Alternative to Winterizing

pianotuna wrote:
Hi Bob,

That is why my furnace is set for 12c (55 F). If the power goes out the furnace will take over the job from the electric heaters.

Bob/Olallawa wrote:
The problem I have with the electric heater option is when the 28* cold front moves in it just might take the power lines down too, then what.

That will work fine but I don't have all the nice solar stuff you have. If power is off for over a day my furnace will drain the two six volts if it is very much below freezing. That is a nice unit you added to the furnace. I drained the lines and will add the pink stuff today.

I been using this w/ a 500 watt heater for years. Different models available, mine is on at 35, off at 45 degs. And I burn a 60 watt lite bulb right next to the water pump
Our temp ranges from 17 deg to 50 degs, never had a problem.

mrekim wrote:

smkettner wrote:
I would tend to just blow out the lines.

What do you guys use to blow out the lines?

I have 2 air compressors and wouldn't use either to blow out my water lines - too much of a chance for getting compressor oil into the water system.

If you're worried about the oil entering the water system, maybe one of these Air line filters would do the trick.

Hi Bob,

That is why my furnace is set for 12c (55 F). If the power goes out the furnace will take over the job from the electric heaters.

Bob/Olallawa wrote:
The problem I have with the electric heater option is when the 28* cold front moves in it just might take the power lines down too, then what.

signorethom wrote:
I live in an area where it might be 60 one day and 28 the next. I don't like the idea of winterizing one day and reversing the procedure the next day. And so on. Is there an alternative to this process such as heating one's motor home with a small (or large) heater plugged into house power? I don't have access to an RV garage or storage area. Run the heater on cold nights - turn it off when the day get warm?

You absolutely can leave your RV furnace set to run as temps drop and this will keep all of your plumbing safe. If it were me, I would install small electric heater(s) (with working thermostats) in the water bays and a small electric heater inside the coach to keep things above freezing. Open any cabinet inside the coach where plumbing lines exist to get some moderate air in there as well.
Now, if you are going to get into any really, really cold (15-20 or less) then you might to take more serious steps to ensure the safety of your systems. Keeping the water heater on will protect that storage unit as well but it will eat up a whole bunch of your propane!

The problem I have with the electric heater option is when the 28* cold front moves in it just might take the power lines down too, then what.

I don't blow out the lines, just drain them as previously posted. Here in winter it gets a very few degrees below freezing for only a couple days in a row. Once in a while we can get a "hard freeze" but it doesn't last long.

If we were not in the banana belt, I would do a proper winterize, but the OP seems to be in a similar climate to ours.

Not sure what people do here when full-timing. It is not like Saskabush or somewhere like that. We get "snowbirds" from Alberta full-timing on the Island instead of going to Mexico these days, since it got so complicated to go South after 9/11 (or 11/9 depending on your convention)

smkettner wrote:
I would tend to just blow out the lines.

What do you guys use to blow out the lines?

I have 2 air compressors and wouldn't use either to blow out my water lines - too much of a chance for getting compressor oil into the water system.

It's not too expensive to have electric pad heaters glued onto the bottoms of your grey and black tanks to keep them from freezing - although you're probably storing your RV with them empty, anyway. However, the electric pad heaters also do make it possible to camp in freezing temperatures when the black and grey tanks have liquid in them. FWIW, I'm not a fan of RV's that require the propane furnace being used to keep the grey and black tanks from freezing. The heating pads approach is much more practical in that it doesn't require running of the propane furnace. The heating pads even come in 12 volt models for drycamping in freezing temperatures.

Probably/hopefully all of your freshwater lines and tank are in the interior of the RV. By using an electric heater inside with all doors open that might have fresh water lines anywhere in behind the areas that they open up to, you should be good to go if you keep the heater turned up high enough. For a large RV, it may take a couple of heaters near each end of the RV.

If your RV has any part of it's freshwater systems outside the RV's interior, then I guess you have no choice but to winterize the freshwater system.

You say "house power" so ASSuming you are not living in the RV, then you can do what we do in our milder climate, which is just drain the lines, FW tank, and HW tank, after a sani-dump. Do put some pink stuff into each trap and the grey and black tanks (NOT in the HW tank).

Then when you want to go RVing, screw in the low point drain plugs, fill up with water and head on out.

BEWARE- we used to have a water filter under the kitchen sink that did not drain. It did burst when frozen and that showed up when we got a thaw. Since then we have eliminated that filter from the system.

Another goody is the outside shower to drain that, and the inside shower has to be removed from the tap set to drain right.