‘Here I stand, and here I’ll stay-
Let the storm rage on….
The cold never bothered me anyway.’

From the Disney movie ‘Frozen’.

Well, hopefully it won’t bother us, now that we’ve made a few modifications after last week’s cold snap! Once the temperature dropped below freezing, we noticed that our bedroom slide had a lot of moisture building up on the outside wall. Also, the upper cabinets were experiencing the same thing. We tried running the vent fans, but that barely seemed to help the situation. Our DampRid canisters didn’t do a thing to help. We even purchased a small dehumidifier, which still was not enough to draw out the moisture from those areas. The bedroom slide didn’t have the benefit of being able to be skirted to the ground, as it is so high up, and it has the propane tank compartment right below it. So, here is what we ended up doing:

Not exactly pretty, but we encased the slide in foam sheathing. We even cut window holes into it and put some plexiglas in to allow light into the bedroom. We immediately noticed a difference. We still need a good post-modification cold snap to confirm our efforts, but we think we will be OK.

As for the cabinets, we used these rechargeable wireless dehumidifiers from EvaDry. They work especially well for cabinets.

The reviews on this product are favorable, so we decided to give them a try. We will update on them in a future post.

Our biggest positive so far has been the skirting. The temperature below the RV has yet to drop below 45 degrees. We have an electric heater down there ready to go, but we have not had to turn it on yet. We were down to 25 degrees outside one morning, but the skirted area stayed plenty warm. In the month of October, we occupied the rig for 19 days. We used $75 worth of propane (90 pounds) and $60 in electricity. Not too bad.

We have another ace in the hole to combat our moisture problem:

We have a membership at our local YMCA! We were going to put it on hold once we started out on the road, but decided to keep it through this winter. It is a nice place to get away, a great way to stay in shape, and a sure-fire way to keep the shower steam out of our fifth wheel!

In the earlier photo of the bedroom slide, the covering for the sewer line is able to be seen. We actually used solid PVC pipe for the sewer to allow for smoother flow…just in case things get clumpy. 🙂

We hinged the end of the covering with silver tape and weighted the underside with a piece of wood. We will open this when dumping the tanks, so as to allow the sewer gases to escape, and not run back up under the trailer.

We also have a large access door for the heater and two of our three sewer levers. The silver piece of foam flops down over the door to hold it shut.

The inside connection can be seen through this door. We have a clear connector on the pipe, so we can monitor the flow. Just what you want to see, right? One of our dear friends refers to the dumping process as a ‘blue job’, as it is for boys only.

Another modification was a foam box over the air conditioner. We had heard that a lot of heat is lost through an air conditioner, so we followed a few of our neighbors leads and built this.

We used these small clamps from Home Depot to give us an attachment to the gutter, in order to allow us to have something to attach the bungee cord to. We found them in the electrical department.

We also boxed in the fresh water connection to the RV. As you can see, we have a Pirit heated water hose. So far, it is working great!

The final modification we have done is using window film on the inside of the windows. These are the plastic sheets that you tape on the window frame and use a hair dryer to make them taut. As you can see, the film still allows us to see outside quite well. Our large rear window is pointed due south, so we are looking forward to a little solar heat this winter!

So there you have it! We are pretty sure we are set for the cold. Bring it on, Queen Elsa! We will post updates on how everything is holding up in future posts.

Safe travels!

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