By Tony Barthel
If winter camping is your thing, one of the ways many campers have kept their water systems from freezing is by blocking airflow from underneath those rigs. In the past, I’ve seen people use hay, cardboard and all manner of other materials.
But if you’re Jim Phelan, you take your background in creating innovative products and invent AirSkirts. AirSkirts are inflatable skirts that fit under an RV to block airflow during cold winter months.
The product consists of large, inflatable tubes that block airflow from all sides. In addition to the tubes, there are tire wedges, pillows to go between steps and other components to work as a team to block air from blowing under your rig.
While not an inexpensive product, the advantages of these include the fact that they provide a large air barrier to the underside of the coach and, like all inflatable products, they can be deflated and carried in a carrying bag when not keeping winter’s chill from under your RV.
You can buy the various-sized tubes individually, but the company also has kits available that are configured for vehicles including vans, small RVs, smaller RVs with higher clearance and on up to kits for 42-foot RVs. These kits come with an inflator, carrying bag, stair pillow, Reflectix for the RV’s windows, and even a T-shirt that reads “camping weather or not” and shows the founder’s 2016 Airstream trailer in the snow protected by his product.
The tubes themselves are constructed with .9mm PVC and have inflating and deflating valves on opposite ends. There is also a pressure relief valve to prevent overinflation. When inflated, tube diameters are either 22” (standard) or 34” (high) and come in lengths of two to eight feet in two-foot increments.
While the reviews on the website are likely curated, there are quite a few customers who have shared that their AirSkirts have made a noticeable difference while using their RVs in the winter with claims of warmer floors and, most importantly, no frozen pipes. Reviews also indicate that the reviewers were pleased with the quality and simplicity of the product.
If winter camping is something you enjoy or you have to camp where winter is a factor due to work, AirSkirts might be a good product to look into. Of course, we want to be realistic in our reviews so we don’t give anyone an inflated ego.
Check out their website here.
Airskirts seem to be a good invention. Two questions, how much do they weigh and can they be used in the summer to keep critters from under your RV ?
if it were me making these, i would patent, and sell rights to manufacturers, to make available on new motorhomes, and pull type rv’s, thus they would be mounted on the bottom, and have a deployment controls on board, so just like auto level, you could just flip a switch and auto deploy these air skirts, consider this my copyright statement!
Not a bad idea, but storage space is precious.