At Grand Canyon in February, winterizing piping needed?

[locster]

I'll be taking my RV to Trailer Village, Grand Canyon this February, where the temp can get down to the low 20's at night. Do I need to drain all my piping while staying there or can I just get away with having the heater on all night and thermal taping/wrapping the piping?

[PawPaw_n_Gram]

In Feb you can drive the Hermit Road. Mar 1 you have to take the shuttle bus.

[2gypsies1]

February? Any specific reason or could you move your trip to mid-March at least?

[PawPaw_n_Gram]

At Trailer Village with full hookups and an RV with heated tanks/ underbelly/ basement - you should be fine if the temps stay average.

It really depends upon how your specific rig is built for winter. I would not plan to use heat tape/ wrappings on the fresh water input there. Fill the onboard tank about 1/2 to 3/4 full in the afternoon, and disconnect and drain the water hose. Actually, I'd suggest you call Xanterra and ask them if the water at each campsite will be on during freezing weather. You might have to fill from a centrally located 'frost free' faucet.

Don't leave the grey water open at night. Dump it when it warms to near freezing if you need to.

[westend]

Average low at the South Rim is 21f so you'll need to winterize if you don't have heated tanks.

[Shearwater]

AKAIK all of the NP websites list average high and low temps for that park. Just google the name of the park and plan accordingly.

[tatest]

Maybe, maybe not. Whether or not you can heat the plumbing well enough depends on where the plumbing is located, how well that space is insulated and heated, and how cold it gets.

Some RVs are better designed for use in cold weather than others. I'm comfortable with mine getting into the twenties for a few hours if it will be going back up above freezing for 18-20 hours a day. Much colder, or that cold much longer, I'll be winterizing. I know other RVs that can handle subzero temperatures for months at a time, with the heat running.

Experience with your RV will show you where it is on the cold weather performance scale.

Average temperatures are just that. I live in a place where the average low temperature for February is 24 F. Some winters it has not dropped below 30 on some nights, but has also been a low of -20F with temperatures not rising above zero for more than a week. Record low for Feb something like -40 F, record high for the month over 60 F. That's all going into that 24 F average. The mountains, high desert, Great Plains are very different from coastal areas, average temperatures fit into the.middle of very large excursions from that number. Grand Canyon can get well below zero in February.

[2oldman]

heater

[eubank]

You'll have to ascertain whether they allow you to remain hooked up to their water supply or not. If not, then you hook up to water, fill your fresh water tank, and then immediately disconnect the hose and drain it.

In either case, you'd need to run your on-board heating system to make sure that your pipes and tanks stay above freezing. That, of course, applies to winterworthy RVs, ones whose tanks, pipes and valves are all inboard, insulated, and heated. If your tanks, pipes, and/or valves are exposed to the air, well, either you'll need to find a way to heat them, or you'd need just to use the rig winterized (i.e., no water use).

🙂
Lynn