Time to wax, winterize and store our travel trailer. Very sad days… the coming of winter in Illinois means our #Lance1685 travel trailer needs to go into hibernation, stored safely away from icy wind blasts, sleet and snow.
Having never winterized before, Lance made it easy – we simply opened our Lance owner’s manual and followed along step by step.
We used Joy and warm water to wash off all the road grime, then Meguiars Premium Flagship Wax on the entire exterior, excluding the roof.
I want to keep that brand new shine as long as possible, and our “new” Lance is now a year and a half old.
After waxing the sides, I climbed up on the roof and used 303 Aerospace Protectant to protect everything. 303 Aerospace Protectant is formulated as “sunscreen for your stuff” and the trailer will be inside for the winter, but it can’t hurt, right? While I was at it, I used the 303 on every surface on the side that I hadn’t waxed – i.e. all the “plastic” parts – the propane covers, the battery box, the awning cap pieces, everything.
Then we winterized everything for our first time. Last winter our Lance spent the winter in storage in southwest Florida where no winterizing was necessary. Central Illinois, however, calls for a more rigorous strategy. The Lance owners manual walked us through step by step … stuff like draining the hot water heater, draining all the fresh water and eventually pumping pretty pink antifreeze into all the lines … until it comes out the faucets … EVERY faucet, even the outside shower. 🙂
In anticipation of a winter’s worth of barn critters attempting to find their way inside, we covered every exterior vent with plastic and blue tape.
And then used Great Stuff expanding foam insulation stuff to spray into any openings we could find – under sinks, inside exterior storage, anywhere daylight was showing, we filled it. We used the one labeled Gaps & Cracks, but there’s also one specifically labeled “Pestblock”, which might have been even better although we have no experience with it.
Then came the sad, sad moment as we stored our Lance 1685, not to emerge until David can wear his shorts again in central Illinois.
After disconnecting the batteries and propane and blocking the tires, we gave our Lance one last look and trusted it to the care of our neighbor’s barn for the nastiness winter brings. Goodbye! We’ll see you next spring!
Anyone have more winterizing or storage tips? We’re new at this! Please leave a comment and share! Cheers! Jan
