we're frozen again! - Montana Owners Club

melanie7ny · 01-16-2009, 02:09 AM

so, we're frozen again! today it's 10degrees, we've stuffed every hole with insulation, and dont know what else to do! should we get hay bales to place around the bottom or the monty?
it seems as though the fresh tank is frozen, because we filled it last night, and now it is reading empty, which is what happened last time, and as it thaws, it gradually reads full again. the pump works fine, but we have to keep it off, because it will try to keep going on, i assume because there is no water in it. luckily we have family on either side with running water, but this is very annoying! husband is mad because arctic package dosen't seem to be functioning!

RAMBIGSKY · 01-16-2009, 03:37 AM

Quote:

quote:Originally posted by melanie7ny

so, we're frozen again! today it's 10degrees, we've stuffed every hole with insulation, and dont know what else to do! should we get hay bales to place around the bottom or the monty?
it seems as though the fresh tank is frozen, because we filled it last night, and now it is reading empty, which is what happened last time, and as it thaws, it gradually reads full again. the pump works fine, but we have to keep it off, because it will try to keep going on, i assume because there is no water in it. luckily we have family on either side with running water, but this is very annoying! husband is mad because arctic package dosen't seem to be functioning!

Could you clarify your statement about the pump.

Are you hooked up to city water when it freezes
Does the pump on run when you turn off city water.

When I did the PDI on this unit the pump surged. We found I had the City fill switch in the fill position. It was causing the pump to put water from the tank back into the tank. No wonder the pump ran all the time.

If your pickup freezes then the pump will suck air.
Hope this helps.

Trouble shooting over the internet is not easy.
I asked specific question to better understand, not to insult.

bsmeaton · 01-16-2009, 04:35 AM

Assuming you are running the furnace? not using electric heat?

melanie7ny · 01-16-2009, 06:09 AM

all questions are good- better diagnostics! when this first happened, a couple of weeks ago, we thought maybe it was something to do with the city water fill or convienence area itself. so since then, we have only been using the gravity water fill, completely avoiding the convience center. i am assuming the fresh water tank is frozen. also, we keep the heat from the furnace on 68, and the basement is nice and toasty, so we cant quite figure this out.

CountryGuy · 01-16-2009, 06:54 AM

Artic package is that foil stuff on the very bottom of your unit, it helps keep cold from coming UP but, it is not the bestest in the westest thingy and not the end all to end all. It is not something that surrounds your unit in warmth, all fuzzy like, eh??? And, there are still lots of holes to plug, as you have discovered.

Have you tried a hair dryer on the convenience center?? Warm things up a bit??

Wondering aloud, is there a kink somewhere in the plumbing?? those lines are not very large, and we have had reports of kinks. again, thinking out loud, would seem a kink might freeze up pretty fast??

Carol (Mrs. CountryGuy) from Al's user.

Exnavydiver · 01-16-2009, 07:49 AM

When ever our unit freezes it is usually in the convenience center. i have recently placed a ceramic heater near the partition between the basement and the center facing toward the partition. There is a gap between the door and the partition of about 1.5 inches and the heater blows right on that gap so that warm air enters the center. This morning when I got up and the hydrant had frozen I tried the onboard water with the pump. I got hot water right away but no cold. I turned the furnace up to about 69 and in about ten minutes I had cold water also, so the ice block was behind the convenience center and somewhere in the supply line from the freshwater tank. I am almost sure it was right behind the center because since I had all the hot water I needed and no cold I knew that the supply to the heater was good. Since the freshwater comes through the pump to both the cold water lines and the hot water supply it had to be after the pump where the blockage was. Kicking the heat up a bit fixed the problem and now I will be looking for any holes near the center that are letting in cold air. I have already stuffed towels into the hose access hole in the center but there seems to be another area that needs work... Dave

Icehouse · 01-16-2009, 07:51 AM

We have had our convenience center freeze, but never our fresh water tank. Carol had a good suggestion with the hairdryer on the convenience center. Try that and give it some time to really warm up. If you are in an especially windy area, it may just cause your tank to freeze. You may need to consider a heating pad for your tank. You said your heat is running and your basement is "toasty". The basement (and convenience center) have no real insulation. Put a thermometer in your basement (a remote one with the display inside the rig works great). The temps in the basement can plummet fast even if the furnace has just gone off. We have made some modifications to our basement and last week our temps were -20 degrees. Our basement was in the 40's when the furnace was NOT running.

The arctic insulation is only the beginning for living in one of these during the winter. I would certainly get hay bales or some sort of skirting for the RV. Stopping the wind under the rig would help. Keep us posted and we'll all keep trying to figure this out!

melanie7ny · 01-16-2009, 08:25 AM

ok, called our dealer, who said everyone is frozen right now, and all the guys in the garage are at an rv show, so no one around to tell me exactly where the freshwater tank is, so i could place a heater near its location. she did say they sell a heat blanket for the tank, so i'll have to pick one up. she also said to put a heater down there, so its been about 2hours on high, still no water. i just went down to put the heat close to the convience center, and in our unit, the partition is open on top. so i reached my hand in there, and its warm. on board, i tried the hot water only, nothing. all faucets dead, pump will try, but dry-so i shut it off.

bsmeaton · 01-16-2009, 08:35 AM

On our 3400, the fresh tank is the tank furthest back. I think all the montanas with the rear fill/vent are the same way. Ours in behind the axle.

Exnavydiver · 01-16-2009, 09:02 AM

melanie7ny, when you are looking at your service bay is the valve for freshwater set horizontal or vertical? On most of the rigs with service bays the valve needs to be set horizontal for the pump to work, if it is vertical or pointing down it is in the fill position and the pump will run but will not pump any water to the faucets. I have left it vertical several times and realized it as soon as the pump was switched on and it just ran on and on. Try switching it to the other position and see what happens... Dave

Icehouse · 01-16-2009, 09:08 AM

Let me ask a question. When you say you placed a heater down there, do you mean in the basement or under the RV? Or is the heater aiming at the convenience center? Sorry, I'm a little confused. A couple of hours isn't that long depending on how bad the ice block is. Our galley tank is at the rear of the RV. Our first winter it froze. Bernie had to drop the belly of the rig and place a heater under the rig for several hours to thaw the tank. After that episode, we added additional insulation to the belly and our lines got heat taped. We haven't had a problem since, knock on wood.

bsmeaton · 01-16-2009, 09:22 AM

When I had the belly down on mine, I found the 2" furnace flex duct that terminates in the belly. It was between the galley and black tank, with the fresh to the rear and the gray to the front of those (Bernie - I realize yours is different with that big back kitchen).

What I noticed is there are so many air leaks in the belly cover that I doubt the warm air coming out of the 2" duct could ever maintain heat to the back fresh tank enough to overcome any kind of breaze pumping air through those leaks. Those leaks are direct on the tank practically.

Icehouse · 01-16-2009, 09:28 AM

Brad, I agree. The little 2" duct can in no way supply the heat needed in subfreezing temps. Bernie ended up cutting a hole into our duct work in the basement which did 2 things. First, it cut down on the sauna in the bedroom and second, it put a lot more heated air into the basement which does wonders at helping to keep it warm. Keep investigating and you'll find the problem, which will lead to the solution. I promise you can live in a Monty in subfreezing weather successfully.

Don't give up Melanie. Next month will be a year ago that we had our black tank fiasco and this board was fantastic. Everything was fixed and we learned a lot of lessons and bought a lot of heat tape!!
Tammy

melanie7ny · 01-16-2009, 10:09 AM

hi, the water fill is horizontal, not in the fill position. and i placed a heater in the basement blowing on the partition to the convience center, above the partition is about a 4 inch gap to the basement ceiling, so i put my hand over the partition, and its definetly warm on the other side. while i was there, i emptied the black and grey tanks, and they were fine, drained no problem. bobby is coming home from work soon, so maybe he'll have some ideas

melanie7ny · 01-16-2009, 10:15 AM

you guys are all so great! i really appreciate all the help! i think maybe adding some more heat into the basement, by way of more duct work will help->bobby does hvac for a living! so maybe he can come up with a crafty solution. i just dont get why keystone would put the fresh water tank at risk to the elements, and save the blackwater-which you could prob. put antifreeze into if you had to. seems like a poor design.

Wayne and Carolyn Mathews · 01-16-2009, 11:38 AM

Like Icehouse (who's still living in an RV deep freeze), we lived in our Montana for a year, including from October to late March in 30 to 40 below temps for weeks at a time. From prior experience having hay bales stored near our last house, we knew that mice would LOVE for us to put those things around the bottom of the rig. They would have a great mice condo with quick access to food and water via any opening that we didn't find and seal. We were also afraid of fire, because we knew we had to put a ceramic heater or two under the rig in crucial places, and we didn't think we'd feel safe with heaters, wires, and hay close together. So, we rigged a very ugly windbreak using stock wire as a frame, all around the trailer, and then hung insulated blankets over that; the next snowfall froze the blankets to the wire and cemented them to the ground with ice (still frozen together in May). We also bought and cut some of those large insulating styrofoam panels to fit places where the blankets didn't work. Doing that, keeping our RV heater set no lower than 60, and putting a "shop heater" with a safety cutoff and a ceramic heater with a safety cutoff under the rig cured our 99% of freezing waterline and freezing tank problems. We didn't stay connected to a water supply because it was too far from our rig; we filled the tank, disconnected the hose, and didn't refill again until we had to. I never had a problem washing clothes, bathing, washing dishes.

What really helped us was moving in two Porta-Potties for the winter, a solution that isn't an option for a lot of people. We were snowed and iced in by the end of October and couldn't pull out to go to town and dump the black tank. So, we did the sprint-in and sprint-out between the rig and the Porta-Potties for months (even when it was -40).

I agree that the convenience center was probably the first problem with freezing, followed by the area around the hot water tank. Once we had the heaters under the rig and the skirting up, freezes were few and far between.

Our solutions worked for us because we were set up on our land while our home was being built. Anyone set up in an RV park or other public place couldn't bring in Porta-Potties or get away with the cobbled-together, ugly-but-serviceable skirting we had. However, on this forum, you have the best tips around for preventing freeze-ups. When one thing doesn't work, try another, or try a combination. Good luck!

Carolyn

nunya · 01-17-2009, 01:22 AM

I installed the foam pipe insulation on all the water lines in the basement and behind the conv.center, any place I could. I place a piece of 6" fiberglass insulation in the conv. center over the inlet as well as the new waterhose I built, fully skirted, 1 heater underneath and it was -5 last night, let the water drip into close tank and NO problems! Heat set at 63 at night.

TLightning · 01-17-2009, 03:39 AM

I keep a 60w light bulb turned on in the convenience center.

As for the 'Arctic Package' and the 'Tested to Zero' claim...it's all hype and sales gimmicks. These things are not built or designed to be lived in while the temps are as low as they have been across most of the country. They are poorly insulated and leak air like a sieve. Sure, you can do it...it just takes a number of electric heaters and lots of propane to be reasonably comfortable.

mopar1 · 01-19-2009, 06:40 AM

Quote:

quote:Originally posted by Icehouse

Don't give up Melanie. Next month will be a year ago that we had our black tank fiasco and this board was fantastic. Everything was fixed and we learned a lot of lessons and bought a lot of heat tape!!
Tammy

Glad to hear you got all of your freezing problems fixed! It was
-15* here in Indiana last week and I was wondering how you were doing up there. How cold has it been there this year?

Icehouse · 01-19-2009, 04:23 PM

We have been down to about -20. Tok hit -80 and Chicken hit -68 all officially. The wind chill here has been down to
around -40. However, this past week, we had a warm up of nearly 60 degrees. It's tooooooooooo hot for me!!!!!!!
However, at a -40, only our convenience center got a little slushy. Hairdryers are great!
Tammy

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