run time of the furnace...and the electrical hookup provides unlimited power for the furnace blower. But if you are boondocking sans hookups (which I do about 2/3rds of the time), then expect the furnace to run nearly steadily...and the furnace blower to rapidly drain the battery. I have dual batteries and a largish solar panel array and probably could go for 3 or 4 days without much problem as long as the days were sunny and the campsite wasn't shaded. Without that much power, I suspect one, maybe two days/nights of electrical drain from the furnace and lighting would deplete a single battery. And propane usage will skyrocket...figure on burning 2 gallons or more per day.
IMO, the biggest places for heat loss in a TM are the windows and gaps in the seals.
TMs have lots of windows and the glass in those windows is very thin so they really lose heat. But simply closing all the curtains at night causes there to be a trapped layer of insulating air between each window and its curtain and that layer greatly reduces the heat loss through the windows.
But if it's windy as well as cold (pretty typical combo in Colorado in Oct), my experience is there are enough gaps in the seals to really let in a lot of cold drafts. As they age, all TMs experience the development of some seal gaps around the edges of the beds...but these are fairly readily combatted by using various kinds of draft-stop tubes. Although the front slide models (2720SL and SD, 3124KS, 3326KS) don't have a front bed and its associated side gaps, they have a much greater seal challenge between the front upper shell and walls of the lower shell/slide. In my 2720SL, for instance, there are about 25 linear feet of flaps (5 flaps in total) that are attached to the upper shell to seal it to the lower shell via velcro. As the trailer has aged, I've found that it's a real challenge during setup to insure that many feet of velcro are sealed with no wrinkles and full overlap on all connections. Cause even a small wrinkle anywhere along the flap seals produces enough of an air gap for a cold wind to make a pretty cold draft inside the trailer.
So after camping for literally dozens of nights with near freezing or even sub freezing weather, I certainly agree that a TM is much better than a popup. And as long as the night time temps stay in the 30s or 40s, it's not much trouble to stay comfortably warm with or without electrical hookups. But if the night time temps drop in the mid to low 20s, especially if accompanied by wind, then things get a lot more challenging, especially if you don't have electrical hookups. And if there's snow you've got two problems...the stuff has to be gotten off the roof before you close the trailer and towing becomes a real scary process.
