winter questions - Montana Owners Club

Doug and Anita · 10-12-2006, 01:48 PM

I know that the Montana has the arctic pkg. but how cold can it get and still feel safe from freezing tanks and water lines in the trailer. I live in the Texas Hill Country for now and 20-25 degrees is about as cold as it will ever get. Also, what does everyone do about the hose from the faucet to the trailer. What is the best way to keep it from freezing.

Mrs. CountryGuy · 10-12-2006, 01:51 PM

20 to 25 you should be able to withstand and not freeze up, but you need to remember to run the furnace some so it gets to the belly. That said, 20 to 25 for hours and hours and days on end might present problems.

Hose, put some water in the holding tanks, disconnect, and drain hose. Reconnect when the temp goes back up to 33.

Lucky you, you are living in a great place!!

LonnieB · 10-12-2006, 02:27 PM

Hey Doug, I love Marble Falls. The first time I went there, in 1977, they only had 1 stop light, very little traffic, and Horseshoe Bay had just got started good. That's also where I found my DW, although neither of us really liked the other. Funny how things turn around on you

. She still has family in Llano, so we are down there on a fairly regular basis.
Back to the subject at hand. I agree with Mrs. CountryGuy, no colder than it gets there your holding tanks will be fine, as long as the heater runs once in awhile. The hose, if you don't want to unhook it, can be wrapped in heat tape and insulation. The RV dealer here sells a hose that is made with a heat strip and foam insulated. I haven't checked on a price yet but am going to. There is probably a place in Austin that sells the same thing, and if you want, I'll get my Brother-inlaw to check around.
Have a nice day.

Montana Sky · 10-12-2006, 02:50 PM

As Carol said, make sure you set your furnace to come on every now and then. Keeping the underbelly warm will help keep your tanks and water lines from freezing. I have camped in temps all the way down to 15 degrees overnight and had no problems with freezing. I also use space heaters, the fireplace, and the bedrooom a/c heatstrip to heat the coach, have my furnace set at 55 degrees to keep that underbelly warm. As far as your hoses and water faucet, I suggest buying some heat tape and wrapping them with it. Steve Reigle is an expert in this area, I am sure he will be along very soon to give you all the answers you will need.

Mrs. CountryGuy · 10-12-2006, 03:11 PM

OK GUYS!!!!!

Heat tape on the hose is the chicken way out! Ya is takin all the fun out of cool weather camping!

Ok, get the heat tape Doug, that way, you can call it a winter home, not a winter campout!

Elkhart County Fairgrounds (Indiana) where we held the Fall Rally allows late season camping with water. But, when the temps go below 32, they ask you to fill the fresh tank, unhook the hose and allow the water to drain back down the faucets (no, I have no idea how that works, only reporting what I read on the signs).

Heat tape will work great in Marble Falls.

LonnieB · 10-12-2006, 03:33 PM

Oops...sorry Carol, wasn't trying to contradict you, just offering an alternative

.

Mrs. CountryGuy · 10-12-2006, 04:13 PM

Lonnie B

I thought it was VERY funny!

Just shows that us in the north tend to think different than those further south. AND, that those that full time in those cooler temps surely look at it differently than those of us that only weekend or a week or two in those temps! Al and I think nothing of just unhooking the hose, and hey, if it is just gonna be 32, we have been known to let the water run a bit in the bath sink, IF, we are hooked to a FULL SERVICE hookup and can leave the gray tank open for the night. Have done it, but it makes me a bit shaky.

Heat tape for Marble Falls and Full time for Doug is a much better alternative.

OKKK, so the snow and temps today, have frozen my old semi functioning brain cells! HA HA

So, there ya have the truth, I am thinking and feeling frozen, therefore I suggest unhooking the hose!

Montana Sky · 10-12-2006, 04:43 PM

Carol,
Elkhart wanted you to unhook the hose because their faucets are self draining. =) I was reading their rules as well.... LOL!

sreigle · 10-13-2006, 08:52 AM

It requires 27 or lower temperature (F) for four or more hours to constitute a hard freeze. It can get down to 20-25 but so long as it's not 27 or below for four hours or more you'll likely not have much problem.

If your Montana has the two low point drains hanging below the belly, that's the first place that will freeze (other than the water hose). A hairdryer will thaw them out. Frozen low point drains can shut off water flow wherever those pipes go to / come from. We were able to get down to 22 before those would freeze on our 2003 Montana. Insulating them didn't help much. Heat taping them, covered by insulation and duct tape let us get to minus 5 without those drains freezing.

Many people fill and use the fresh water tank as needed. We use a heat taped water hose and have no problem with the water hose freezing. We've been down to five below with that setup.

Furnace running occasionally to keep heat in the belly, as others said. Make sure if you use electric heaters they're not keeping the furnace from running.

Good luck. I don't think 20 to 25 will cause you very much problem if you take those simple precautions. Dual pane glass or film over the windows will help keep it comfy inside, too. But, again, if you don't get to those subfreezing temperatures very often then filming windows may not be worth the effort.

bsmeaton · 10-13-2006, 10:43 AM

If you heat tape, don't forget to wrap the hydrant if it doesn't already have heat tape supplied from the campground. I learned the hard way and found the hydrant laying on the ground the next morning after a hard freeze. The steel pipe froze and broke about 1" below grade, long before my feed hose would have broke.

MAMalody · 10-13-2006, 08:00 PM

I don't understand how you heat tape the low point drains. I have an '03 3575RL and the drains are about 6" below the belly and about 3' from the city water intake...how do you put heat tape on that? I have never seen a heat tape shorter than 3' Seems to me there is going to be a lot of unused heat tape.

mtnhntr · 10-14-2006, 07:11 PM

I am also confused on what to do with the 3 low point drains in freezing weather. They are going to freeze no matter how much you run your furnace unless you somehow keep them heated. Is it OK to just let them freeze? Since further up the line they shouldn't freeze if you have been running your heater and the ice would just expand up the line. Of course you could break the little shut-off valve.
Ken

LonnieB · 10-14-2006, 08:24 PM

I agree, there isn't much sticking out to put heat tape on, but Steve has figured a way, and I'm sure he will let us know.
I've been thinking ( which is sometimes a bad thing ) about trying something different. I have had on my stick house, a plastic coated polystyrene housing, that latches onto a flange, attached to the house, to cover the hose bib coming out of the wall. What I have in mind is attaching the flange to the belly skin of the Montana so the drain hoses can be covered with the insulated housing. Inside the insulated housing, and also attached to the belly skin, a small 12 volt light ( license plate light ) with a switch in the basement compartment. This would even work when traveling in very cold temps. All of this may be overkill, or un - necessary, and it may not work at all, it's just something I'm going to try.

tmarshall · 10-15-2006, 08:20 AM

There are two kinds of heat tape. The kind that has the thermostat built in and can't be wrapped around itself. This is the kind that is sold in a minimum of 3ft length to 30ft length. The other kind is a heat tape you cut to length and plug it into a thermostat that you buy seperately. The latter of the two can be crossed over itself. Both kinds are pricey. I think the thermostat on the cut-to-length style is about $16 and the heat tape is $2.50/ft.

I own a 2004 and the low point drains are hanging below the belly. I ordered low point drain three-way valves from www.pexconnection.com and installed them in place of the "T" connection at the low point drains. This allows me to cutoff the pressure of the drain lines in the heated area of the underbelly. I then put the sillcock insulation cover over that and sealed all gaps with duct tape. I will see if this works. If it doesn't I am going to leave the lines pressurized and heat tape the lines like Steve.

sreigle · 10-15-2006, 05:27 PM

Actually, I got the kind that both has a builtin thermostat and can be wrapped around the pipes. I got it at Tractor Supply. The ones you get at Lowe's and Home Depot cannot be wrapped. Tractor Supply has them. I don't recall the length of the one I used but it was the shortest they had. It may have been 3 feet.

I wrapped that three footer around the pipes sticking out of the belly. I did not remove the belly pan nor try to push the tape up into the belly. I used duct tape every couple of inches to hold it in place.

Around that I put a length of foam pipe insulation tube on each pipe. You can't get them entirely around the pipes so do the best you can. Taped those in place. Then I took some roll insulation and wrapped that tightly around the pipe insulation. Then I duct taped the whole thing, with thermostat and cord/plug sticking out. I tied the cord up out of the way and left it in place for the two years before we traded the rig. It stayed in place just fine. I don't have that rig anymore so can't take pictures.

I was in Tractor Supply in the KC area the other day and they don't yet have the heat tapes out. I asked and they said they'll be out on the shelves soon. I paid right around $10 to $15 for the heat tape.

For my water hose I used a 30 foot heat tape from Lowe's on a 20' hose. It cannot be wrapped but I doubled it back on the hose, with the thermostat and cord sticking out. I covered that with foam pipe insulation, duct taped all joints and place the pipe insulation didn't want to stay closed. We used that hose for several winters and had water from the park's pipes all winter, even at 5 below zero F. However, I also had to heat tape the park's water pipe (above ground part) and spigot. Even an inch not covered will freeze up if it gets cold enough. I have a taped ten footer I'm going to use this winter as the 20 footer was more than I needed and I bent the connection out of round so it leaked. So it is history and I'll use the 10 footer.

Ken, there are just two low point drains. Just heat tape the ones with two lines right together. The other one is the fresh water tank drain. Don't need to touch it. Yes, they will freeze no matter how much heat you get in the belly since they hang outside.

One of our members, I can't remember who, dropped the belly pan and replaced the low point drains with those drains you see on a stick house where the valve is back in the pipe aways so the water never gets below the belly pan. That's an elegant solution but more work than I wanted to go to. When you're fulltiming you don't often have a good place to lay under there and do that much work.

On edit - found a 3 footer that can be wrapped at Ace Hardware for $21.99.
http://www1.acehardwareoutlet.com/(1v1sei55xkfd2qepwsfk1i55)/ProductDetails.aspx?SKU=33511

rlwhit · 10-16-2006, 01:17 PM

End of last Feb. we were on the way home to Wa. from AZ. via way of Utah, Montana and Idaho. I learned that at 7 degrees while towing with the RV heater on full time the fresh water line froze. If you are camped I believe it will take a lower temp. When I discoved the frozen line I drained everything I could and put pink stuff in. When we got home in NW Wa. the temp was 34. It took four days before I could drain the holding tanks. Lucky no damage. So I guess the question is tow or park. Stay put.

Doug and Anita · 11-05-2006, 12:49 PM

Is their a difference between heat tape and heat cable? Also, I have a Camping World water softener. Do I need to worry about it freezing as well as the water hose?

VanMan · 11-06-2006, 10:24 AM

If the low point drains freeze, the ice will push up into the line and block off everything "downstream" from it - I speak from experience!! At home during storage I point a floodlight at them and turn it on those few really cold nights we get in N. Texas. Rather than winterize (we like to make a trip or two over Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays), I just leave a heater on, cabinets open, furnace on lowest temp, etc., but I have been burned a couple of times. One was with the low point drains - I just never thought about them. I think I'm going to put a couple of screweyes next to them and use an insulated faucet cover (+ pipe wrap) with a bungee cord. I don't know if that could be made to withstand travel or not.

Boxer44 · 12-08-2006, 04:16 AM

Quote:

quote:Originally posted by MAMalody

I don't understand how you heat tape the low point drains. I have an '03 3575RL and the drains are about 6" below the belly and about 3' from the city water intake...how do you put heat tape on that? I have never seen a heat tape shorter than 3' Seems to me there is going to be a lot of unused heat tape.

Boxer44 · 12-08-2006, 04:19 AM

Quote:

quote:Originally posted by MAMalody

I don't understand how you heat tape the low point drains. I have an '03 3575RL and the drains are about 6" below the belly and about 3' from the city water intake...how do you put heat tape on that? I have never seen a heat tape shorter than 3' Seems to me there is going to be a lot of unused heat tape.

We have camped in Minnesota the last two winters. We keep the low point drains heated by cutting a 2 liter plastic bottle off so that it is a little longer than the drains. Then I put a 4 watt night light bulb next to the plastic hose, wrap fiberglass insulation around the bulb and the hose, then slip the cut off plastic bottle over the whole arrangement. It works down to about -20 F where it has finally frozen.

You may also like: