# 10 week winter trip - successes, issues, lessons learned



## uncleswede (Apr 16, 2010)

We've just got back from our first every long trip (10 weeks) to the Alps in our Hymer B544, visiting various ski campsites in Austria, Italy, Switzerland and France.

I thought I would jot down some of the successes and issues we had, plus some of the lessons that we learned.

Bear in mind that this was our first winter trip and so some/all of this may be old hat to some readers - it was, however, all new to us and may help/inform others 

*Successes*

Van kept us snug and warm even when it was -20 deg C outside in St. Anton (we knew Hymer's reputation was good but were still nervous that it would not be so...)

External silver screens (from www.silverscreens.co.uk) were fabulous. We had absolutely no condensation whatsoever with them on. They also helped to keep the cab area warmer than it would have otherwise been. On the only occasion we didn't put the screen on (an overnight stop in Switzerland and blowing a blizzard) we had condensation and a noticeably colder cab area.

Apart from one occasion where the waste water valve froze up (because I forgot to put the bucket out and open the valve on an arrival day...) we had no freezing and enjoyed constant cold/hot water (our main water tank is in the hab area under a seat but we don't have a double floor)

We always found plenty of propane gas and I now have all necessary adapters and fittings for Austria, France, Switzerland and Italy

Our shower/toilet room is the best drying room ever! Each evening we put our towels/ski boots/clothes in there, open the wair air vent and they were dry in a few hours  We invariably used the campsite showers so this was not inconvenient

*Issues*

Even with the external silver screens and blankets, bubble wrap and bags of dirty clothes stuffed into crevices, the cab area was 3-4 deg C colder than the rest of the van.

One of the arms on the driver's captain seat sheared off!

*Lessons learned*

We used on average about 2.5 Kg of propane per day

Our motorised step froze in the extended position twice (WD40 to the rescue)! We learnt to operate it regularly to prevent that happening and to always leave it in the retracted position (better it freezes there than extended!)

We have an underslung LPG tank which I kept in reserve. Very early one morning, having driven 200 miles the day before, the gas cylinder ran out and the van temp had dropped to +3 deg C... No problem: stick on a few clothes, go out to the gas cupboard and, using our Truma changeover valve, switch the gas over to the underslung tank. Take 2 minutes. Aahhhh... I couldn't get the access cover off to turn on the underslung gas supply - it was held on firmly by 2-3 inches of frozen road snow. Fortunately I had a spare cylinder too but it took 10-15 mins on a very, very cold night at 4am!! The lesson learned was to clean the snow off the underslung tank access panel on arrival!

Traipsing to and from the showers in the cold weather was not unpleasant at all, contrary to what we'd feared

Our new snow chains fitted well!

We filled up with diesel in the alpine region so it had winter additives to minimise 'waxing' but we still had trouble starting the van in Italy when it had been -15 to -20 deg C for a few days. A good tip for starting diesel engines in such temperatures is to switch the ignition on and wait until the glow plugs have heated up (glow plug light goes out) but don't turn the engine over yet… Switch the ignition off then on again and do the same… And again. This repeated heating of the glow plugs makes for more reliable starting

Lifted the electrical hook up cable every day. One guy in Italy had to chip his cable out of clear ice before he could leave...

We borrowed a generator but never had to use it. However , apart from the drive down and the drive home, we only stayed on one aire (Kronplatz) for four days - all the rest of our stays were on campsites.

Rgds
CD


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## Morphology (Jul 23, 2010)

Interesting. Thanks for the post. You say you stayed mainly on campsites - did you use EHU either to recharge batteries or to run heating or did you just rely on Propane & leisure batteries for heating.

2.5Kg Gas per day doesn't seem too bad - I've used more than that on winter nights in the UK!


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## WildThingsKev (Dec 29, 2009)

Hi CD, that very much tallies with our experience. 2.5kg is a little more than we average although we have used 3kg a day for one -20 spell. Electricity on Austrian and Swiss campsites can be 70p per KWh so nobody will run their heaters on electric even if they did the job at alpine winter temperatures.

We've now spent 3 Januarys in the Alps and not had to use our snow chains yet, if touring around winter tyres are a must though.

My modified waste tank is now continuously operable at -20 as long as the blown air heating stays on.

Kev


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## uncleswede (Apr 16, 2010)

Morphology said:


> Interesting. Thanks for the post. You say you stayed mainly on campsites - did you use EHU either to recharge batteries or to run heating or did you just rely on Propane & leisure batteries for heating.
> 
> 2.5Kg Gas per day doesn't seem too bad - I've used more than that on winter nights in the UK!


We used EHU at every campsite and aire for charging our batteries but only used electricity to supplement the heating when the supply was 10A+ and EHU was charged at a flat rate. As it turns out this was only France (Sameons & Valloire) - the campsites in Austria (Arlberg at St. Anton, Schlossberg near Itter), Italy (Colfosco in the Dolomites) and Switzerland ( Eigernordwand in Grindelwald) all charged for electricity by the kWh...


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## uncleswede (Apr 16, 2010)

WildThingsKev said:


> Hi CD, that very much tallies with our experience. 2.5kg is a little more than we average although we have used 3kg a day for one -20 spell. Electricity on Austrian and Swiss campsites can be 70p per KWh so nobody will run their heaters on electric even if they did the job at alpine winter temperatures.


Agreed!



> We've now spent 3 Januarys in the Alps and not had to use our snow chains yet, if touring around winter tyres are a must though.


Again, agreed - we run winter tyres the whole year round now.

We only had to use chains the once - to get out of the Eigernordwand site in Grindelwald. It's a sloping site and they didn't seem to bother about snow-ploughing the site :-(

Not like Camping Colfosco, Italy (great site!) - they had a dedicated two man team responsible for 'snow management' who worked long days


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