Q How do I winterise my campervan?

Being new to motorhoming, we would like some advice around using the ’van in normal British winter conditions. How cold can we go and still avoid damage to the water tanks, boiler, etc? Is there anything we can do to protect the water systems? We have an Auto-Trail 610 SE, which is not winterised, so any help/tips would be much appreciated.

Jonathan Wells

AThis question revolves around the heating system in your ’van and the placement of the fresh water tank. I think the fresh water tank is inside the bodywork on an Auto-Trail 610 SE, so there is minimal risk of it freezing up. If the heating system is kept on at a low level, it’s unlikely your water system would be affected. Water can freeze in the underslung waste water tank but, unless you’ve used a whole tank of fresh water, this is unlikely to be an issue – just drain it when it thaws out. You can add an external heating pad to the waste water tank, together with some insulation to prevent this happening. These kits simply wire into the 12V leisure battery system and you could even add a thermostat so it automatically activates at a preset temperature. Some people carry buckets and leave the waste tap open to drain into the bucket in particularly cold temperatures, but you just need to remember to empty the bucket.

At three degrees and under, the automatic drain valve on your Truma boiler may trigger to drain out the fresh water and this will automatically drain your fresh water tank. However, that will only happen if the heating is off. So if the ’van is being driven, or you’re pitched up with the heating on, it’s unlikely to be an issue.

The majority of motorhomes are very capable of handling winter conditions and even those fitted with diesel-powered heating are unlikely to have an issue so long as they fill up with winter diesel (typically available in the UK from mid-November until mid-March and is swapped over automatically by the fuel companies). Diesel is known to form wax crystals at low temperatures and can plug fuel lines – but this only happens at around -11˚C, so it would have to be pretty extreme weather in somewhere very northerly for this to ever be an issue in the UK.

Most motorhome tyres are also rated for mud and snow, so again this is unlikely to give you any issues. In very snowy conditions, or if you plan to travel to Scotland or into Europe, we’d suggest fitting full snow tyres.

Peter Rosenthal

Check out the winterisation article in the December 2021 issue – get a digital copy at motorhome.ma/mmmpocketmags or via the digital library for access to this and thousands of other articles at motorhome.ma/mmmexact