In our continuing series on boondocking, today we’ll be sharing some our tips for keeping warm when it gets a bit nippy out there.
Boondocking is staying in places without hook-ups (water, electricity or sewer) and generally out in the boonies’. You might also hear terms like wild camping and dry camping to describe it.
Now, this isn’t about extreme cold camping. Our rule of thumb is if it’s too cold to keep comfortably warm without extreme measures – it’s time to HEAD SOMEWHERE WARMER or at least to electric hook-ups!
Our house has wheels, and we know how to use them.
This is about those nights when you’re in a place with every intention of being in a temperate climate, and a polar vortex’s fingertips sends the temperatures dipping into the 30s or perhaps a bit lower for a handful of nights.
Keeping in the Know
When living in a house on wheels, it’s pretty important to go the extra step to keep on top of the local weather conditions.
If you have the ability to tune in local television channels, they can be a great resource. And of course having a weather alert radio on board is definitely recommended – however we generally only take the time to set ours up when we know impending bad weather may be approaching, or we’re setting up somewhere longer term.
Our go-to resources for keeping on top of the weather is mobile apps. Many can automatically detect when we’ve changed locations to give us our new location’s forecast and alerts. As we prioritize having good internet connectivity wherever we go, this is usually a lot easier for us than programming our weather radio to the local channels.
- For emergency weather alerts, we like the app Weather Radio (App Store | Google Play).
- For hyper local and immediate future forecasts, we like Dark Sky (App Store).
- And for longer term forecasts we like The Weather Channel App (App Store | Google Play) and Weather Underground App (App Store | Google Play).
We’ve just trained ourselves to check Dark Sky and at least one of the other apps regularly to make sure we know about any impending weather events coming up. If we see a cold snap is coming up, we know to be prepared for for chilly camping by buttoning up before the sun goes down to preserve as much daytime heat as possible for the evening.
Heating Things Up
When you’re boondocking, conserving resources is everything. You only have access to what you can carry out to your location.
Run out of propane, you may have to travel many miles to get a refill. Run out of stored power in your battery, and you may have to resort to running a generator. Which of course runs fuel, which is also constrained by how much you can carry out to your location.
Many RVs come equipped with a propane powered furnace as the main living space heating. And they can heat the space up indeed. However, they can also burn gobs of propane pretty quickly and the fan mechanism & controls suck up 12v power. They can also be mighty loud. Many boondockers we know avoid using their propane furnace if they can.
For us, we don’t have a central furnace installed on our bus (new in 2015: we installed a propane hydronics system for our heating) as we went propane free.
Here’s some alternative ways to generate some heat while boondocking:
Vent free heaters: Vent free propane heaters heat the interior air of the RV, instead of bringing in cold air from outside, heating it up and blowing it inside. This saves a lot of power, but can produce some extra dampness inside. There are generally two kinds of these style of heater – infrared radiant (ceramic and catalytic varieties – such as the Olympian Wave Heaters) and blue-flame heaters. Most of these options will require figuring out plumbing an external propane source into the heater – making them a bit more of a permanent installation, or dealing with a hose coming through openings in the RV. Which also means pre-thought as to where you want to heat.
Portable propane heaters: The Mr. Heater Portable Buddy propane heaters are quite popular with boondockers who only occasionally deal with chilly temperatures (which includes us). They use the 1-lb camping style propane bottles, and thus can be moved around the area of the RV you’re trying to heat. A single bottle can last 3-6 hrs, depending on the setting you leave the heater on, and you can get an adaptor hose to use them with larger propane bottles. The downside is, of course using a lot of those little bottles and that the units don’t have any automated controls for timing or temperature control.
Personal Space Heaters: Running a conventional 1500w+ space heater off solar or batteries is likely not an option for most boondockers (our electrical system can sustain it for a couple hours if needed). However personal space heaters can do wonders to heat up a very small area – which is sometimes all you need. We have two Lasko MyHeat on board, which use just 200w of power. They’re great to break the chill in our desk area in the morning, or heat up the head of the bed in the evening. They can also be used in the plumbing bay if we fear freezing lines to help keep things warm down below.- Electric Blankets: An electric blanket can also help keep the chill down in bed. There’s everything from full size blankets that run off regular 110 (requiring an inverter), and there are also boondocking friendly 12v blankets that can help pre-warm a bed or sitting surface.
There are of course other ways of heating up an area to keep it comfortable – some folks install wood or oil burning stoves if they frequently cold camp, or diesel hydronic boiler systems.
You can also burn a candle, heat up water, cook indoors or even run a computer for a little extra warmth. Our first year on the road we traveled in a 16′ T@b teardrop trailer – a single laptop running for an hour or so was usually enough to keep the inside warm on a chilly night.
Prior to 2015, in our bus, we use the Mr. Heater Buddy quite successfully. Now we just turn the hydronics on and have radiant heat. But we only attempt to heat up the room we’re currently in. When we retire for the evening to bed, we close the door to the living space of the bus to keep the warmth in the bedroom. It works really well.
Of particular note, if you’re using any sort of fuel to heat – it’s extra important to have a Carbon Monixide (CO) detector, and to crack a window for fresh air flow.
Keeping the Warmth In
Once you have it warm inside, you really do want to maximize that warmth created by keeping it indoors. Of course, make sure you’ve closed off any unnecessary vents or windows (if you’re running propane, you probably do need to crack a window to help dissipate some of the excess moisture).
Other tips for maximizing the warmth:
- Cover Windows & Stuff Vents: Windows, especially single pane ones, can quickly let the cold in. Cold weather is not the time to be enjoying the view. Close all blinds, drapes and window coverings to help trap the heat inside. On extra chilly nights, we’ve even gone so far as stuffing blankets in-between the blinds and our windows. You can also buy Reflectix Bubble Insulation for windows and vent opening insulation.
- Fuzzy Blankets: When the cold weather comes on, we switch out our bed sheets for microfiber plush sheets that are well worth the space to store. They keep us extra snuggly warm, and can often times keep us warm enough that we don’t need much more than running a heater for a bit before bedtime. We also keep nice warm throw blankets around.
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Ready for a chilly evening. Dress for the cold: It should of course go without saying, dress for the weather. The sweat pants, robes and slippers come out when its chilly. No sense burning through energy to heat, when an extra layer or two can help keep us warm.
- Eat and Drink for the cold: Preparing a warm meal can not only help heat up the interior of your RV, it can also warm you up. We love preparing a nice hearty soup on a cold evening, and of course a cup of hot tea or hot chocolate warms the soul.
- Snuggle: Cold weather is a prefect time to snuggle up (or more) with the one(s) you love. On chilly nights, Chris, Kiki (our cat) and I pretty much are an inseparable cuddle pile. It’s my favorite part of chilly nights!
So that’s how we keep warm on those chilly nights while boondocking. Have other ideas? We’d love to hear them in the comments!
Related Posts:
- Our (new) Boondocking Resources Page (including our RV Boondocking Basics Video)
- Solar for RVs
- Back to Boondocking: Extending the Holding Tanks
- Finding Magical Boondocking Locations
- Guide to Finding Campground & Boondocking
Thank YOU for sharing how you keep warm on cold nights. My wife and I are planning on becoming full time RVers by June 2016. With it getting cold here in the Palm Springs area we were just talking about this subject. We really appreciate all the info you share.
What about the Propex heaters where the warming flame gets its oxygen from the outside plus it has auto temperature control features? it is pricey [at $800.] but maybe worth mentioning for some, I definitely hope to get one someday for my van, it may be too small for your RV but not if installed in your bedroom.
Cool.. thanks for mentioning the option. For us, if we’re going to that expense – we might as well go full on diesel hydronics however. Our temporary protable option is working just fine for the few chilly nights we encounter.
I have just recently discovered your site and have really enjoyed reading your articles. I use to own a truck camper and I am looking to buy a RV in the next year or two.
I often took trips in my truck camper to xc-ski in the mountains of Colorado. I found that Mr. Buddy heater would only run for about 5 minutes then shut off. I thought I had a defective heater until I remembered that the heater has a built in low oxygen cut-off. I was somewhere above 10,000 ft. So be aware at high altitudes the Mr. Buddy heater may not work properly due to the low oxygen cut-off.
Propane at high altitude always has its challenges.
A few quick thoughts from a hillbilly wh has lived in a tipi in the Appalachian mountains. First, to find out about the weather, listen to the NOAA frequencies in the 162.400-162.550 mhz range. Unless you’re in a really horrible RF hole, you’ll have access to at least one NOAA station. Info is straight from the source, most other outlets use this same info since the taxpayers supply it for free to all who’ll listen.
Second, keep your head and feet warm. Wear a head covering and multiple layers on your feet. You lose most of your heat through your head, so wear a toboggan, even when indoors and to bed. (Remember, “ma in her kerchef and I in my cap”. If your feet are cold, you will be cold, so, in addition to your slippers, wear a couple of pairs of socks. Trust me, it really does work.
I’ve learned to keep a small blanket handy and use it like a cape over my shoulders. Works wonders.
My final tip…Don’t diet during the winter. When I’m on trying to lose weight, I’m always cold. Go on a diet in April, come off of it in mid-November, just in time for Thanksgiving.
Good tips for surviving a COLD winter. For us, if we’re needing to wear clothing to bed to keep warm, we’ve gone past ‘chilly’ camping and it’s time to head for warmer climates 🙂
When outside Williamsburg, VA, in November during a cold snap, my holding tanks did not freeze – but the line feeding the water pump most certainly did. (I was not Boondocking but disconnected from water to avoid freezing the spigot.) A low-wattage light bulb inserted in the outside bin of my 2006 Winnebago View kept the lines from freezing.
We encountered some chilly weather about a year ago.. and went to buy a bulb to light in the bay to keep lines from freezing. It was pretty darn difficult to find a regular old fashion bulb that generates heat. Everything’s gone energy efficient LED 😀 But, if you can find a bulb, it’s a good trick. We now have our inverter in the plumbing bay, which generates some nice warming effects for the tanks.
Thanks for your video chat tonight, as always lots of great information. You guys are awesome!
Thanks for joining in.. it was super fun!
This is great, guys. I look forward to seeing a “Keeping Cool” article sometime in the future (when it’s hot). In the meantime, this bad boy is bookmarked!
Hahaha.. this red head don’t do ‘hot’ anymore. We head for the hills/mountains, to the north or to hook-ups. 🙂
For those folks with slides, it does help to bring them in also. An important part of our desired floor plan was a functional livings space with slides in. When needed – low 20’s – we also run the generator in the morning just long enough to heat the entire coach, above and below, exercising it with a good load by running the furnace, a space heater, coffee maker, microwave, quick vacuum, battery charge, etc. Then we are good for the day with Mr. Heater, if necessary.
Ahh.. good tip for slides. We’ve never had slides on any of our RVs, so wouldn’t have thought of that. Thanks!
As I write this we are in our well insulated home here on China Lake in Maine… At the moment the temp it is 0F that is ZERO F….(Minus 18 C)…. We have a nice woodstove that makes coming in from the cold a real pleasure. The real nice thing about woodstoves is backing your butt up to the stove and get warmed to the core… IF we had a bigger RV we might consider a woodstove…. AND one really designed for boats, rv’s and tiny houses is the Kimberly stove built in Oregon. http://www.unforgettablefirellc.com/ There is a great backstory about the inventor. The stove can be put in small places and even has provisions for getting fresh air direct from outside. AND I don’t have any direct experience with it. But worth mentioning for those who might.
AND my favorite weather app available for Android and iOS is WeatherBug. You can automatically get the weather alerts based on location from the NWS plus they have a cool feature for summer time… “SPARK” it shows in real time on a map where the lightning strikes are and also recommends “Take cover now” when strikes are close. I use and prefer this app over others that you mentioned.
AND of course, cuddling is the best!
-Bob & Lynne
South China, Maine USA
If we were doing lots of cold camping, we’d consider something more robust. But for the occasional cold snap, it’s just not worth the space premium for us.
Where are you guys? Are you coming to Q?
We’ll be arriving to the Q soon .. got some things to finalize and we’ll be announcing a meet-up soon 🙂
Plan ahead. It got down to 5 degrees recently in the NC mountains where I usually camp, but a couple of weeks ago I headed to south Florida. I’m near Vero Beach, FL now and it has been in the 70s and 80s most of the time. Since your house has wheels use them.
Oh goodness, if we saw single digits approaching we’d be driving elsewhere too. Enjoy the Treasure Coast!
If it’s cold and I don’t want to turn on the heat, I use a hot water bottle. Ok, sure it may be old fashioned but it’s clean and safe. Fill with hot water, wrap in a towel, place at the bottom of bed for feet and stay cozy all night! Snuggling is another great way to stay warm.
Snuggling is our favorite, for sure!
We’ve been RVing in Michigan this winter, as Diana has been watching over her mom. We noticed a lot of interest in our experiences when that last cold snap hit down south. It is one thing when you are anticipating it and quite another when it is a surprise. Best of luck to our fellow RVers down south!
Jim
Those surprise cold snaps can catch you off guard for sure.
These are some great suggestions. I love a good weather app so thanks for clueing me in to Dark Sky. I like the crowd sourced content that Weather Underground provides but Dark Sky looks very intriguing. Look forward to seeing you soon!
Dark Sky is a pretty cool project, the people behind it are pretty inspirational. Can’t wait to see you guys soon!
I’m not a fan of the cold either. Although we live in central California, it does get cold during the winters. We’ve had a dual control heating mattress pad for years and we love it. I’ll turn it on medium a couple of hours before I’m ready for bed to warm my side. Once I climb in, I’ll turn it off. I like the idea of fuzzy sheets but Ron isn’t a fan of sleeping warm so the heating mattress pad works great for us. This is one item that’s going into our RV.
Wonder how much power a heating mattress would use up.. could be a nice compliment!
This wind map I find helpful–especially in the SW. (not sure if has an app)
http://hint.fm/wind/
I would have responded to this sooner, but I got totally mesmerized with that link. That’s just beautiful, and informative.. super geek points. Thank you!
Nice tops to help folks understand they don’t have to run from the cold while RVing. I’ve been in mine all the way down to 15° F. That’s really pushing it for my rv, but been there, and done it. I’ve been able to embrace the winter weather as part of my love of the outdoors, and take that along with the RV experiences. I mean heck, it is a house on wheels, right?
If any one reading this is camped in such conditions, or colder, another thing to be aware of is protecting the dump valves on the holding tanks as most are exposed to the elements. You definitely don’t want those to suffer freeze damage.
Now get out there and enjoy the great outdoors!
We’ve done down to zero in an RV before, and it was downright miserable to try to keep up with everything. It was an unexpected cold snap in an area we had obligations at, so it can happen for sure. Thankfully we had electric hook-ups then to supplement with space heaters galore. And we did as much plumbing winterizing as we could.
These days, we try to avoid obligations so we can keep mobile and get out of extreme cold like that. But a few days of chilly? Not a problem.
WOh…zero os down right frigid! Especially if it was in one of the light weight little trailers of your past, as most aren’t made for those conditions. I’m glad you made it through it all without hypothermia. 🙂
It was thankfully in the Oliver Travel Trailer, which is designed for seasonal camping with its dual hulls and double pane windows. But still, it was challenging. We had the propane furnace running non-stop inside.. and had to open up a hatch into the hulls to direct an electric space heater to keep the plumbing happy. Now I believe they install heat in between the hulls on the new model.
For me, you just can’t beat having a hubby who will take the dog out in the chill morning hours! If it were up to me I’d look like the little brother in Christmas Story and likely never make it back in the rig….. We’re also thinking of a dual control heated mattress pad that will warm up the bed quickly. Thanks for more great tips!!
Your hubby is such a sweetie .. and makes me feel blessed that Kiki is a cat who likes to sleep in on cold chilly mornings.
Love our dual control heating mattress pad and it is definitely coming in the RV.
Boondocking at Quartzsite for the last few weeks, we have experienced that same below average polar chill as you all. Like many RVs, our 2004 Itasca Suncruiser 38R came with wide open propane furnace floor vents. It was a quick slam dunk to take control of our vents by replacing them with same-size vents from a home improvement store that can be opened and closed. So when in the living room on chilly evenings, we close the vents in the back to force more hot air to the front for our comfort. When we go to bed, we close the front vents, open the rear vents, and close the hall door as we turn the furnace down to 60°. If the furnace comes on in the wee morning hours, it is very brief to just warm the bedroom area and in our coach the propane furnace bleeds some warm air into the tank area under the floor, insuring no freeze-ups!
Heating only the area you’re in is a great tip.. and excellent and simple mod for those with vents. Thanks!
Oh oh, now I know I am in trouble! Barb and I boondock about 50% of the time, when she sees the personal heaters she is going to want on to keep under her fuzzy blanket! Luckily they don’t look too expensive. We just got into Texas where the temps are in the upper 20’s right now and only getting up to mid 30’s.
The personal heaters are great… and under $20 too. I point one under the blankets to pre-warm the bed a bit. Helps so much!
Please, please don’t forget a CO (Carbon Monoxide) detector if you are using a propane/kerosene/diesel etc heater! They don’t cost much and it can save your life! Also, keep a window cracked to allow fresh air in and the gasses out, you WANT air flow to keep the air fresh. Great tips on keeping warm, thanks!!!!!
Excellent point… I’ve added the CO detector to the heater section. Thanks for helping keep folks safe!