Frozen hot water lines

[Montana_4944]

We are in central Texas where it was in the hight teens last night. We wraped the out side pipes, disconected the sewer hose, kept laundry door open (it was 44 in the basement this morning). I went to wash my hands this morning and the hot water wasn't working. It is not working in the shower either. The cold is working. The kitchen is fine. Does anyone have an idea why? We put a heater in the laundry shoot and it is 60 under there now. But still no hot water.

[drifus]

Could it be somewhere if the belly of the RV? I am not sure what year yours is, but I had read here that the earlier years the water lines we closer to the belly as opposed to the newer ones they are closer to the floor. I find it strange that the cold is fine and the "hot" is not. Maybe the lines split when the enter the RV and the hot was lower than the cold? Are you staying put? If so maybe you should skirt the RV and add some heat below-outside.

[Charlie]

Try bypassing the hot water heater and see if you can get a flow from the hot side of your faucet, if so take a hair dryer to the lines and see if it will thaw out, might be it is on the outlet of the hot water heater.

[Montana_4944]

Great newsthe heater worked. We just got hot water. Just a note it took a long time. We had the heater going for 4 to 5 hours. Thanks for all your input.

[Lstierw]

I did not think that we would get this cool of weather in central texas, but i know that i will be putting on heat tape and insulation on all of the water lines.........Les

[VanMan]

We had the same problem last winter. It turned out to be the low point drains. Once they freeze up the ice goes all the way up into the lines that feed them and will not let water pass. That's why some things work and some don't. I had to get out there on my back with a hair dryer. This year they are bundled up nicely with a floodlight shining on them. I intended to rig up an eye bolt or something so I could use a faucet cover but didn't get around to it. I find it's hard to get interested in that kind of stuff when it's pretty weather !!

[sreigle]

YorkieSue, does yours have the two low point drains hanging down under the rig? If so, that's the first place that will freeze. Get under there with a hairdryer for a few minutes and they should thaw out. They did for us when it was about 17 outside but at single digit temperatures that didn't work. If you expect to be in this kind of weather very much I'd recommend putting heat tape on those drain lines, cover that with insulation, duct tape the whole thing. Since I did that we've not frozen those low point drains even down to around zero.

Yours may have the low point drains in the basement storage area, in which case the above is irrelevant.

By the way, you don't need to open the laundry chute door. There is heat to the basement storage area. Not a lot but enough to keep it from freezing in there. We recently had a different freezing problem and to get more heat into the belly we turned the furnace up and covered much of the heat vents in the coach to force more into the belly. When I lifted the laundry chute door I got a serious amount of heat coming up. I am not sure where the heat gets into that area but apparently it is from around the heat ducts that pass through that area. I cannot find a leak in the ducts themselves.

[Montana_4944]

Thanks so much Steve. We do have the low point drains that hang below. Les did insulate those and still not quite sure where the freeze problem was. After talking to our dealer, he mentioned also that it is important to keep the furnace level high enough to get heat to the basement level. He also mentioned that the techs there also can puncture a card size hole into the heat vent by the steps (at least in our model) that go up into the bedroom for added heat into the basement. Thanks again and still learning.....

[sreigle]

Sue, I tried insulating the low point drains but they still froze. It was not until I got a short heat tape and wrapped it around the low point drains that we solved that problem. I wrapped with the heat tape, then wrapped that with insulation, then duct taped the whole thing. It's been that way for over a year and many thousand miles and is doing fine. I have the heat tape cord tied to a line under the belly to keep it from dangling too much. We've been down to minus 3 now without freezing the low point drains. We had other freezing problems due to my mistakes but not the low point drains. And two nights ago it got down to 10 and nothing froze. The high the next day was 23.

[Montana_4944]

Thanks Steve and we agree. Les does plan on both using heat tape and insulation on the low point drains before next winter, especially not knowing exactly when we will head south next year. Sounds like this is a good ounce of prevention...

[dsprik]

I can't remember who it was, but I thought someone mentioned that they wrapped their heat tape on their pipes, then put insulation (fiberglass?) around the pipes and wrapped it "tightly" with duct tape. This "tight" technique made me wince. I thought insulation was based on maintaining some sort of air space to buffer the heat loss. If the insulation was squeezed so tightly that there is little, or no, air space, It might lose a certain percent of it's main function. I may need some engineering help on this.

*On Edit~ Steve R., it was you who mentioned this - I found it earlier on this thread. How tight did you wrap it? Actually, with the heat tape, you might not need too much help from the insulation - no matter how tight, or loose, it is. I also understand that if you are on the road, you don't want anything too loose.

[sreigle]

Dave, I wrapped it tight enough to keep it from falling off. I didn't know about maintaining airspace. I was mostly interested in keeping the heat from the heat tape from escaping. The whole thing is wrapped with duct tape, which also acts as a barrier to wind to some degree. It shouldn't be too difficult to wrap it to allow the insulation to stay expanded and still tape it so it won't fall off. Ours has stayed on for around 15k miles.

[ols1932]

We have one cold water line that runs from the shower to the kitchen sink and hot water heater. It runs under the floor where there it is not near the heat duct. It froze. When it froze, this of course prevented any hot water anywhere. This summer, when the weather is nice and warm, I'm going to drop the underbelly cover and insulate that line and probably add some more insulation in that area.

[owenwetzel]

Last year had freeze up problem with cold & hot lines. Had cold water to toilet and lav, as well as shower but not to kitchen. Found out lines from bathroom area to kitchen were laying on frame. I've since insultated them and moved them up off frame. Made a difference.

[sreigle]

Both of you, owenwetzel and ols1932, have Montanas of vintage that, like ours, has water lines in the belly laying on the frame members. That's where we had problems with freezing (in addition to the low point drains). Foam pipe insulation worked wonders on that for us.

Orv, yours probably was freezing but, just in case.... a year ago we thought we froze the hot water line since we had no hot water anywhere. Yet we had cold water everywhere it was supposed to be. It turned out to be a bad checkvalve in the water heater outgoing port. It was coincidental that we were in very cold weather at the time.

[ols1932]

Steve, mine was actual freezing of the cold water line to the kitchen where my hot water heater is located. We had cold water everywhere else but the kitchen. And, since there was no cold water in the kitchen, there could be no water drawn from the hot water heater. The hot water lines did not freeze.