New to RVing in the winter

Haerveu wrote:
My wife and I are new to RVing. We are currently permanently parked at a nice location in central California. Our neighbor came by today and told me I needed to disconnect my hose line and drain it so it won't freeze. Can I just run or drip the faucets. I'm all about easy and plus I would hate to have to disconnect and reconnect every night.
Thanks all.

We are in Southern Cal - Earp to be exact and our forecast night time low for the next several days is right around 30*. It is 11:00PM and I have just come back into the RV from "dealing" with the frozen water hose situation. I filled our 60gal fresh water tank, disconnected and drained the outside water hose, drained the dual filter system and then crawled under the belly of the beast, into the basement water pump as I forgot to flip the line direction switch over from anti freeze to fresh water and couldn't prime and pressure up the system. I will sleep like a log tonight!

Thanks for posting your query as it motivated me to be proactive instead of reactive.

Cheers!

Mike

Research heated water hose. A little expensive, but if you are all about ease, then the price doesn't matter, right? I can't vouch whether or not they work. Personally, I would just work off the fresh water tank. Fill it up every other day or however often you need to. I wouldn't drag the hose in and out every day for sure.

Leaving it drip in a house will save the pipes, but house pipes are much better insulated from the cold than your hose can possibly be just laying on the ground. It also wastes a lot of water, which is not a good thing to be doing in general, let alone in an arid area such as central California. One might do it in a house due to the complexity of adding insulation and/or heat tape to pipes in a wall. But it is just plain wasteful (as well as possibly futile) for a hose on the ground. The large mass of water in your fresh tank won't freeze unless it drops below freezing and stays there for several days.

Think about the 100s of gallons daily wasted water from a trickling faucet. Potential frozen solid waste hose. An rv is not a S&B house, requires a bit of proaction. Heat trace & insulate your hoses, or use your fresh tank & pump, it is so easy, to always have water without worry.
Be Green.

If you are staying in the same place for a long time you can create a heated and insulated water hose so you do not have to drain it ever night. Buy a heat tape that matches the length of your hose as well as some foam pipe insulation at a hardware store, Home Depot, Loses, or Menard's. Lay the heat tape along the bottom of the foam insulation, than put the hose inside the insulation, and use electrical tape every few feet to hold the insulation closed. Attached the thermostat portion of the heat tape to the hose so it senses the water temperature in the hose. Plug the heat tape in and forget about freezing water the rest of the winter. You can find a number of sites on the internet that show how to make this type of a hose set-up ... or find somebody in the park you are in who has an insulated hose and ask them to show you how they made it.

Your neighbor gave you good advise. If the hose does freeze and you go to move it, you might be buying a new on. Another trick is cover the hose along the ground with a tarp and grass. Some folks buy the foam insulation and run heat trace in side of it. My old coach I had to heat trace the waste valves or the would freeze solid. Was better then sitting out there with a hair dryer for a few hours trying to get to move.

Hi,

I'd sure fill the fresh water tank--and disconnect the hose. I'd leave it disconnected until I needed to refill the fresh water tank.

How cold is it supposed to get?

Haerveu wrote:
Well considering I work night shifts, I'd like to have water when I get home and not have to go all night without it since I'm up during the night. It was just a simple question as if I could just leave it dripping or if I needed to disconnect it.

Fill your fresh tank and turn on your pump. You can have all the water you want.
Dripping faucet will potentially fill your grey tank and may also allow hose and CG faucet to freeze.
Disconnecting the hose is simple enough and foolproof as well.

I didn't mean for that to sound nasty, sorry if it came off like that.

Well considering I work night shifts, I'd like to have water when I get home and not have to go all night without it since I'm up during the night. It was just a simple question as if I could just leave it dripping or if I needed to disconnect it.