Hello Beth, welcome :) My wife and I are in SW MI, living in an RV on our land while I build our house. Since I really mean "I build our house" it's taking a long time ;) We've been through three Michigan winters in our RV. The first year I tried strawbales. They aren't going to be enough ;) The problem is that the bales won't fit up against your trailer well enough to prevent air moving by them, at which point they aren't insulating anything. You want/need an effective barrier to air flow. Strawbales behind that barrier will provide insulative function, but without it - it didn't work very well. The second year I did a plastic wrap instead, and for the third winter I did a better job of mounting a plastic wrap. My recommendation, if you can afford it, is to get a commercial skirt made for your model RV. You can back that up with strawbales, but by themselves the bales don't cut it.
Waterline - buried is good!. We've managed with a combination of gutter heating cables and heat lamps with our lines above ground, but it's a pain.
Blackwater tank - I would leave the valve open. Because if you have it shut, and the valve freezes in that position, you may find out when the toilet backs up and overflows. Yeah. Getting in under the trailer with a heater and a blow dryer (didn't have a heat gun and you might not want one anyway, I don't know how hot those pipes can get without a problem) in freezing weather to thaw out the blackwater valve and get it draining again - not a job I wish on anyone. I might go so far as to recommend getting insulation around that drain pipe and valve. I haven't done it myself, but I probably ought to ;)
First year I put insulation on the ceilings and interior walls, just a foil backed foam taped in place. We did not keep it, I don't think it made enough improvement for the effort.
If you did go with a hoop house over the trailer, you would need to ventilate it. Especially if you also put an
RMH in there. You're already running propane
heaters, but they vent to the outside of your RV. Put it all under a plastic lid and you're venting CO into a closed bubble with you inside. You don't want to have that ;)
Have extra propane tanks and Pay Attention to what you have on hand and how fast you are using it. We have two 20 pound and two 30 pound tanks. Any time we're down to the last tank, it's absolutely time to refill the other three. It's really advisable not to get down to just the one.
Wear extra layers to keep yourselves comfortably warm, rather than trying to keep the entire triler space comfortably warm. We aim for about 66F in the winter. Bedwarmers, something to tuck in before you go o bed that takes the chill off of the sheets and that you can tuck down by your feet can be tremendous comfort enhancers. I hate trying to sleep with cold feet, but a hotwater bottle can fix that problem very simply.
Keep your home clean. Do the dishes right away. Put food into secure containers. Don't be offended, please ;) We are bad at this and it's an issue, not because of any sort of aesthetics (although when you're stuck living in the RV in less than a tiny home space for months at a time, "aesthetics" gets to be its own issue) but because your RV is Mouse Heaven in the winter cold. Mouse. Heaven. Every place that they can hide is an invitation. every scrap of food on a dirty dish, an invitation, unsecure storage, an invitation... They're going to find their way in. You might take some time and work on blocking entrances, but they will find their way in. You don't need to give them any more advantages (free food!) than the warm safe space offers in itself.
Be CAREFUL on your steps! It's appalling how fast they become frictionless, domed, ice sheets and how fast you can hit the bottom!
Have a plan for getting snow and ice off of the RV. Ours has a streamlined nose behind the tongue - it builds up massive ice sheets, right over the area with the batteries and the propane hookup. I make a point of checking that on a fairly regular basis, to avoid an ice fall damaging any of the hoses or wiring down there. The RV roof itself probably doesn't even have a snow load rating, so you likely want to be able to get as much as reasonably practical off of there when it shows up ;)
Plastic liners on the windows, check. Insulative curtains, check. Carpets on the floor? Maybe not so much? In our RV we have forced hot air ducts running under the floor. Carpet over those would hold heat OUT. Extra carpet in the slideout sections I think would be a good idea. Our dining room table is in a slide out. You can feel the cold radiating from the steel legs holding up the table. Wrapping those legs, if your RV has them, in some insulation material is probably worth the effort. The slide outs are terribly exposed, with very hiogh surface to volume ratios. Disproportionate amount of heat loss is through the slideouts..
My top recommendations: Always have backup propane on hand; Do Not let the drain pipe freeze!; Have back up electric (we did the first winter with a generator, no grid power. ROUGH)
That's everything I can think of for now. Ping me if you have any questions :)
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