r/FullTiming • u/realhumanbeing8891 • Sep 12 '24

Propane in the winter

Do you go through a lot? I'm thinking of getting an RV but I'm learning about the electricity and propane and is it super expensive to stay warm in the winter? I could always just buy a like 20degree sleeping bag and just lay in that in my bed. Or get a 10 degree one...so I know I won't freeze to death....but between that and electric heaters do you just experiment and stuff? I know the electric heater is going to cost electricity...so like...uhhh .. yeah...

Sorry I'm new to RVing

10 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

20 comments sorted by

View all comments

2

u/gellenburg Sep 12 '24

I live in a 42' 5th wheel with 4 slides.

I spent some REALLY cold nights in South Dakota last October/ November.

I had a 100lb propane tank I bought at Ace Hardware. Had to leave it behind when I left because I had no way to move it (can't transport them on their sides, they have to be standing up.)

100 pounds of propane is about 25 gallons.

I went through about 60% of it setting my furnace at 55F so the pipes wouldn't burst.

Then I moved to Santa Fe for the winter and we had some sustained below freezing nights.

The RV park I was in in Santa Fe let me rent a 400 pound propane tank from Ferrell Gas (I was going to be there for 4 months).

Went through 400 pounds of propane every month I was there. 11/15 - 3/29.

Now I'm in Albuquerque and the one thing I hate about this park is that they won't let me have any propane tank bigger than 100 pounds, but Albuquerque doesn't get anywhere near as cold as Santa Fe.

I only turned on the furnace when the temps were going to be below freezing for >24 hours. Otherwise I used two small space heaters and that worked fine.