Electrically Heating TT Underbelly

West Texan wrote:
Has anyone made or found a way to electrically heat the enclosed underbelly of a travel trailer? We just finished a trip to Ruidoso during which the temperatures were below freezing for much of it, down to single digit one night! Of course I was prepared to and did run the furnace as I have a heated and enclosed underbelly to prevent freezing underneath. We did burn through the propane, which I figured we would, but didn't expect quite as much as we did.

This got me to thinking, if we are hooked up to shore power, about how to heat underneath electrically. I was thinking about maybe some type of compartment heater to heat it separately, or maybe even a small ducted fan to just pull cabin air and send it underneath.

We don't winter camp much, and this was about the first time below freezing, but I just kind of want to be prepared for the next time, or maybe some emergency reason I may need to camp in freezing temps.

Has anyone really experienced water freezing underneath down to 15-20 degrees while camping, which is all we typically encounter in Texas, and has anyone found a good or productive way to heat electrically?

If I were to do something like you're suggesting I think I would install some floor access from the interior of the trailer in the areas of the tub and water pump since they generally have some floor space aorund them and are near either water lines or tanks and then use some sort of fan/squirrel cage motor to blow warm air from inside the trailer into the underbelly. Not sure how efficient that would be, but I would think it would work for temps down to close to the single digits.

In generall I don't think this is a big issue since most electric heat is only good to the high 20's when you have to have some supplemental furnace type heat anyway and thus things freezing up in the underbelly should not be an issue as long as it has some heat from the furnace that gets there when the furnace is used.

Larry