We love our Winnebago Ultimate Advantage. It’s roomy and comfortable, the floor plan fits us perfectly, there is lots of storage inside and in our bays down below, and its 350 horsepower Cummins diesel engine will climb any grade we want to go up. But the one area where it doesn’t measure up to our old MCI bus conversion is in insulation.
When we built the bus, we put in several layers of insulation, including some state of the art stuff designed for the aircraft industry. On the hottest summer days we could usually get by fine with the windows open and the three roof vent fans on to create an airflow. We had one rooftop air conditioner, and if needed, it cooled us down even further. We didn’t install a furnace and never needed one. In cold weather, and we were in a couple of places where it got down into the teens over the years, our Olympian Wave propane catalytic heater or a couple of small electric cube heaters kept it toasty warm inside no matter how nasty it was outside.
Not so with our Winnebago. While you can hang meat in here on the hottest summer days with the basement air conditioner, it doesn’t warm up nearly as well with the heat pump or its two gas furnaces. So my main goal yesterday was staying warm. I donned a set of sweats, parked myself at my desk in front of a cube heater and sat there all day. Even with the electric cube heater on heat, the heat pump ran most of the evening. Miss Terry called me a wimp and said it wasn’t that cold, but she has reached the stage in life where she has a built in heating system.
I got off to a slow start yesterday, goofing around on the internet and joining in a couple of conversations in a Facebook authors group I belong to. But when I finally did get going, I did over 4,400 words in my new book in the Big Lake series.
While I was busy with that, Terry was setting up her loom and getting ready to work on her first project with it.
We did run out long enough to grab dinner at I Love NY Pizza down the road a couple of miles. Don’t I look stylish in my fedora and shades?
For those of you who have been through the whole Norcold recall issue a time or two, or three like we have been, you might be interested in this article from RV Business about a class action lawsuit. Sometimes the only way to get some big corporations’ attention is to hit them in the pocketbook.
Today will probably be a repeat of yesterday. I’ll write, Terry will weave, I’ll snivel, she’ll ignore me, I’ll shiver and whimper, she’ll grin and take off another layer of clothes. Not because she’s that warm, or because she’s trying to titillate me. She’s just mean like that sometimes.
Thought For The Day – Count your blessings, not your problems.
Nick Russell
World-Famous, New York Times Best Selling Author, and All-Around Nice Guy!
Nick, is there any way to blow insulation into the walls of a motorhome?
I know what you mean Nick. I’m over in Crystal River FL and it’s 28* here this morning. Back in Lansing MI it’s 21. Just something really wrong with that picure! Have a great day guy and get that book finished. I’m not a patient person!!
Nick we feel your pain and have the same feelings about the insulation (or lack thereof) in our Tiffin Phaeton. It’s 27 degrees outside this morning and we’ve been trying to run with heat pumps only to conserve propane, but as you probably know heatpumps are just not efficient when the temps are that low.
When I got up, we gave in and decided to run the propane furnaces for a bit. MUCH BETTER! They do use a lot of propane, however.
Oh, and when are you leaving FL? We are due to arrive on Jan. 1 and would really like the temps. to warm up. LOL
Nick – Im just 30 Miles away at Bushnell and my neighbor just arrived Thursday from Saskatoon SK where it was minus 30 when he left and thinks this plus 30s stuff is a welcome heat wave. yesterday he was in a T shirt working on his small deck. Try to remember winter in Show Low and rejoice
You need to move south. It was 14 degrees warmer in Jupiter than Orlando this AM.
Global warming? 39 here in Yuma this morning. A high of 69. Going out to lunch at an indoor restarant.
You need to invent a hybrid of the electric blanket and the Snuggie – the electric Snuggie! We actually turned on the fire for the first time last night and put the electric blanket on the bed. Only downside – it makes it very difficult to get out of bed.
I spent a lot of my life in Oklahoma where we had some pretty cold days with strong winds. I always wore multiple layers when it was real cold and that seemed to work better than just one heavy clothing item. I am now doing that a little bit at my stick house in the San Fernando Valley as we have had some rain and little ‘cold’ weather.If I am on the computer or reading or watching TV I will have more layers on than I do when I am up and active. My challenge is that on the rare occasions when I am forced to go to a mall here they are so darn warm as are a lot of eating establishments that I end up down to a t-shirt.
Wonder if Terry is just a tad more physically active than you are when you are writing in addition to being prone to staying warm.
R
Nick & Terry,
You have wheels under your home, move some place warmer. Terry I agree Nick is a big baby. Put on a sweater and stop whining. I’m nice and warm up here in Michigan. Want to come up for a visit? hee hee