Washington DC is cold

[halfwright]

We are at Greenbelt National park near Washington DC. The forecast low is 19. I think our tanks are already frozen from the past two days.
Where do you place an electric heater to heat the basement. I just cleared out a spot and set it in the slide through storage area. Will that put enough heat into the basement to do any good? It is mostly sealed off with the 1/8 inch plywood that is used for the walls. I never have had to try to heat the basement before.

[Art-n-Marge]

Depending on the year of your rig, it's best to put the heater under the rig so the heat rises and warms the tanks. Some skirts to enclose the heat up towards the tanks would help too. A heater in the basement would help but much of the heat would rise above the tanks.

Btw - unless you have Marathons, I wish you could just tow away out of your problem. Good luck to you.

[rohrmann]

You might be better off filling the propane tanks, turning on the heat to maybe 75 degrees, and defrosting that way. Hopefully your rig has some heat going into the lower parts of the trailer where the tanks are. You will probably go through a tank every day and a half, but that will be cheaper than repairing the damage to the plumbing, if it hasn't already occurred.

[DonandBonnie]

On our 3700 the bathroom heater hose runs through the basement. It got knocked loose from the floor of the trailer and started blowing hot air into the basement. We never reconnected it, although it would be a simple move to do so. When the furnace runs it seems to add heat to the floor in the bedroom as well as heat the basement.

[DQDick]

In our rig I drilled several 1" holes in the heater duct work that runs thru the basement and that seems to help a good deal.