Winterising your motorhome or campervan is a process of preparing it for the cold winter months. Winterising a motorhome can help maintain the longevity of the vehicle. Winterising a motorhome or campervan is a good idea for anyone heading off on a camping trip in the winter. If you are not winterised, your van will only be able to handle short trips and will have less heating capacity. It is also more difficult to stay warm in your van when it’s cold outside.
How do I winterise my motorhome?
Winterising a motorhome is one of the most important steps to take when you are going to store your motorhome for the winter. To winterise your motorhome, there are some specific steps that you should take.
First, drain all water from sinks and showers by opening valves and turning on hot water until it runs clear.
Next, flush toilets as well as drain black and grey tanks by opening valves on each side of the tank.
Make sure all fluids in the engine are at their proper level. Anything over or under will cause problems with the engine and it will not work properly.
Run the engine and heating system for 10-15 minutes to allow all fluids in the engine, transmission and power steering to warm up well.
You also want to check your battery connections are tight, change your windshield washer fluid (if you have one), top up antifreeze levels, clean out salt build-up from underneath the vehicle with a stiff brush or vacuum cleaner attachment, close windows and turn off any propane tanks if they are used for auxiliary heaters.
A lot of people like to apply car wax or sealant on their vehicle as road salt can cause rusting so it’s important that you use a good quality product. There may also be other things needed depending on what type of motorhome you have – such as filling tires with air or cleaning filters on furnaces/propane heaters – but this is just an example of some things you might do during winterise mode.
Winterising a motorhome also includes making sure all windows, doors, and vents are sealed to prevent air from escaping since cold air is more dense and will replace any warm air inside. Winterising involves putting an oil-based sealant around the windows, door and wheels of the campervan. This makes it waterproof and prevents water from seeping into the vehicle through cracks or gaps around doors and windows or dripping down from leaks in skylights or vents on top of the van’s roof. Having one’s motorhome winterised before winter can significantly reduce costs for heating bills as well as reducing damage done by snow on vehicles.
These so-called “thermal breaks” can cost a lot of money to fix, so prevention is better than cure! Another important step in winterising your campervan is preventing moisture inside by using weatherstripping tape along seams where two pieces of metal touch one another (such as at the edges of doors) or by sealing those places with silicone caulking that dries clear like most caulks do.
can also use plastic foam insulation strips along these seams which helps keep out moisture that might seep through due to condensation on these metal surfaces which happens when warm air mixes with cold air inside your van.
Winterising also includes removing any debris that may fall off of trees during storms, something which would be difficult for an owner to do when driving on motorways with high speed limits.
Cover vents with screens or cap them with screen covers to prevent animals from entering through them and remove any items from inside that could freeze over time such as food in the fridge or ice cream in the freezer.
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I love everything about travel, from seeing new places, learning about new cultures and trying new foods! I believe that travel is one of the best forms of education you can get, I have learnt so much about myself and about the world from travelling all over. Travel is something I feel so passionately about, and I love the fact that we are now lucky enough to have this opportunity to do what we love as much as we can, it’s a dream come true.
Before we started travelling, I worked in local government in administration. I had been in this job for several years and had reached a complete brick wall where I was so fed up, but didn’t know what else to do. The only thing I knew that I wanted to do was to travel, and had wanted to do that for many years.
There were hundreds and hundreds of places on my wishlist that I wanted to go to, and I knew that going on a weeks holiday maybe twice a year if we were lucky wasn’t going to cut it.
After being in lockdown due to the Covid pandemic, and working from home staring at the same 4 walls every day, 2021 seemed like the perfect time for us to take the risk to finally do what we had dreamed of for so long.
It was a hard decision to completely change our lives, but so far it has been the best decision we have ever made!
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