Ok, maybe this is a silly question, but this is my first travel trailer. I'm from Houston and it never freezes here (almost never or barely gets 32 degrees). We have reservations for Lake Ouachita State Park near Hot Springs, Arkansas next week and Saturday & Sunday night look to be anywhere from 34-36 degrees. We have a 21 ft. Gulf Stream Conquest Lite bunk house travel trailer. Is there anything I should be concerned about? We normally camp using city water hookup and full sewer hookup. I know this isn't freezing weather, but it's close to it, and I just wanted to ask here first if I need to bring anything extra given the lower temperatures. Again, I'm from Houston, where people freak out if it gets below 40 degrees, so those of you from up north can get a good laugh in! Thank you.

Fill up your water tank, your city water hose may freeze if the temp drops, then you can use your onboard water with the pump.

About the only thing I do when the temps get down close to freezing is disconnect the fresh water hose from the city water port. This is the same thing I do at the house. Always disconnect the water hose from the house...On the inside of the trailer I would just open up the cabinet door where the hot water heater is located and make crack open he doors under the kitchen area where water lines are located. We camp alot in the late fall and early winter months here in our OFF-ROAD POPUP trailer. I did install a fan located the main entrance wall and my layout has all my cabinets connected all around the wall from the main entrance area to through my wrap around seating and through the cabinets along the wall to the tent bed area we always sleep in. I installed the small round plastic vent from LOWES so I can pull warm inside air through all the cabinets with this fan on. Works great. One of my wrap around seating has the shore line cable access port and when it is opened I can pull in outside air around the interior in the summer days... It got down to 31 degrees here in Northern neck VA last night and is already back up to 46 degrees outside. This is probably what you will see in Ark.Unless it is a hard freeze over a couple of days one should not have any problems. Nothing is frozen the next day...In our case as we like to be out in the camping off-grid in the cold weather we also can do a quick blow-out method of using a small tankless air compressor attached to the city water port and blow all of the water out of the lines and most of the hot water heater, Then add some pink stuff to the the couple of P-traps we have. After draining the fresh water tank we are pretty safe from freezing camping over night. The next morning then when things warm up good we just add fresh water back to the the fresh water tank and continue on camping. This only takes a few minutes to do with the draining of the fresh water tank taking the longest time to do. This is what we do if it gets to in the 20s over night...We used to live in the Wichita Falls area and it would get down right cold there at any given moment haha... The blue northerns would come thru in a big hurry... We loved to camp up at Wichita Mtns Wildlife Refuge at Medicine Park in Okla just a few miles north of Lawton. I wouldn't worry too much about getting down to freezing over night unless it is going to get down in the 20s and last for a few days in what you would call a hard freeze. Like when the creeks freeze over... This is what we do at any rate around here and SKYLINE DRIVE and BLUE RIDGE PARKWAY high country... We did all of this tent camping until we got out 2008 OFF-ROAD camper and started using it...Our style of camping is waking up at a creekside place back off some Natl Forest service road somewhere and get our bon-fire going and watch the fish jump in the mornings...Not much in any RV TRAVEL situations. We do make a run to Gatlingburg TN during the fall sometimes to the Smoky Mtns to see some Leaves colors which is some 450 miles away. All of the other RV camping we do is local here and love the high country Natl Parks where we can get off to ourselves for a week or so somewhere...Setup at Camp Doris in Wichita Mtns Wildlife RefugeRoy Ken

^^^What Roy said. Disconnect the fresh water hose and use your tank. Open a few cabinet doors to make sure plenty of heat gets to the plumbing against a wall. Your tanks will be fine.

Bring a hair dryer just in case it drops less than 32F, but 34-36F is not going to be a problem. Sometimes i use the hair dryer on the dump valve if it gets a wee bit frosty .

Near-freezing temperatures | Good Sam Community

AstroKing
Explorer
Nov 21, 2016
Thank you all for the many responses. Well, as it worked out, wife and child both got sick with a stomach bug last Thursday night. I escaped but we had to cancel. Turns out it got down to 27 degrees Saturday night there, not the predicted 34-36 when I originally posted. So for me, who is still pretty much clueless about those temps, it all turned out for the best, except for my wife and child but they are fine now. Thanks again everyone!
rbpru
Explorer II
Nov 21, 2016
Usually warm days and cold nights are not an issue. However last February we camped it NM and woke up to mid 20's. The pump did not like pumping slush.

I general if it is in the 40's and sunshiny and around freezing at night, there is enough thermal inertia to keep the water from freezing.

An extended cold snap is something else.

Our TT is not a four season unit so we dry camp in the winter.
arkieguide
Explorer
Nov 21, 2016
I have spent the winter in my 22 foot 5th wheel, in upstate New York.I insulated and heat taped my incoming water line, my outgoing waste line and my holding tanks, under penned the trailer.And left the heater running full time, no trouble.
Drbolasky
Explorer
Nov 17, 2016
We just returned from a long weekend getaway in Connecticut. Nighttime lows were 26-28 degrees. Ran an electric heater with a fan plus the LP furnace providing a blast of heat now & then to keep things warm everywhere. I carry a heated city water hose and the CG had a heat tape installed on the water hookup.

At 32 degrees (or a couple degrees below that) you should be fine inside. Fill your freshwater tank, though, as others have said.
Huntindog
Explorer
Nov 16, 2016
Coffee Grinder wrote:
The folks @ Rockwood said my ultralite has heated tanks and is good for 10 degrees below freezing. Haven't put it to the test yet however.
The "heated" tanks on a stock unit usually rely on the propane heater running full tilt... Using Electric heat as you stated earlier will do nothing for the tanks.

Even at that, 10 below is getting pretty serious. My TT stock with heated tanks was not good to those temps.... So I would not count on that at all. Especially any ultralight.. The lighter units tend to cut corners on materials to make them light.

Now, a TT with such a package CAN be easier to modify for better performance than one that has no such package... So it is a good starting point.
I would not count on it as it now sits in single digits for long.
Coffee_Grinder
Explorer
Nov 16, 2016
The folks @ Rockwood said my ultralite has heated tanks and is good for 10 degrees below freezing. Haven't put it to the test yet however.
pconroy328
Explorer
Nov 15, 2016
AstroKing wrote:
Again, I'm from Houston, where people freak out if it gets below 40 degrees, so those of you from up north can get a good laugh in! Thank you.

I'm a Yankee who spent 13 years in Dallas. Those Ice Storms are nothing to sneeze at, and would scare any snow-experience person.

We just got back from 10,000' here and night time temps were 32-34*F.

I stuck an inexpensive space heater in the 'basement' of our motorhome. We have tank heaters, but the basement heater, even on the lowest setting (500 watts), warmed the pump and lines up to 60*'s.

Had the temps hit the 20's, I'd have warmed the 'fridge innards with a 40 watt light bulb.
drsteve
Explorer
Nov 15, 2016
Don't worry. Even if it falls to 30-32 degrees, it'll warm back up before anything bad happens.
Ken_O
Explorer
Nov 15, 2016
valhalla360, thanks. I do remember the name of the campground as "LoW", it was a Passport CG.
Ken_O
Explorer
Nov 14, 2016
It was below zero, as I said the water mains in town froze up. It was a big deal there. I-10 was closed down, as it started as freezing rain. It was end of January or beginning of Feb. I'm not going to search weather temps, I was there, and it happened. Don't care if you believe or not.