Insulated skirt
Trailer with skirt
Last year we left MA before the cold weather set in. This year we waited long enough to see campgrounds close and witness the preparations for those foolish enough to ride out the winter in New England in their RVs. There are more of them than I would have expected. I think there are only a handful of RV parks in the northeast that stay open all year – I found one in Maine and I think the Circle Cg Family Campground in Bellingham, where we stayed for 2 weeks, is the only one in Massachusetts. So those who must stay in the area and have no other accommodations gather in these few locations, like homeless people huddling around a fire, to hunker down and ride out the cold and snow.
A popular preparation for cold weather is the installation of insulated skirts, as shown above. This has the effect of slowing the flow of air under the RV and decreasing the loss of heat through the underbelly. When snow comes it would also prevent snow from accumulating under the vehicle. I don’t know how effective this is and I really have no interest in finding out.
Most RVs also switch over to large, 100 lb propane tanks (also shown above). A lot of propane will be consumed during the winter months to heat the RV, many of which are not well insulated. I don’t know how much propane we would have consumed if we had stayed all winter but, again, I have no interest in finding out.
A few RVers take additional steps. One Class C owner installed a tarp over his roof. Maybe he had a leak? Maybe he didn’t want ice dams forming? I don’t know.
Class C with tarp
There was also one trailer owner who had a cord of wood stacked up outside his RV. I can’t imagine that he had a wood-burning stove inside – and I didn’t see any exhaust pipe that would suggest that – but why else would you have a cord of wood in a campground? Is a mid-winter campfire fun?
One problem that all will have during the winter is frozen pipes. Even the sewer lines will freeze and I don’t even want to think about how I would deal with that messy problem. As for water pipes, my understanding is that the campground shuts off the water and then has a water truck that comes by periodically to fill the RV water tank. Again, not a task that I would enjoy in freezing temperatures with snow on the ground.
So good luck to all who are hunkering down. We are headed south.