{"id":36805,"date":"2019-11-18T15:28:20","date_gmt":"2019-11-18T15:28:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ourtour.co.uk\/home\/?p=36805"},"modified":"2021-08-23T12:02:57","modified_gmt":"2021-08-23T11:02:57","slug":"avoid-an-expensive-mistake-mothball-your-motorhome-for-winter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ourtour.co.uk\/home\/avoid-an-expensive-mistake-mothball-your-motorhome-for-winter\/","title":{"rendered":"Avoid an Expensive Mistake, Mothball Your Motorhome for Winter"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Leaving a motorhome through a British winter without preparing it first can be, as we’ve found to our cost, an expensive mistake. We’ve twice managed to freeze our campervan’s boiler, splitting the pipes inside. We’ve also managed to kill our leisure battery (twice again!) by letting them go completely flat over winter. Fortunately we made these errors with our panel campervan over a decade ago, and the repairs weren’t as expensive as they would be with our more expensive later motorhomes. All the same, it takes about 10 minutes to mothball your motorhome, which might be some of the best minutes you can spend on your rolling home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These are the steps we take to mothball our van for freezing and dark conditions. It takes much longer to read these steps then it actually does to complete them – once you’ve done the job once it’s really quick to complete each time. At the end I’ll quickly run through the steps to get the van back up and running again when you come to use it again, either in winter or when the light’s started to return in the spring. (of course, you can opt to avoid all of this by just using your motorhome all winter<\/a>, perhaps to head off skiing for a season – have a look at winterised.com<\/a> for some inspiration)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Zagan spending a winter with his caravan friends in storage<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

1. Avoiding Frozen Pipes or a Bust Boiler<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

To avoid freezing and splitting pipes in your van’s living space, you need to remove the water from the system. This process will vary a little between motorhomes, and it makes sense to read the manual for your specific make and model of van. If you don’t have the manual and can’t get it online, search around for forums or Facebook groups for your van to find the specific instructions for your van. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Emptying our fresh water tank<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

These are the steps we take to drain down our van:<\/p>\n\n\n\n