Winter Camping Advice

[deepskyridge]

We have a 2005 2955 that has the Arctic Insulation Package, which we will be using at a park in New Mexico this winter. The temps can get down below freezing with the lowest around 15-20 degrees. It will be hooked up to 50 amp service all the time. I am planning on using a heat tape on the water hose or possibly using copper tubing with a heat tape. I am also planning on keeping the heater around 50 when not in use. Any other advise from you more experienced folks would be much appreciated.

Thanks

Gary

[FireTruckerWife]

We have had luck, here in Carson City, NV, leaving the thermostat set at 40 on the furnace to heat the underbelly. Don't be tempted to use electric heaters as they will not protect your plumbing. You will use alot of propane, but it's cheaper than frozen pipes.

[jimcol]

Gary,
These units can certainly survive in the colder weather as we have used our's often in the winter. I think 50 might be a good temp to keep the unit when you are not using it but remember the unit will only survive if you have plenty of propane and the furnace performs like it is suppose to. If either of the two things go south you are frozen. If you are away, and I assume you mean away for an extended period of time, I think I would drain it down, blow it out, and put antifreeze in the drain traps as well as the holding tanks. Don't forget to drain the water heater. By blowing it out as opposed to charging the lines with antifreeze recharging the lines when you return takes as little time as hooking up your supply line and turning the faucets on.
The supply line outside the unit will freeze if temps get much below freezing. If the unit is staying in one place copper certainly works better with heattape then does hose. No matter what percautions you take if you are going to be away for an extended period do not leave the water supply to the trailer on.
Also don't forget to leave a roof vent slightly open in the winter. Sure cuts down on condensation.
Jim C.

[hookman]

Remember after draining the tanks to make sure the sewer hose is completely empty.

[jimc]

Also get some of those vent pillows from CW or other suppliers and cover your vents including the Fantastic Fan - it will make a big difference in propane usage.

[Illini Trekker]

You will need to put foam around your low point drain lines. I have the same trailer you have and have been work camping for 9 months now started back in January. Have seen temps at zero, but all lines inside and out are wrapped and heat taped. I put some water in the holding tank to get me throw if the outside line would freeze. I do use electric heaters and also have 100lb tanks and just use the 30lb tanks for back up. Find some rugs for the floors to help those bear floors.

[sreigle]

Somewhere in the time frame yours was built the low point drains were moved up into the basement storage area. If the valves for those on yours are in the basement, just keeping the furnace on as you plan will be enough. If the drains hang below the rig and have caps on the end like our 2003 did, then you will need the foam as Dennis suggested. On our 2003, foam worked down to about 20 degrees. Below that they froze anyhow. I had to wrap them in heat tape, then foam around that, then duct tape to hold it all together. We got down to five below without them freezing again. And I just left the heat tape in place all year long, including bouncing down the highway.

If they should freeze on you, a hairdryer works wonders on thawing things out. When those low point drains freeze up into the belly where they tee into the water lines, it stops all water flow, hot and cold. RC and Samantha clued us to the hairdryer trick when we had that problem.

If yours are in the basement storage area you don't really need to do anything to them other than run the furnace.

We heat taped the water hose and the park's spigot and had no freezing problems with this 2007 model. With the 2003, once we heat taped the low point drains as well as the water hose and spigot, we had no more problems.

In the earlier models the water lines in the belly lay across the steel frame. They can freeze at that point, if it gets cold enough, even with the furnace on. It helps to drop an edge of the belly pan and put foam pipe insulation on the pipes. At the temperatures you're talking I doubt you'll need to do that.

On the 2007 and newer models(and maybe the 2006's with the newer nose cap), the water lines are in their own insulated channel between the floor and subfloor. Just running the furnace is all you need to do with these models.

If you do not have dual paned windows (we don't) you can get quite a cold draft off the windows. Using foamboard helps. But what really helped us was using the window film you buy at walmarts and hardware stores. The first couple of years I put it on the inside of the windows but removing the valances a couple of times caused the screws to loosen in their holes. The next year I put the film on the outside. That was actually easier to do. I could not find the outdoor film so just used the indoor film and it worked fine.

One other thing I would suggest is to keep ALL tank valves closed in subfreezing weather. Otherwise a little water in the sewer hose freezes. The next water that comes through adds another layer which freezes on top of the prior layer. Pretty soon the sewer hose is frozen solid. If that happens, disconnect the hose and let it lie there and install a different hose. If you even touch that frozen hose material it will come apart. Been there done that. It's not fun cleaning up the mess. So keep the valves closed until ready to dump. After dumping, walk the hose, raising it as you go to remove all liquid from the hose.

We found just running the furnace normally is enough, including a 50 thermostat setting at night. Just be careful if you supplement with electric heaters that they don't keep the furnace from running occasionally. If it's cold enough, that won't be a problem. With temperatures in the mid to upper 20's it might be. Below that the furnace should be needed enough to keep things from freezing.

Good luck.