Tank heaters

[hitdrd]

Does anyone keep their tank heaters on all winter instead of winterizing? We are going away in December so does it pay to winterize only to have to dewinterize in 2 months? How costly is it to keep the RV heated?

[Creeker]

Winterize your RV and save yourself many troubles later. Been there and done that. Once. Never again.

[JDDilly]

I would use air to blow out the lines and put antifreeze in the traps and call it good.

[DQDick]

As simple as it is to blow out the lines it makes no sense not to if you live where it gets cold. Just for example, an ice storm takes out the power for several days and now you have some frozen pipes and probably have killed your batteries. Why put yourself thru that extra stress?

[mhs4771]

The Tank Heaters will do nothing for the rest of the water lines unless you run the furnace to keep the belly warm.

[DutchmenSport]

My Montana 375FL will burn through a 30 pound tank of propane running the furnace when the outside temperature reaches about 20 or below. About half of your heat will blow in the belly in your camper. In order to keep pipes from freezing the furnace has to stay running.

Tank heaters are flat pads placed under each of your holding tanks and heat only the tanks. And then, they are designed to just keep them from freezing. They are 12 volt and run off your house battery, and will deplete a battery within a few hours, unless you can keep the batteries charged by keeping the trailer plugged into shore power.

Winterizing is your safest way to go. Blowing or pumping the pink, either way is much safer that what you are proposing. I've winterized and un-winterized (pink stuff) as many as 4 times over the winter months in the pasts. No biggie.

[sourdough]

I know this is redundant but just winterize. If just blowing out and doing the traps takes 15 minutes. Trying to do what you propose with the pads, heating etc. is fraught with potential serious problems.

[Renegade1LI]

Originally Posted by hitdrd

Does anyone keep their tank heaters on all winter instead of winterizing? We are going away in December so does it pay to winterize only to have to dewinterize in 2 months? How costly is it to keep the RV heated?

All depends, we have been using ours all winter upstate NY. I leave the furnace at 40 deg with tank heaters on, so far no issues & we use 30 lbs every other week at 17$ per fill. The key is the furnace must be left on with no other auxiliary heaters. Now with the microaire tstat I can monitor for any problems.

[Rondo]

Sue-- As stated in the posts above the blowout method is your best bet especially if you are planning on taking it to warmer weather later this year or early next. Just remember one thing-- when blowing the lines out DO NOT use any air pressure over 50 PSI. IF you use higher pressure you can blow the lines and connections and develop leaks once you hook water up again. Also don't forget to blow out the following besides the main water lines-- the black tank flush line, the line going to the fresh water tank, the outside shower line and the washer line if you have a washer installed or not. When you dump some of the pink rv antifreeze into the p-traps also add a little more and it will flow into the gray tanks and add some to the toilet and the black tank. Leaving it in the toilet will keep the gasket in the toilet moisturized and flexible. If you notice if you go to any RV dealer and go through a unit on the lot, you will see pink rv antifreeze in the toilet, shower drain and sink drains.

[DQDick]

Also, if you do have a washer, put some antifreeze in it and run the spin cycle so the pump gets the antifreeze in it. They hold some water and can freeze and break the pump housing. You can guess how I learned that.

[team bradfield]

Originally Posted by DQDick

Also, if you do have a washer, put some antifreeze in it and run the spin cycle so the pump gets the antifreeze in it. They hold some water and can freeze and break the pump housing. You can guess how I learned that.

that is exactly why I always use the pink stuff, we don't drink our on board water so I just pour 6 gallons in the FW tank and open each faucet until it shows pink, I run the washer until pink then hit the drain button. in the spring I fill the FW tank and drain a couple times, run water at all faucets then sanitize with bleach mixture. 25 years of this, never an issue

[bcrvman]

Originally Posted by hitdrd

Does anyone keep their tank heaters on all winter instead of winterizing? We are going away in December so does it pay to winterize only to have to dewinterize in 2 months? How costly is it to keep the RV heated?

The tank heaters will not protect the plumbing lines. The heaters are for those of us who camp full time.

[Scootsk]

2 gallons of antifreeze:$8
15 minutes of your time:
Peace of mind priceless

Winterize

[whutfles]

When you winterize your washer don't forget to do both the cold water fill and the hot water fill so that both the cold and hot lines get antifreeze. And pour a little into your soap dispenser in the washer too.

[McRod]

Move to AZ for winters.

[Rondo]

McRod-- We've done that and had to put water in our fresh water tank and also unhook the city water hose nightly and had 8" of the pretty white stuff and we were less than 40 miles from the Mexico border. It still gets cold down in AZ in the winter too but we still head there because it's warmer than our State of Nebraska MOST OF THE TIME!

[McRod]

That's true. If you want a temperate winter climate Florida is a better option, or go further south into MX.

[GreG L.]

Thanks everyone. Been a long time since I had to winterize (Virginia was the last time), all this information is a big help as we are going to winter over in northern CA next year, also reminds me why we live in Florida.