Caravaning over the winter months

[RogerL]

We do the odd trip but only if the weather is favourable at short notice. We have blown air and once you learn how to control it to heat everywhere, it works well. Given the short length of ducting under a caravan if you have that I doubt the heat loss is that great, but others do not accept that. With small two berths this is all you need and wet systems there are to me over specified.
The heater is under the front offside seat which may or may not be used as a bed. The run after this on our is down the offside and not under any bed so only the front seat area gets warm inside.

With blown air, the length of ducting under the caravan varies considerably depending on the layout - the heat loss thorough the uninsulated longer runs is substantial.

 

[Beachball]

For four years we were using the caravan we had then in the winter months because we were caring for my wife Auntie who live in Newcastle a 150 miles away from home until she passed away .
(This was twenty years ago when i was younger)

 

[Buckman]

It would need to be beep cold for the drain pipes to freeze ?

Surely as they are drain pipes there should not be any waste water in them anyway? However your wastemaster could freeze due to the large surface area exposed. We added some Elsan blue and that stop it freezing.

 

[JezzerB]

We've had both but our aldehas underfloor heating which I'd a bit of an unfair comparison,suffice to say after a year of use it's simply the best heated caravan we've ever had. Great to warm cold toes on the floor, plenty of programmable options and temp maintenance is quieter and see,s more accurate than blown and more even, but we were v happy with blown!

 

[JSiggy]

I insulated my external blown air pipe with a product from "Aircon Spares" or "Pipe Lagging" after reading about it on a caravan forum. The product is called Armaflex Black Nitrile Foam. Not sure if I bought 80mm diameter of 2 metres length, not expensive. Product Code is "L378". The company is a specialist insulation company. Easily cut with a S----Knife and fixed with TieWraps. I tested the finished job by putting the heating on full and all directed all air down the insulated part, feeling the part by hand there was no heat on the outside of the insulation so I considered the job done.

 

[MarkandDeb]

Yes to winter caravanning for us, all year round when possible. But then again maybe we are spoiled with the Alde heating in our caravan. Put it on a set temperature and it will stay nice and comfy or is my wife calls it: nice and toastie.

 

[Kevin M]

We van all year round and also find the Alde heating great when it gets really cold.
Only concession we make during winter is using a fully serviced, hard standing pitch.
We were out in 2018 (I think) when the Best from the East hit, no issues whatsoever as we were in Love to Stay in Shrewsbury and they really looked after everyone, even allowing us to leave the van there for an extra week free of charge until the snow had cleared.
As with others, use propane and lag your water pipes and most of all, enjoy yourselves.

Kev

 

[littlebasher]

I insulated my external blown air pipe with a product from "Aircon Spares" or "Pipe Lagging" after reading about it on a caravan forum. The product is called Armaflex Black Nitrile Foam. Not sure if I bought 80mm diameter of 2 metres length, not expensive. Product Code is "L378". The company is a specialist insulation company. Easily cut with a S----Knife and fixed with TieWraps. I tested the finished job by putting the heating on full and all directed all air down the insulated part, feeling the part by hand there was no heat on the outside of the insulation so I considered the job done.

Thanks, i've ordered 6m of that (as there appears to be at least 5 meters of exposed ducting under the van!)

 

[ProfJohnL]

Thanks, i've ordered 6m of that (as there appears to be at least 5 meters of exposed ducting under the van!)

5m of exposed ducting? That seems an incredible amount. Just out of interest what make and model of caravan do you have?

I doubt the ducting is actually unprotected. It will most likely have a length of DR ducting with the standard UR ducting inside. The DR ducting is plasticised and so is water proof, and simply by having a second skin, that will reduce heat loss quite considerably especially as teh outers skin is less thermally conductive. So there is a little to be gained by extra insulation, but not as much as you might imagine.

 

[Dustydog]

My last three caravans over twenty years never had the hot air pipes mounted externally. The Wyoming pipes are all internal. Any heat loss through the pipes is offered to the inside. Very warming👍

 

[otherclive]

My last three caravans over twenty years never had the hot air pipes mounted externally. The Wyoming pipes are all internal. Any heat loss through the pipes is offered to the inside. Very warming👍

Ditto

 

[littlebasher]

5m of exposed ducting? That seems an incredible amount. Just out of interest what make and model of caravan do you have?

I doubt the ducting is actually unprotected. It will most likely have a length of DR ducting with the standard UR ducting inside. The DR ducting is plasticised and so is water proof, and simply by having a second skin, that will reduce heat loss quite considerably especially as teh outers skin is less thermally conductive. So there is a little to be gained by extra insulation, but not as much as you might imagine.

A Lunar Solaris (Quasar) manufactured in 2019 - that's a total of 5m for two separate internal vents. The run to the washroom is around 3.5 meters

Ducting is indeed sleeved where it goes outside, but it is also radiating heat to the air needlessly.

Even a marginal gain in the washroom would be beneficial, so for the sake of £40 it's worth a try. Also, it'll give me something to fiddle with during a tier 3 lockdown!

 

[Beachball]

We also been away it was cold and frosty stopping near Matlock putting the insulated cover on the Aqua roll next morning look out it was thick snow .but we had a great time .

 

[ProfJohnL]

Whilst it has been correctly mentioned that during frosty weather conditions Butane gas may stop working (commonly but erroneously called "freezing", It actually stops boiling) and you should swap to Propane LPG. There is some times a thought that if the bottle gets cold perhaps it should be insulated......NO!

LPG (both Butane and Propane) rely on the surface area of tank to absorb heat energy from the ambient to air to power the evaporation of the liquified content into a gas. If you insulate the bottle you stifle the flow of ambient heat energy making the situation worse.

Liquified Butane gas stops boiling off at about 0C where as Liquified Propane will still just boil off at -40C hence its use in winter.