Way back on the Bolivian Altiplano at around 4,000m asl, we had an overnight low of -18°C on our thermometer. Oh, how naïve we were to think that was cold! Here in the Yukon for our corona virus stay-cation, we’ve had temperatures as low as -31°C (without the windchill!). Now that’s nippy. We’re sure there are many out there with far more experience of seriously cold weather overlanding than us. But this real cold has been a new thing for us. By lucky happenstance, we did give cold-weather stuff some consideration when we ordered Cuthbert, so we’re not totally unprepared.
Preparation: Standards and Extras
In preparation we thought about both the base vehicle and the living-cabin. In 2012 when we compiled the base-vehicle specification for Iveco, there was only one cold weather item included in the standard Daily 4×4: the fuel filter heater. There were plenty of other optional extras that we specified in anticipation of being somewhere just like Yukon in winter!
Then there was the living cabin. Here, Bocklet had done all the thinking for us and designed a fabulous home. Cuthbert is well constructed and equipped to live in comfort in the coldest of conditions. No extra specifications were required here!!
Standard Iveco Daily 4×4 Cold Weather Items
Fuel filter heater – this is automatically controlled by the ECU. When the ECU detects a sufficiently low fuel temperature, it switches the heater on. However, there appears to be a bug in the Iveco software for this. Back in the Andes we found that it doesn’t work above 2,000m! So we installed a manual switch for this (click here). Since then… no probs!
Iveco ‘Optional Extra’ Cold Weather Items
Webasto Engine pre-heater – this little gadget gets things warmed-up before we drive. It warms and circulates the water around the engine block. It also starts the cab-heater and air circulation fan, so the drive-cab is warming up and the windows start to defrost. The pre-heater burns diesel and uses the engine’s starter battery. But in very cold weather the battery is almost ‘dead as a dodo’. So to get the pre-heater going, the starter battery receives a boost from the leisure batteries stowed inside the warm living cabin. At these temperatures, the pre-heater needs to start around 45 minutes before we want to drive. Does this mean getting out of bed and braving the freezing-cold driving cab to switch it on? Noooo! It has a geeky little pre-set timer, so we can programme it the night before to start-up at whatever time in the morning. Nice, eh?
Heated crank-case vent pipe – a frozen crank case vent is a bad thing (Google if you don’t know why 😉). This gadget comes on with the ignition to stops the crank case vent pipe from freezing. Done!
Heated windscreen squirter – We love the ‘Hot-shot’ heated water squirter! It has a ‘clearing mode’ which heats and shoots steam down the pipe to unblock any frozen bits. It also has a ‘warm water mode’ to squirt, wash the glass and help melt frost/ice. God knows how long we would have to wait in these temperatures without it!
Fuel pre-filter heater – in addition to the main fuel filter, we added a pre-filter to weed out the gunk in countries with bad diesel. However, in very cold conditions the wax in the diesel has a tendency to solidify and seize-up the fuel flow. A heater on the pre-filter melts the wax and Hey Presto! the fuel flows again!
Heated seats – not exactly essential, but very nice to have in these temperatures 😊
Heated wing mirrors – saves the hassle of scraping the ice.
Other Cold Weather Driving Items/Equipment
Tyres – Michelin XZL Snow and ice rated tyres (with a set of cables for the tyres carried, just in case)
Antifreeze – concentration mix that does its thing down -63°C/-81°F
Engine oil – we use grade 5W30 oil, rated to -30°C. As we use the engine pre-heater, this is good enough for here, but we could also have used 0W30 which is rated a bit lower down to -35°C.
Axle oil – it’s possible to change the 85W140 to the thinner 80W90 oil for very cold conditions, but as we originally didn’t plan on spending a long time up here in the winter (ha, ha, ha! How times change!) we didn’t change this oil. The result is a sluggish feeling when first pulling away until the ‘normal’ thicker oil warms up.
Bocklet Living Cabin Features
Construction panels – the walls, roof and doors of the living cabin are constructed from panels of 50mm thick insulating foam, sandwiched between thin layers of plastic. The flooring panel has 60mm of insulating foam. Efficiency check: it’s +21°C inside with central heating but the frost, ice and snow on the outside don’t even start to melt! No heat escapes through those walls!
Hot water and central heating – a Truma Combi 230VAC/LPG system provides hot water and hot air central heating at the flick of a switch.
Gas/Propane System – two LPG cylinders are connected to a Truma duo-control CS regulator. The duo-control means the gas/propane feed, switches automatically from an empty tank to the full tank. So no risk of the supply stopping during the night and us having to go outside to switch tanks!
There are also two safety features to ensure it’s not dangerous to leave the heating on whilst driving: (a) the gas hoses have hose failure shut-off valves; and (b) the regulator has crash-detection shut-off valve. Result… the cabin keeps warm (on a low setting) all day and we don’t have to wait for it to warm up when we stop.
All systems are ‘inside’ – the whole gas/propane and water system (including all pipes and the fresh, gray and black tanks) and the leisure batteries are all within the shell of the heated living cabin box. This is crucial to avoid freezing and cracks in pipes and tanks (Note: the gas/propane system is in a section vented to outside for safety).
Windows – all three windows are double-glazed glass. Good for insulation and (unlike normal domestic double-glazed panes) rated for up to 9,000m asl. The windows also have integral pull-down shutters for ‘black-out’ and a bit of extra insulation.
Thermal bridges – the living box construction has been very carefully thought-out to avoid thermal bridges. The wall/roof/floor panels (see above) are glued together and no metal fixtures are used in the build. Thankfully we have only one small thermal bridge in the whole of Cuthbert’s construction: the frame around the roof hatch in the bathroom. Here, when it is very cold, we do get small frozen droplets overnight, which serve to remind us how awful it would be to have thermal bridges in any part of the main living area construction!
Storage heating – the main external storage area across the lower back (under the bed) has its own hot-air feed from the heating system. This means nothing gets frost or condensation damage and there are no large temperature differentials between the sections of the cabin. This same heating vent blows a hot-air feed under the bed frame to ensure the mattress stays dry (no condensation) and warm.
Roof hatches – the main roof hatch in the living cabin is a bespoke build by Bocklet with a thick insulated panel to ensure no heat-loss. The small roof-hatch in the bathroom is Perspex to let in light (no window in the bathroom) so we have a separate insulation panel that we insert from inside. We also do this for the small MaxxAir roof-fan hatch in the main cabin, but for this and the bathroom hatch, we only need to add this extra insulation in very cold conditions.
Left pic: rear-centre hatch is the main hatch, no heat escape. Right pic: solar panels cleared of snow. The forward-centre hatch is the MaxxAir roof fan needing internal insulation
Cab-to-Cabin Door – what’s the point of having a nice toasty living-box on the back of your truck if you have to freeze your bits off to get in there? We find for many, many reasons and not just the cold, having a through-door from the driving cab to the living cabin, absolutely indispensable. The door has insulation to the same standard as the rest of the living cabin. Leaving the door open whilst driving in cold climates helps to equal-out the heat distribution between the two cabins.
So that’s how we’re staying warm and surviving the Yukon temperatures during our #stayhome corona virus winter stay-cation of 2020. Spring is on its way… and the bears will be out soon 🐻!