Dizzy
VIP Member
We have been up to the scottish highlands over the last two weeks in the hope we would experience some colder wild camping nights in preparation for a month in the alps. Well it delivered, we had a good 7 nights of sub zero down to minus 5. As a consequence we have some observations and questions. Weve been away 15 nights and done 12 off grid, we have 300w of solar, but this did absolutely nothing of consequence.
First up tyres, wow never experienced all season tyres before, we swapped our bridgestone 18s for 17s michelin crossclimates, they certainly perform in the cold weather and icy conditions. I would say longer term we both think the ride on the 17 is far nicer than the 18s (we're on standard unmodified suspension).
Pop-top and insulation.. we have a polar pop top cover to go along with our windscreen and tailgate covers, we also have brandrup internal windscreen and side window covers, we also have some home made internals for the other windows and tailgate. We used the internal screens covers every night. The front and side covers were used when we were looking at sub zero temps forecast. They seemed to work well. Poptop was interesting, once we got the knack of getting the cover on it afforded some insulation with the poptop up (note i dont want to get into the merits of Polar vs others) what we did find was when there was some wind we got quite a bit of draft through the ventilation holes. Appreciate there needs to be some ventilation, first question:
Has anyone considered covering these from the inside leaving smaller ventilation holes ?
With the top up we ran our heater on level 3 when the outside temp was 3 degrees, this kept the van warm, overnight we dropped the level to 1 or 2, we found level 1 was more than enough to keep us warm. However we did find that the following morning the battery display showed down 2 or 3 bars. Moving between locations for an hour or so with Max Charge enabled would top us back up to float (according to the victron app). Next Question
Is enabling max charge every day to recharge a reasonable thing to do ?
Ecoflow. We have a Delta 3 which we intended to use about 40% daily and recharge as we drove, we found that the cold weather really impacted the performance of the ecoflow, i suspect that this was a combination of the water being at lower ambient temperature and the battery not performing as effectively at holding charge. In the end we stopped using it when it went less than 45% charge as didnt want to risk depleting the leisure batteries to recharge the ecoflow. When we were on sites we did recharge it , however due to temperature the charging was much slower and i am not convinced that it really charged properly. In comparison to the autumn in spain it was a different experience.
Conclusion ecoflow works well off grid in more reasonable temps especially when solar is performing not convinced its as suitable in cold weather.
Insulation, i know i have read this but omg the Cali needs some, we were staggered to find how cold the cupboards were when we opened them. We didnt intend to run with water onboard but so far no freezing up. When we do alps we will run the van dry.
Is it worth looking at insulating the van ? Personally i cant see it is but curious if anyone has done any additional insulation.
Water ingress.... Interesting... So the last couple of days we noticed that the tailgate sounded like it had water in it, sloshing around. I know it sounds wierd, so today i prised off some small plastic caps at the bottom of the tailgate, when i lowered the tailgate water came peeing out of the holes.... Question:
So where is the water getting into the tailgate ? Should these small oblong caps be present as they stop draining ? Really puzzled.
And finally poptop, in the 15 months we’ve had Dizzy we have not had any issues putting the poptop down. But this trip probably 5 times the bellows have got trapped at the front left hand side corner (passenger side) , not sure whats going on as we are not doing anything different than we have been. Question:
Does the cold affect the motorised mechanism ?
Thats it ! Looking forward to peoples thoughts on our experience.
D
First up tyres, wow never experienced all season tyres before, we swapped our bridgestone 18s for 17s michelin crossclimates, they certainly perform in the cold weather and icy conditions. I would say longer term we both think the ride on the 17 is far nicer than the 18s (we're on standard unmodified suspension).
Pop-top and insulation.. we have a polar pop top cover to go along with our windscreen and tailgate covers, we also have brandrup internal windscreen and side window covers, we also have some home made internals for the other windows and tailgate. We used the internal screens covers every night. The front and side covers were used when we were looking at sub zero temps forecast. They seemed to work well. Poptop was interesting, once we got the knack of getting the cover on it afforded some insulation with the poptop up (note i dont want to get into the merits of Polar vs others) what we did find was when there was some wind we got quite a bit of draft through the ventilation holes. Appreciate there needs to be some ventilation, first question:
Has anyone considered covering these from the inside leaving smaller ventilation holes ?
With the top up we ran our heater on level 3 when the outside temp was 3 degrees, this kept the van warm, overnight we dropped the level to 1 or 2, we found level 1 was more than enough to keep us warm. However we did find that the following morning the battery display showed down 2 or 3 bars. Moving between locations for an hour or so with Max Charge enabled would top us back up to float (according to the victron app). Next Question
Is enabling max charge every day to recharge a reasonable thing to do ?
Ecoflow. We have a Delta 3 which we intended to use about 40% daily and recharge as we drove, we found that the cold weather really impacted the performance of the ecoflow, i suspect that this was a combination of the water being at lower ambient temperature and the battery not performing as effectively at holding charge. In the end we stopped using it when it went less than 45% charge as didnt want to risk depleting the leisure batteries to recharge the ecoflow. When we were on sites we did recharge it , however due to temperature the charging was much slower and i am not convinced that it really charged properly. In comparison to the autumn in spain it was a different experience.
Conclusion ecoflow works well off grid in more reasonable temps especially when solar is performing not convinced its as suitable in cold weather.
Insulation, i know i have read this but omg the Cali needs some, we were staggered to find how cold the cupboards were when we opened them. We didnt intend to run with water onboard but so far no freezing up. When we do alps we will run the van dry.
Is it worth looking at insulating the van ? Personally i cant see it is but curious if anyone has done any additional insulation.
Water ingress.... Interesting... So the last couple of days we noticed that the tailgate sounded like it had water in it, sloshing around. I know it sounds wierd, so today i prised off some small plastic caps at the bottom of the tailgate, when i lowered the tailgate water came peeing out of the holes.... Question:
So where is the water getting into the tailgate ? Should these small oblong caps be present as they stop draining ? Really puzzled.
And finally poptop, in the 15 months we’ve had Dizzy we have not had any issues putting the poptop down. But this trip probably 5 times the bellows have got trapped at the front left hand side corner (passenger side) , not sure whats going on as we are not doing anything different than we have been. Question:
Does the cold affect the motorised mechanism ?
Thats it ! Looking forward to peoples thoughts on our experience.
D
