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Old 09-22-2004, 04:09 PM   #1
Montana_1794
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WINTER USAGE W/CITY WATER HOOKUP

This is our first year with a 2000 Montana 5th wheel trailer. We live in Aurora, CO and plan to use our Unit in October and November. Are concerned about having our water lines freeze up inside the unit. Has anyone had this happen to them???

Secondly, while hooking up to a water supply (via garden hose) what is the best way to keep that from freezing? We are looking into heat tape to wrap the hose -- does this work or does someone have a better idea. We would put the water in the holding tank but the water isn't good (out on the Eastern plains of Colorado) where we will be staying so we hate to put that in our tank. Hopefully, the garden hose will work (running it through a filter) if we can keep it from freezing. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
 
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Old 09-22-2004, 04:25 PM   #2
prariepoodle
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WildBill, We live in northern Nevada and the way we keep the lines from freezing is to put the heat tape on the hose and keep the furnace running to keep the holding tanks from freezing. I also have a floor heater that we run with the cabinets open and that helps keep the lines inside from freezing. It got down to 12 below 0 last winter and we did not have anything freeze up.. Good luck on getting everything fixed up for winter. Keep us posted on how everything goes.
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Old 09-22-2004, 04:56 PM   #3
sreigle
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Hi WildBill. PrariePoodle gave you some good advice. We also use a heat-taped water hose and have never had it freeze up on us. We spend Nov/Dec in the Kansas City area. Last Dec we had some spells with lows down to 14 and highs around 21 for several days. The water hose did not freeze. Here's how I was shown to tape it by an experienced winter camper: Run the tape along the hose, parallel, then looped the excess back along the other side. Use some duct tape every foot or so to keep it in place. Then cover the whole thing with those foam tubes intended to insulate copper water pipes. Then duct tape the entire thing. However, do not at any point tape over the thermostat built into the tape.

The weakest point on ours is the low point drains (two of them) on the bottom of the rig. Not the tank drains but the low point drains for the water lines. There's two and they are next to each other. When ours froze hard enough it froze up into the belly and stopped water flow. A few minutes with a hair dryer (thanks Samantha!) thawed it out. For this coming winter I've wrapped those lines in insulation, the foam tubes, and duct tape. Hopefully that will be enough.

As Linda does, we also make sure the furnace runs enough to keep the belly area from freezing, the area with the tanks. There's a furnace duct into that area. We also use electric heaters but if it's to be sub-freezing we'll not use an electric heater downstairs at night but will set the furnace on 50 or 55, close the door to upstairs and use an electric heater up there.

I also have a five-gallon bucket full of loose insulation. I put this bucket over the park's water spigot to keep it from freezing, even if they've insulated their pipe. Just in case.

We put the shrink film on our windows, same stuff you get for a stick home. Works pretty well. If you have the dual-pane windows you might not need or want to do this.

I also got a can of aerosol expanding foam insulation and filled every opening I could find in the bellypan and in the basement area. I also put those foam tubes on the exposed water pipes in the basement.

Someday I'm going to drop the bellypan as much as I can and insulate water lines in the belly and shove insulation batts in there, like RC and Samantha just did to theirs (they live in Michigan). We did not do that for last winter but it sounds like a good idea. Linda (PrariePoodle) is in much colder weather than we were, too.

Most parks will provide a 100lb propane bottle for just the price of the propane. We use that. Otherwise we'd be filling propane bottles every few days during really cold weather. The furnace uses a lot of gas (thus the elec heaters to supplement the furnace).

I think that's about it. No doubt I've forgotten something but this is what I can think of for now. Hope it helps.
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Old 09-22-2004, 06:54 PM   #4
Northstar
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I can really use some of these ideas since I might spend a winter up here in Alaska. Keep us posted. Happyrvint....
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Old 09-23-2004, 01:43 AM   #5
Montana_657
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My bathroom lines ran through the belly. I pulled them and went from the kitchen sink area directly into the basement. I replaced two 20 foot water lines with two 3 foot pieces. Now they don't freeze and the low point drains are in the basement. I just open the door and pull them out when I need them.
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Old 09-23-2004, 03:55 PM   #6
Montana_1794
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Thank you for the helpful input on Winterizing the water supply. The hose you are putting the Elect Heat Tape on - is it regular garden hose - rubber/plastic or does it matter? Where did you purchase your Elect. Heat Tape - I see Wal-Mart and Home Depot have it. (On both of their products it said to use on Copper or PVC only.) I assume it hasn't melted the hose - right? Thanks, again
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Old 09-24-2004, 12:53 AM   #7
prariepoodle
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WildBill, The RV store here made up our hose and it is just a regular water hose. we have never had one melt and we have used heat tapes for years. We do ours the way Steve explained and it works very well.
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Old 09-24-2004, 04:01 PM   #8
Bowie
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Thanks for all the advice on surviving in super cold weather in the Montana. Much appreciated guys! The bucket with loose insulation over the spigot is sure a good way to solve a problem from another angle.
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Old 09-24-2004, 07:31 PM   #9
sreigle
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We saw a bunch in Colorado and all used the same heat tape. We got ours at Home Depot. It does in fact say it's intended only for the hard pipes but I was told by some veteran winter rv'ers that's what they use. We had no problem with it. Ours is a standard RV water hose. The heat tape is 30 feet long (I think they make a shorter one) so I used a 25' water hose.
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