When we camped near Yosemite this spring, the temps dropped to freezing! We normally stay away from freezing temps in the Airstream since we only have a heat pump to keep us warm.
I did take some steps last year to help cooling, that worked equally well for heating. Since the heat pump is in the kitchen, the rear of the trailer was cooler due to the curtain.
In comes the heat pump notch!
The air from the heat pump would hit that bulkhead and keep the air flow out of the back of the trailer. The notch solved that problem.
The notch cut is centered. I never realized the heat pump wasn’t.
This one seems obvious now, but it really helps to close the bathroom door! That’s a large space to heat over night and it makes a big difference when keeping it closed. Of course, I feel sorry for anyone needing the facility at night.
Even with the lovely notch and closing the bathroom door, the heat pump starts to fall short at 40F. I’ve carried an electric ceramic heater as a back up for years. This was the first time to dig it out.
This helped a lot. It took some of the heat load off the heat pump. However when temps dipped to freezing the heat pump would let a big groan and stop blowing any heat.
Time to pull out the big gun, or Big Buddy heater.
I just picked up the big buddy after our campground lost power last fall and we needed to borrow a buddy heater. I’m glad I picked this up!
On low, this keeps the airstream inside temp in the 80’sF. It has low, med, and high settings.
This Big Buddy can hold two 16oz propane canisters that should last all night. One can only lasted around 5-6 hours. You can also get an attachment to connect to a larger tank.
You do need to follow the directions about cracking a window for fresh air. It does have tip, and low oxygen sensors, but we don’t want to rely on that. Also I recently replaced my CO and propane detector.
Well, that’s how we survived the flash freeze! We kept warm and slept well.
Of course in the morning, I turned the faucet on and nothing came out. But that’s another story….
by 