How to keep RV warm enough in winter to avoid winterizing

pay me now....or pay me later.....

In an area where temperatures go into deep freeze for about four months of a nine month "camping" season, I never found it a pain to winterize. Protecting the plumbing from freezing before going into storage was at most a 30 minute job, and "dewinterizing" added less than 30 minutes work to the day or so of trip prep I would do each time I came out of storage, no matter what time of year.

So to make use of these fringes of our extended season, and to prepare for winter trips further south, it was not unusual for me to winterize and dewinterize four times a year or more. Not costly, not time consuming, and not particularly wasteful. If I don't dump my fresh water tanks before storage (e.g. in summer) I always dump and refill coming out of storage, to get freshly chlorinated water into the system.

I don't know what people in your area do, but the sort of temperatures you are talking about are what I expect October and November, March and April, which are my fringe months. Winterize to store, dewinterize to camp.

Living in Missouri where temps can go down below zero F on occasion, I drain everything and then use my air compressor to blow all the water out of the lines. I connect the air compressor to the same fitting the fresh water hose connects and then go around to each faucet (including the toilet) and let the air blow out till all the water is gone. I bypass the water heater and drain it - I use a siphon hose to get another gallon of water out of the bottom of the water heater after it stops coming out on it's own.

After the tanks are drained, I protect the traps with some used anti-freeze from my car by dumping a couple of cups in each sink drain and shower. Some goes down the toilet for good measure.

It's cheap and quick to do. When we head out just after Christmas, all we need to do is reach a campground where it's not freezing and fill the lines and water heater (after switching the bypass) again and we're good to go (to warmer places for the winter).

Trying to protect your rig from freezing with supplemental heaters more than likely won't do a good enough job and you'll find where it didn't work the next time you try to use it.