Keep The Heat!

Whether your RV adventure is snow-birding, or weekend get-aways, you will encounter cold nights. Low R-value walls, single-pane windows, and undersized furnaces make keeping heat in your RV a challenge.

Here’s some good news though… 6 easy and inexpensive things you can do to keep you a lot more toasty inside your RV. All of these can be done from inside your RV so you can easily move to your next destination:

1) Supplement propane heat with electric heat. Using a ceramic or oil heater plugged into an electrical outlet can help add more heat to your RV. If these cause your breaker to blow, try running a separate extension cord from the 15 amp plug on the RV park pedestal (possibly in through a slide seal) so you are not using your allotted 30 or 50 amp service. Remember to use your RV propane furnace when the temps are below freezing because most RV furnaces have a duct blowing into your storage area and/or underbelly water piping areas.

2) Stuff insulation in your Air Conditioning units. You can purchase a small roll of fiberglass insulation and tear off what you need. Wear safety glasses, and be very careful not to put it close to the wires and try not to disturb the middle air baffle. Next, cover the filters with Glad® Press’n Seal® Food Wrap and re-insert them into the ceiling unit, including the screen cover for a clean look:

3) Similar to the above, stuff insulation in all ceiling duct vents, and seal the vent cover…maybe even with a Holiday look:

4) Purchase Reflectix from a home supply store and cut it with scissors to the shape of your least-used windows. This works best if you can allow a bit of gap between the glass and Reflectix, maybe use Scotch Tape to hold it in place.

5) Fill in ceiling vents and skylights with foam insulation cut out of 2″ thick foil-faced panel, purchased from a local home store. I removed my vent trim with the 4 screws to trace the exact shape needed and cut it out with a serrated edge steak knife. Then, using packing tape, I wrapped the edges to seal in those pesky little white foam balls. Also, be sure to use the packing tape with one end folded over to create “tabs” to easily remove the insulation when you need to use the vent.

Click below if you don’t want to make one!

And here is what fits most shower skylights:

6) Seal your slides with pipe insulation. These are only a few dollars at Home Depot or Lowes, and work well when you slit them open (they come pre-cut) and slide them in the open gap under your slides. I get the smallest size for a 1/2″ pipe.

If done well, you will notice a huge difference in your RV heat retention, and each item can be easily and quickly removed and re-used as needed. Quick and easy…that keeps RVing fun…not frustrating!

If you need help preparing items such as the above, please contact me when I am in your area!