How to Stay Warm Living in a Van in the Winter | Solo Female Nomad

all right so I'm heading south for the winter but that doesn't mean anything in today's age because of all the winter freezes climate change and all the things that are happening across the world I was in Texas for Christmas and there was a winter freeze and it bursted my pipes and I've heard of other cold snaps in places that are typically not cold like Florida so before I left California I did do a few things to winterize my van so I'm just going to show you what I've already done what's working and what I'm going to be doing in the future all right so first one of the best decisions I made was to have a diesel heater installed in my van this happened right before my van build was done and I had somebody install it for me Costco is only about 150 I think even less than that at the time 135. it does make a difference what I used to do in my car was blast the heater while I was driving around and once I got to my parking spot then I would just jump in the back seat and go to sleep but now that I have a van the diesel heater is a must because there's just more space to get cold around here the other thing that I did is when I built this van I added insulation it's Havelock wool so there's wool batting on every wall in here and in the ceiling as well so that helps too but with the Chevy Express fan it is a passenger fan so I do have a lot of Windows and this is where the biggest problem comes in when trying to keep the van warm this will also apply in a car as well if you're living in a car or a minivan or something like that do everything you can to cover your windows I didn't do that when I was living in my car I just had really thin window coverings but in this van I made my own window coverings I used something that's like reflectix it's not The Branding reflectix but it's like reflectix I see how much some wool in between the two pieces I put some insulation board and then covered it with fabric and so that is pretty well insulating to the windows I also made another window covering for my max air fan it stores right here in this little Gap this fits perfectly and it's just an insulated board from Home Depot that I wrapped in fabric as well and put some Velcro on it and it just sticks into place because you want to take away any area that can bring cold airflow into the van so obviously when I go to sleep at night I close my curtain from my driving area to my living area and that does help a little bit but I'm going to tell you something that has helped tremendously I wasn't doing this before but on very cold nights what I'll do is I'll take my windshield cover and my side window covers and I'll put them up I got those from WeatherTech they weren't that expensive but they weren't that cheap as well they were like 120 dollars but they custom fit it for the type of car or van that you have so it fits in the windows pretty nicely but I'm going to tell you by putting the windshield covers up and the side covers so with the weather check it comes with the three pieces you can buy it with the three pieces or just the windshield cover but get the three pieces is what I'm saying when I put all three up I'm not even kidding it it does keep it warmer in here I don't know I just think it's because when you cover as many windows possible it keeps the airflow out for those of you that have been watching the channel for a while you'll know about my battery Journey when I first built this van I got a 200 amp power AGM battery which is a lead acid battery now when you have a 200 amp hour AGM battery you're only supposed to use half of it so 100 amp hours and when I got my air conditioner in the van that was not going to be enough so I saved my money and upgraded to get a lithium battery now at the time I wanted a 200 amp hour battery but my dad's like it's not that much more just get a 300 amp hour so I let him talk me into it and the battery's been awesome that came from Amber time which is now lead time they've rebranded and they're as awesome as ever and I've been using the 300 amp hour it's worked well with the AC it's worked well with everything but it's too much battery for my system I don't need that much and so once I started getting into some of these Colder Weather areas and these deep freezes I was thinking okay I need to have some protection on this battery because with the regular lithium battery that I have it works well but not in freezing temperatures and I didn't know it at the time but if the battery hits below 32 degrees Fahrenheit it could shut down so I was like okay I I want to be free to go wherever I want to go in this van so I reached out to lead time and discussed my concerns and I made the decision to take out the 300 amp hour battery and move on to a 200 amp hour self heating battery and lead time was so gracious enough to send me this battery so that I could share it with you and I could have the proper battery for my van now this battery can be set up in series or parallel and it was super easy to install I just shut off my inverter unscrewed the 300 amp hour battery switched it out for the 200 amp hour self-heating battery and just put the screws back on and turn the inverter on and it just worked and I've been using it for a while and it works perfectly with my solar system so the way it works is that the battery has a battery management system a BMS as part of the BMS it has a temperature sensor so once the battery temperature hits I think negative four degrees Fahrenheit I think it's negative 20 Celsius there's a heating pad inside the battery and it just kicks on automatically I don't have to do anything extra I don't have to think about it it just does it so it'll just start heating up the battery and then it shuts itself off when it's at the proper temperature that just gives me so much peace of mind so much relief so I can now go anywhere that I'd like to go in the winter or the summer and it's going to work great lead time is also a great company to work with I've been working with them for a while now and they have great customer service they're very knowledgeable very helpful usually it's about a thousand dollars and right now it's on sale plus if you use the code travel snacks at checkout you'll get an additional four percent off and you get free shipping and the shipping's pretty fast don't give me the cold shoulder become part of the snack pack all you gotta do is hit that subscribe button and the notification Bell and throw a like on this video so whenever I sit down in the bed or lay down these black sheets are supposedly cooling sheets they don't actually put off air but whatever they're made out of is more like for summer so what I'm going to do to prepare for the winter is to get this I think it's a 34 degree sleeping bag that my dad had because I only really only sleep in this section so never get this other warm blanket fold it in half doubles and then I'll put the sheet back over it and here's the hard part trying to pull this mattress up this is a workout oh my gosh flipping hard stuff me please work with me ah get in there you dummy oh my gosh oh I'm back now I gotta use this little clip to let that sheet down pop off get in there okay I also have this Sherpa blanket this is a just a throw it's mainly for Decor but it is pretty warm oh shoot I forgot there's something else I need to do okay so one of the things is to always cover up any Windows if you look down in there you'll see there's a window and I'll show you which is this window right here so these are just Exposed on the inside I have these two fuzzy blankets that I picked up when I used to live in my car and I still have a big bag of Havelock wool that I used to insulate this fan I'm just making this up right now so I have no idea if this is gonna work but what I'm thinking yeah that fits about the length of those windows I mean you have so much of this left put this in here and just fold it how am I going to get it in that crevice I don't know and also this is probably not the best solution because of condensation but this is what we're gonna do today get in there oh oh my gosh fudge balls oh this is not great okay it kind of worked right here okay I couldn't do it with a camera but it's pretty much in place is it perfect no but it's covering up at least more than it was to keep out some of the draft from the window good night and this is my second wool burrito I broke a nail ow that's gonna be warm enough that better be I'm over it I'm done but my 15 pillows you probably wonder if I have so many pills but actually having a lot of pillows keeps it warm in here too that is Fluffy ever since I've added that to cover those little windows it's really made the difference in keeping this living space warmer now I talked about this when I was living in my car because I swear by this down comforter it's not expensive it's not even like I don't even know if it's real down it's just warm it's like fifty dollars for a queen size it's not a brand name or anything but I'll link it in the description but this thing is just super super warm another thing I did a while ago and I don't know if this helps at all but I bought some of that self-sticking weather seal like little rubbery thing and I use the adhesive to just stick it around the door frames and it might help a little bit but it's just something extra that I added just in case so there's no extra airflow coming in here and besides my cozy van mascots Snoopy and sugar crystal candy corn I do have a lot of extra pillows so I put the window coverings up at night and then this goes against the window this other pillow goes against that window and so it kind of just keeps everything cozy in here and then I also sleep in sweats a tank top and a sweater but I usually it's usually warm in here so I usually don't have to wear the sweater I also have this mask that I can put on at night to cover my nose because I still haven't figured out the best invention for covering my nose at night when it gets cold because even though it gets warm in this space sometimes my face is still cold and sometimes I don't want to run my heater at night if I'm in a place that's kind of a little more populated like maybe a hotel parking lot when I have my heater on you can hear it a little bit on the outside you can hear it kind of clicking and kind of blowing a little bit so it's not ideal if you're in a more popular area if you're out in the wilderness boondocking it really won't matter but sometimes I don't want to turn on my heater if just my face is cold so I'll use this Gator type mask that my friend Sandra gave me it keeps my face pretty warm and it's very thin so I can breathe then I recently where'd it go and then I recently got this just the eyes are open and it's got this rubbery face it's kind of mesh so you can breathe this is very warm but it covers my whole head and face and I don't really love that and the final thing is because my water pipes burst me and my son Marcus we had to rip out all the PVC piping and we just put in a braided vinyl tubing instead and I had a lot of comments from that video saying that I should insulate that too which I had already been planning to do because they make this self-sealing insulation but what I think I'm going to do instead just to keep it cheaper is go to the Dollar Tree get a pool noodle and then hold on I have some extra Havelock wool rip it in half and then just roll this around the pool noodle and then take some duct tape and then just tape it around and then that way that tube is going to be extra insulated and it's never going to break and pop well I mean God willing now even though I've set up all these things in my van I don't know that I would necessarily drive into a winter storm or a freeze or a snowy area because number one I don't have chains and I don't feel safe driving around on icy roads plus I have a gray water tank under my van and if that freezes I won't be able to drain my gray water tank and it's a whole thing but I wouldn't mind just going to some colder areas because there's some really beautiful places that I still like to check out and now I feel that my van is pretty well equipped now so far all the things that I've added or done to my van has worked out really well and my van stays pretty cozy even in very cold temperatures but maybe there's something I have missed or need to add to my van let me know in the comments that maybe I should add or something you've done if you live in a vehicle as well I'd love to hear about it drop it in the comments and I'll see you on the next video bye for now [Music] which is always a good idea because of nope all right so I'm heading south for the one and it bursted my pipes and now I talked us now I talked about this in it for me would to be would be would that the best it's definitely going to be different No I don't want to see now one of the most important and so one and one of the most important things so stop okay foreign [Music]

Channel: Travel Snacks

Views: 135,825

Keywords: travel snacks, allison sharpe, living in a van, living the van life, van living, van living full time, nomad, chevy express van, nomad life, how to stay warm living in car, how to stay warm living in your car, living in a car in winter, car camping winter, sleeping in the cold, staying warm while camping, car living in winter, how to stay warm living in a van, living in van in winter, living in van in freezing weather, van camping in winter, van camping in snow storm

Id: tr0OseerTAs

Length: 12min 59sec (779 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 18 2023