Class C Open belly in very cold weather

Joey55 · 12-30-2020, 04:00 PM

Hi All,

First of all I know some might disagree with me and opinions are welcome but this info is based on true personal experience.

My RV is an open belly type. First of all this applies to staying at an RV park in temps around 10 degrees.

To heat the inside of my 30' RV I used a ceramic heater which did the job quite well. The RV park had heated tape around their water supply.

I was told to keep the fresh water tank filled up but that was a mistake. The heated pads on the bottom of the fresh/gray tanks are about a foot by two foot. There is NO way they will keep a 44 gallon tank from freezing in 10 degree weather. Mine froze. It would make more sense to only keep 5-10 gallons max of fresh water in the tank with those pads turned on. And the gray tank should be EMPTY.

Next your sewer connections and empty handles will be frozen and unusable. So if your gray tank fills up that all. You won't be able to empty it until it unfreezes.

This is what I plan on doing. I will buy the heated tape and surround the sewer lines up to the tanks and will also wrap the areas with the slide valves. As far as I can see that is the only way to keep them from freezing and being able to empty them.

I would also keep my water hoses inside until morning when I can hook them up to the rv parks water. I would have a heat gun just in case something there is frozen. I used a hair dryer but it took a long time.

Last thing I would so is to keep a couple of 5 gal containers filled with water in the shower just in case something froze so I would have water. I would not empty them in the shower/toilet if the valves are frozen shut.

I will add that when I hooked up to the rV water connection in the morning I had water to use inside. Be sure you don't leave the water pump on at night as it will burn up and can't pump water that's frozen. Mine went bad.

Hope this info helps someone as I wish I had known the four days/nights I spent with temps below 25 degrees.

JmsNMar · 12-30-2020, 10:56 PM

Hello Joey. Crappy feeling knowing a freezing storm is coming and you gotta get the RV you're in, ready to handle it. The wife and I were living in ours last winter when we experienced that. Coldest we woke up to was -8 degrees one morning. When you're living in it, the time and money investment in the prep is understandable. When you're just on a short trip, going cheap is what you're looking for. Sounds like you were able to adapt and overcome your situation. We were able to get by for about 1 1/2 to 2 months of winter weather in ours in South Dakota, but I gotta be honest... I had to wear the "brown" pants for a number of days so as not to embarrass myself during the early winter storms. After a few weeks in the snow, we jokingly laughed that it was a piece of cake! Good luck on your future winter camping, and stay healthy!!! Happy Trails...

ViperOne · 01-02-2021, 09:28 PM

Thanks for sharing your experience and advice. What about using RV antifreeze to keep drains, black and grey tanks operational?

msherw · 01-03-2021, 06:52 PM

Joey thanks for the heads up. Your reminders are very helpful.

While I don't ever expect to be out in our rig in extremely cold weather, you never know when it might hit at higher altitudes.

Once in while we get caught at 20º temps and I always remove our outside water hose after filling the fresh water tank. I know a full tank will not freeze solid at 20 or even 10º if I have the heaters on. As for black and gray, I think they are ok as well. It surprised me your fresh froze but your temps were much lower than any I have experienced.

Thanks for sharing.

Joey55 · 01-11-2021, 05:05 PM

Hi, the RV was in use during that time so the antifreeze was not an option.

26ygrayhawk2018 · 01-13-2021, 01:33 PM

Hi,
I just finished crawling under and in my RV installing simple pipe insulation over the PEX wherever I could. Not sure its gonna work? had to try something.
This is the first RV I've owned that had almost all plumbing open under the chassis.

ALJO · 01-13-2021, 02:00 PM

Just the insulation on the pex doesn't work much for preventing of freezing

26ygrayhawk2018 · 01-13-2021, 02:16 PM

Hi again,
Bummer.... pipe insulation won't work.
If you find a solution please let me know.
thanx in advance

ALJO · 01-13-2021, 02:27 PM

For camping in very low temperature the underbelly must be close and has at least R20 insulation. Also is recommended tank-heater on FW-tank and heat between the Black and Gray tank. Also heat-tape on the suction-line and around the discharge from the Black and Gray-Tank. Also re-route any Pex-lines from the outside inside.

pconroy · 01-13-2021, 06:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 26ygrayhawk2018

Hi,
I just finished crawling under and in my RV installing simple pipe insulation over the PEX wherever I could. Not sure its gonna work? had to try something.
This is the first RV I've owned that had almost all plumbing open under the chassis.

I did this and it did help. What I did was run hot water thru the lines every couple of hours and we survived 14*F.

But, as you probably noticed, it's impossible to cover it all. I'm guess I got maybe 95% covered.

I'm still going to try some heat tape/cable. I crawled under there this summer and gave up because threading it will be extremely difficult. But I'll probably give it another go this Spring.

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