Preventing pipe/valve freezing

[Finchr1]

My Greyhawk prestige has tank warmers but the temps have been dipping into the low teens and occasional single digits and valves and piping are temporarily freezing . We drip water through the faucets at night and aren't able to do skirting at this time. One fellow camper recommended putting antifreeze or windshield wiper fluid into the drains. What are people's thoughts and experiences about/with this? I wasn't sure how good this was for the sewer lines of the camp.
I am also buying heated pipe cable today to wrap around the pipes and valves in hopes that will do the job.

[cpd1343]

Your traps should all be inside your unit so I don't see the need to add anti-freeze. RV anti-freeze is food grade so it would not harm the camp sewer system. The heat tape for your water lines is a good idea.

[Jagiven]

Check where your water lines are located. I understand yours run under the floor exposed to the elements. If so, wrapping them with heat tape and pipe insulation.

[dxrobertson]

Originally Posted by Jagiven

Check where your water lines are located. I understand yours run under the floor exposed to the elements. If so, wrapping them with heat tape and pipe insulation.

Yes- on my Entegra all fresh plumbing under the unit is completely exposed; no insulation. Dont get why tank heaters are installed and all the plumbing is exposed to freezing. I ended up painstakingly insulating all the underside plumbing with pipe insulation.

Had a couple low 20s nights and used the onboard fresh tank, no problems.


Usually we here in camp just run about a pencil lead size flow from a faucet. Of course full hookups. This has worked for down into the teens, but generally back up to above freeze the next day. Havent had to worry abut the traps.

Down to the singles and being below freeze over multiple days is another story. Havent experienced that.

Some things that will freeze-
anything exposed in the camp fresh supply; the line, the valve...
of course the fresh supply hose, pressure reg...
dump valves
seen a complete freeze of a black tank

[TwinDad]

We winter camped in December and the temps got into the teens at night. The campground had heat tape and insulation on the water supply. We used a heated freshwater hose as well. I also we wrapped some heat tape around the controls in wet bay.

What seemed to work the best was in addition to all that I would turn off the water supply at night then open my faucets to drain the lines the best I could. We kept some bottles of water out to flush and drink during the night. As soon as the sun was up I’d turn the water supply back on and we had full flow of running water.