Dodged a Bullet!

[MRichaud]

Lucked out big time! Had put off winterizing, as it rarely gets below thirty here this early - at least for more than one night, and then it's only for a couple hours or so. But had our Precept washed and had the awning and slide toppers treated and the roof caulking touched up. Temp had gone down to ~27.

Picked it up Saturday morning and went directly to our go-to local campground for a couple nights, then planned on winterizing Monday morning. When I hooked up to the water, all was well except the toilet would not stop running. Called the tech who did the work for me, and he said the valve at the back of the toilet was most likely frozen, and said to put a space heater next to it for a couple hours. Sure enough, got lucky there! First night was fine - got up Sunday morning and no issues, even though the temp was again around 27. WHEW!

Then yesterday morning got up, and no water! Went outside and found that the hose was frozen - temp was 21 - great, now what? The plan was to winterize and head back to storage. Decided I would disconnect the hose and put the spare on. But the hydrant lever was frozen! Went home (only about 15 miles, luckily) and got my hand-held propane torch and thawed it out so I could swap hoses. But still no water; the riser was frozen as well. By then the sun was up and things were starting to warm up, so waited it out. Told the campground manager we needed to stay past the 11:00 check-out time, and all was well with that.

Had to wait for the lines in the wet bay to thaw out, but finally was able to winterize. Apparently, even though the temp went down to 21 and the wind was blowing, there doesn't seem to be any damage. Next time I'm in this situation, I'll open the gray water tank and leave the kitchen faucet dripping!

[F350guy]

I would also suggest unhooking your water hose and run off your fresh tank. Most parks we visit have warning signs to disconnect your hose in freezing weather. One park says if you don't and their hook up breaks the repair is on you. Not sure how enforceable that is.

[gobdeep]

Glad you got it sorted!

I'll echo the comments of F350guy: we fill our fresh water tank and only use that year round. We never leave our hose hooked up after the one bad experience with a busted/frozen hose last year. It's also easier, IMO, to just fill the tank and put the hose away.

When we leave for the day the water pump gets turned off. When we return it gets turned back on. This also helps reduce the likelihood of an internal pipe breaking and the RV being flooded while away when connected to central/city water.

We tried heated hoses, pipe wrapped hoses, and others. This was the easiest.