RV water hose/spigot issue (winter)

Build a dog house around the bib.

Skirt the RV and add an oil filled electric heater near the waste valves.

Use the on board fresh water tank and fill as needed.

Have a look at the winter camping thread under the full time forum.

I used a heat tape on a hose for years without any problem. I ran the tape parallel to the hose (not wrapped) and it worked for years!

Thanks guys!

A bunch simpler to use the onboard fresh water tank and fill when needed.

Here are two ways I do it in the winter.> Method 1 is prefered by me for logistic reasons.

A tank of water lasts me up to 3 weeks. perhaps longer.

I fill the on-board 80 gallon fresh water tank, then disconnect and DRAIN THE HOSE Tanks on this class A have a couple different heat methods so are good down into the teens.... Park can take care if it's problems (in your case you would need to see method 2: WHen I change parks (2 weeks later) I top off again drain hose and do my week out.

If the outside lines freze. Who cares they are not my problem .. You however DO have a problem.. ONE TIME When I* went to leave here last summer I was unable to take on water.. Park was froze.

Method 2:

Some years ago it hit 11 degrees here in the upstate. The "Week out" park froze solid. Broken pipes all over. the office building was so damaged they had to bulldoze it and build a new one. (Now that's water damage) they also re-did all the park plumbing.. NICE when the park is actually owned by the local greedy rich power company (man made lake runs both a hydro dam and cools an atomic plant)

They put in all FROSTPROOF hydrants.. These the valve is actually feet down in the ground where it never freezes. When you shut off th water flow (A lever) it causes it to DRAIN BACK into gravel around the pipe.. NO freezing happen (Vacuum breaker needed on spigot) again I hook up. fill up. unhook drain.


Side story: The water authority put in way too much bleach one year to sanitize the system. Letting it sit in teh fresh tank for a bit.... Dissapates the bad taste.. Filters help but did not totally get rid of it. TIME did. Only takes minutes.

I bought the "easy heat" heat tape and ran it along my fresh water hose. The little inline t-stat was placed about 1ft from the trailer inlet. I ran the tape toward the trailer connection with a wrap on the 90 fitting. I bought a piece a little longer than needed and wrapped the 'tail' around the spigot.

Foam pipe insulation (1 size larger than the hose) on the hose, then leftover fiberglass insulation was wrapped around the short exposed spigot (from the ground) with only the valve handle exposed. I took a heavy trash bag and wrapped the insulation to keep from getting wet and deteriorated.

Survived -20F for 2 years.

House and heat the spigot. buy or make a heated hose, so far as i know, warnings against wrapping a hose are mfgr. cover their hiney. Made many, no trouble. Pay attention to the thermostat location of the hose heater. insulate the hose with foam, not fiberglass.
Best advice fill your tank, use your pump if your tank and pump is protected from freezing.
What are you doing with your wastewater?

It would be good to know the description of what you call a "spigot".

Running a pipe straight out of a well house is not gonna work in the winter without having heat tape wrapped on it and powered up when it freezes.

If you are gonna keep a hydrant at that location you need to make plans to get a frost free hydrant in before it really gets cold.

Then just fill the onboard tank when needing more water.

I really appreciate all the feedback.

We went ahead and ordered a heated hose. We are going to cover the spigot around the well with a box and insulation and put a lamp in it. Also will put a lamp where the intake valve is to the camper. We’ve already put up tievek and hay bales around the camper.

I did look into just putting water into the holding tank but I cannot seem to figure out how to do that on this Cougar rv.

One last thing. Should our gray and black tanks just be left open? Some people have told me we need to and others have said no because it will freeze shut. So not sure what to do there. Thanks again.

I would put two lamps in each location. Redundancy, that I learned the hard way. I had a house with the water heater in an uninsulated carport storage room separated from the house by a breezeway. I knew it would freeze in 20 degree weather, so used a 100 watt bulb in there for years, checking just before going to bed to be sure it was on. One night, the bulb blew sometime during the night. The cold water inlet pipe to the water heater froze and burst. Forever after, I had 2 of the 100 watt bulbs in there. Never had both blow in one night.