Will my lines freeze overnight?

[RAurand]

Originally Posted by snickers

Thanks for all the replies. We did a test with a glass of water last night and decided we will only use the toilet and bring bottled water for all of our other needs. I found some good info here for using the toilet with antifreeze. Our camper is winterized already. https://www.forestriverforums.com/fo...rv-197600.html

A glass of water is deeper and thicker volume wise than your water lines, Therefore water lines will freeze solid much quicker.

[CAG]

Originally Posted by RAurand

A glass of water is deeper and thicker volume wise than your water lines, Therefore water lines will freeze solid much quicker.

Yes. Apples and Oranges. Water lines freeze from the exposed junctions up the line to the first T and then stop all water flow. The first sign is that your water pump comes on trying to equalize pressure in the line and cannot do that so it runs none-stop.

[Kim Gass]

We towed the 195 across Texas in Feb 2021. Camped in Big Bend four nights. All were below freezing though sunny at times during the day. Highs were just above freezing. We just did not use anything that needed water during our stay. We did not rewinterize. Low was 9 degrees and yep there was quite a bit of snow.

This means not using the water pump the faucet or the toilet. The campground mostly had those though most were also frozen one was not.

[WFOracing]

No, you're okay at those temps.

[Kiwimg]

Originally Posted by snickers

Just don’t like heat up when I’m sleeping. I sleep better in the cold, but I can set it to 60 if it will keep the lines from freezing for the two nights.

Would running your hot water at a trickle/drip overnight keep your lines from freezing?
I don’t know if this works, so I’m hoping for some answers from others as well.

[koko]

We mostly dry camp in the winter because of the issues we've had with frozen lines. We were at Lassen NP, and it dipped down to 21 degrees one night. We heated rocks from our campfire, wrapped them in towels, and put them in our waterline cabinet. Believe it or not, that worked; but if we'd had a choice, we would have drained our lines and gone dry. It was in late October, and we just hadn't prepared for that cold of weather.



We use the large water bottles and totally go without plumbing when it's going to be that cold for more than one night. For us, using the toilet is the big issue, especially at night. We use the plastic liners for port-a-potties in our toilet and dispose of them in a trash receptacle.



Even when you're at a KOA, lines can freeze between the hook up and our unit. We always unhook when it's going to go below freezing. Most campgrounds will come around and warn you...after all, freezing hurts their equipment, too. We have heater tanks, but we've also added heater pads to our tanks. We also run a ceramic heater near the center water lines (they seem to freeze up the worst when we're not hooked up). Of course, for that you need electricity. And we run our propane furnace and/or electric heater whenever we can if we still have water in our tanks. We run our shower faucet at a trickle - sometimes it works, sometimes not. If lines freeze and it doesn't warm up the next day, it's a real mess. We've spent a whole day just trying to unfreeze our lines - not fun.

[mercman]

I'm living full time in a 264BHW with the Baja package (insulated underbelly) while I'm building an earth sheltered home in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado.

I'm at 8340' and have shore power and a 500 gallon propane tank. I keep my heat turned up to around 58 degrees overnight and have the cabinet doors on the water side of my TT open to catch the heat from the furnace.

I have installed a radiant panel heater which I also run overnight. I've been doing this configuration for about a year and the previous two years I dry camped.

So far so good even though the temperature has dipped into the teens for a few nights.

[norty1]

Originally Posted by Kiwimg

Would running your hot water at a trickle/drip overnight keep your lines from freezing?
I don’t know if this works, so I’m hoping for some answers from others as well.

I would rather hear the furnace running than the water pump?

[snickers]

This article was very helpful: https://www.forestriverforums.com/fo...rv-197600.html

When it came down to it, what I really wanted was to be able to use our toilet. We brought a few gallons of anti-freeze with us, filled up our 5 gallon coleman water tank and a few gallon bottles with filtered water for drinking. We poured a gallon and a half of anti-freeze down the toilet. We brought a small bucket with us to put water in for flushing and I put a small plastic container in the sink and put the coleman water tank on the counter with the nozzle over the sink/plastic bucket. We heated water and poured it in the bucket in the sink and then added some cold water for washing and brushing teeth. I took the dirty water and poured that into the bucket I had sitting in the tub and used that for flushing. My husband was great and poured water over my head in the tub, so I could wash my hair. We poured a gallon of anti-freeze down the tub, into the grey tank.

When we got home we dumped both tank, used the black tank rinser thingy and flushed out the black tank until it ran clear. Took the garden hose and flushed out the grey tank. Dumped anti-freeze down both and ran some anti-freeze through our lines just to be on the safe side.

We had a great weekend enjoying the company of good friends and we were able to enjoy our privacy in our camper. Their cabin is winterized for the year, so we only had cold water and their toilet to use at the cabin.

[WFOracing]

I used to own a couple of RV Parks and hated paying for water - but would advise folks to trickle a bit of water to protect the outside hoses/bibs from freezing.

Running water works for 15 to 20 degrees. Running hot water isn't necessary, in fact a waste of energy. Below 15 you'd have to run more than a trickle and/or heat your cabin to a level higher than maybe comfortable for sleep - 75 to 78.

For temps above 20 when you're dry camping: your rigs emits enough heat from the living area to keep your onboard pipes/plumbing from freezing.

[snickers]

Two more things, our camper was already winterized before the trip and we didn’t put any toilet paper down the toilet. I brought a gallon ziplock bag with some borax in it for the poopy paper and the other paper I never put down the toilet anyway, I throw that in a little garbage can I keep in the bathroom. That made dumping very easy when we got home.

[jimmoore13]

First, "Keeseville"...as in Keeseville, NY? My old hometown through 1967, when I went off to college.

You don't say what rig you have, so some assumptions: you have a modest rig that is NOT fully outfitted for cold weather.

21 degrees F is COLD.

What's likely ... almost guaranteed ... to freeze? All the dangly bits that are unlikely to be protected on a modest RV:
1) Drain port for freshwater tank. This little plastic valve hangs down below the coroplast ... out in the cold air with zero protection. In a true 4-seasons RV, this will be protected with some sort of cover.
2) Low point drains...both hot and cold...that, by definition, hang out below the bottom of the rig, unprotected, in the cold air. In a true 4-seasons RV, they, too, will be protected with some sort of cover.
3) The grey and black tank drains. If your gate valves are haning out there in space near the ends of the pipes, they, too, are unprotected. Cold-weather certified rigs have remote valves, up near the tanks inside the coroplast, and they are operated by cables...the exposed portion of these pipes is dry. While these are just as vulnerable as the fresh tank drain and low point drains, the sheer mass of the effluent in those larger pipes offers some protection for a short period of time...as in SHORT.

Note that running the furnace will offer SOME protection to the tanks, but hot air rises, so hot air in the "basement" won't protect the dangly bits. Heat pads on the tanks will somewhat warm the fluid in the holding tanks, and this offers a slight amount of additional protection to the dangly bits...but not that much. And if you don't have shore power, your battery bank is not likely to supply power to these 12 volt pads long enough to protect you through to the coldest temps around 6 AM.

So my suggestion is don't risk it.

If you put a dog bowl full of water outside overnight, will it freeze to the bottom at 21 degrees? Your damned right it will. And that's what will happen to your dangly bits...heat or no heat.

If you have a 4 seasons RV, batten down the hatches (as described in your owner's manual) and run the furnace. You'll be fine, because they are designed for sub-freezing temps. If you don't have a 4 seasons RV, you have a fair-weather toy. Stay dry and winterized.

[jimmoore13]

My bad...you did say what you have: Jayflight 195RB.
That's a fair-weather rig. It's not designed to operated down to 21 degrees.

[jimmoore13]

Originally Posted by snickers

Thanks for all the replies. We did a test with a glass of water last night and decided we will only use the toilet and bring bottled water for all of our other needs. I found some good info here for using the toilet with antifreeze. Our camper is winterized already. https://www.forestriverforums.com/fo...rv-197600.html

Just saw this...wise move.

[Whistleroo]

Originally Posted by MontanaRick

You have to ask yourself, "Am I feeling lucky? Do I trust the weather report to not get even colder than forecast?"

This is one of those issues of balancing risk vs seriousness of outcome. There is a reasonable chance that the lines might not freeze enough to do damage, but if they do, the results could be pretty bad.

With our 195RB, I'm willing to let it get in the upper 20s if it's going to get in the 40s the next day. We also sleep without the heater off (the noise of it blowing and cycling on and off would be enough to keep me up). The trailer is not well insulated. You decide what risk you are willing to take, but we would get a water jug for the kitchen and bottles for the bathroom (at these temps, I wouldn't worry about the drain traps, as they have a much larger volume per inch than the water lines plus expansion space).

We have an approach for these situations where we don't want to do a full winterization yet. We don't have a high volume compressor to blow out lines, but we do have a tire inflator. We hook up the fresh water hose to the city water inlet, then attach in inflation device to the hose with an adapter. We run the pressure up to 40 psi, then open a faucet, repeat the process for each faucet and the toilet (only 4 faucets in this rig). The hose gives enough air volume to blow the lines pretty well (although I wouldn't rely on just this for our winters in Montana for the entire winter). Takes less than 10 minutes.

Sounds like a simple fix for those rare times you need a bit more protection from the cold. How to connect the compressor to the water inlet? Is this the way one normally does a "blow-out" for winterization?... isnt there a separate connection point to attach a compressor?

[Bill Johnson]

Originally Posted by Whistleroo

Sounds like a simple fix for those rare times you need a bit more protection from the cold. How to connect the compressor to the water inlet? Is this the way one normally does a "blow-out" for winterization?... isnt there a separate connection point to attach a compressor?

This is what I use, they come in plastic and metal

[jimmoore13]

I use one of these. Note the difference between this one and the one with the schrader valve. With one of these, one can connect a female quick-connect from the compressor hose and leave it connected and walk away. Set the output of the compressor to 40 PSI (which is plenty), and one can open and close faucet valves and flush the toilet over and over again without having to hold an air chuck to the other type of fitting - schrader valve. Air volume is also considerably higher than what can flow through a schrader valve.

The key is to set the compressor output to about 40 PSI. Your pressure regulator on your city water hose is set to about 50 PSI, so the 40 PSI is safe for the plumbing.

Then, working alone, one can go from valve to valve, including low point drains, and blow the lines dry. If you need to allow the compressor to recover, just close all the faucets.

Two important other steps. Empty the filter screen cup on the water pump, and be sure to empty any water filter housing built into the rig.

Open and close each valve 3 to 5 times to ensure that the lines are blown dry (not spitting much water), and don't forget the toilet flush. Also, when opening the flush valve, stand back. Water will spray all over the place. Perhaps throw a towel over the toilet to contain the spray (it's clean water). Don't forget the outside shower and any other external water supplies, such as an outdoor sink.

When your all done with that, drain the grey tank of all that water you ran down the drain. In the case of the toilet, there's a negligible amount of water.

Next, pour at least a gallon of RV antifreeze into the black tank, saving about a cup to allow to sit on top of the flush shutter. Pour at least another gallon of RV antifreeze into the grey tank by sharing it between all greywater drains...kitchen, bathroom, shower, etc. to protect the traps and tank. In both cases, most of the antifreeze will end up in the dump pipes up against the dump valves...protecting them.

Lastly, how many grey tanks do you have? Some rigs have one for the kitchen and another for the bathroom. Make sure you get them all and protect each one with about a gallon of antifreeze...which protects the dump pipes.

Don't forget to drain your fresh tank...even if you always use hookups. The check valves on water pumps are notorious for seepage backwards from city water to the fresh tank. Very often there will be water in there whether you add it intentionally or not.