New camper frozen water lines

[bigtime_077]

I just bought a brand new 2013 Dutchmen travel trailer. Stupid me I opted out of paying the dealer to winterize it again in case of cold weather because I had RV antifreeze at home and wanted to do it myself. Well one thing led to another and I didn't get it all done as I got called away from it and last night it got down to 9 degrees here.

I got to the water heater and got antifreeze out of the kitchen sink on both sides before I ran out of antifreeze so I know those and the pump is all good. I got some antifreeze this morning and got home from work tonight and quickly pressured the system back up to try again. I can get a very slow trickle of antifreeze out of the toilet and the cold water side of the sink. Nothing out of the hot water side, either side of the tub, nothing out of the outside water port or the high pressure water hook up. It must all be froze.

Low of 6 tonight and high of 23 tomorrow and high of 42 on Tuesday. How screwed am I? Are the water lines under the trailer fairly durable or will they likely rupture? Bottom of the trailer is all covered so I can't look unless I pull that covering off.

My plan is to wait until Tuesday and Wednesday while I am off and it is warm to try again. Once I get antifreeze flow my plan is to shut all the faucets and everything off other than the pump and see if the system will stay pressurized and look for antifreeze coming out of the bottom covering to know if I have a leak now.

Any words of advice and how screwed am I?

[powderman426]

Dick_B wrote:
Next time keep the antifreeze out of the water heater (and never put it into the FW tank).

X2, and if you have a single shut off valve for bypassing, do yourself a favor and put in a second shutoff valve to replace the check valve that will fail.

[Dick_B]

Next time keep the antifreeze out of the water heater (and never put it into the FW tank).

[bigtime_077]

Quick update. The bottom of the camper is covered from the factory so the tanks and all are covered. The furnace duct runs up inside the bottom cover under the camper. I plugged the camper in last night and left the furnace running all night set at 60 degrees. I went out to the camper this morning and was able to get a great flow of antifreeze out of the toilet, hot and cold out of the bathroom sink and bathtub faucet. The water heater was fine as that was already drained and had some antifreeze in it. I had also gotten antifreeze out of both sides of the kitchen sink before the freezing weather hit. Like I said in my first post I had started the winterizing before the freezing weather so I was able to get the water pump, water heater, and kitchen faucet before anything froze. The only things I still cannot get antifreeze out of yet this morning was the outside spray port, this doesn't have a shower just a port to attach a garden hose with a fitting that looks like air line connector. The other one is the fresh water high pressure hook up.

Once I had flow out of everything else in the camper I left the pump on to see if I would lose pressure with all the outlets off to see if anything was leaking. The pump never came back on so I am keeping my fingers crossed on the spray port and the fresh water high pressure hook up.

Thanks for all the replies. This is kinda nerve racking for me. Hopefully if something does break on the spray port or the fresh water hook up outside it isn't too crazy expensive to fix.

[TucsonJim]

X2 on the PEX line. It's good stuff and should hold up well to ice.

[stetwood]

your biggest problem might be the h2o heater. If it froze solid, which it may if the temps never got above 23 without any interior cabin heat or the heater turned on, then it could have split.

[Greyghost]

Put about 4 100 watt light bulbs under the trailer and seal the area between the trailer and the ground with a trap or plywood if you can. I made it through a complete New England winter using that method.

String the lights along the path for the water and plumbing lines, and you should be OK.

[azrving]

It wouldn't seem that any supply lines are exposed to the outside. If they are under the floor there should be an underbelly membrane so it holds heat from the furnace and keeps the tanks warm too. I dont own that style so others will know for sure.

[wbwood]

Heater needs to be on

[bigtime_077]

Everything is opened up right now. The heater is off as I believe that the lines are frozen on the bottom outside of the trailer. At least I think that is where the water lines run to the back is underneath the trailer.

[Old-Biscuit]

Open all faucets, shower knobs, low point drains, prop toilet open etc. until you can do the winterizing right.

With everything open any water in system can expand without bursting pipes/fittings.

[azrving]

Is the heat on now? You are doing right as far as pressurizing and then shut the pump off and see if it holds pressure. The pump should hold for quite some time before the it kicks on.
If you did hurt the pex, you can also use shark bite fittings in hard to reach places with no special tools.

[Artum_Snowbird]

Hopefully you have propane in the tanks... Get that furnace on about 65 degrees and open all the cupboard doors.

Hopefully, it's plugged in to electricity too...

Many times it's the outside shower that is the weakest link.. or the dump valves...

[calamus]

It may not be as bad as you think Today most campers are piped with Pex that is flexible the fittings are not but the pipe will. We had our 2008 out in Oct camping and it got down to 13 one night no heat on and froze solid had to replace the spout on the kit faucet and the shower head that was it ya supper lucky. If not then you can fix most everything buying a $38 pex tool from menards and all the fitting and extra line it is really do it your self friendly. In the future remember if you cant get to it open every thing up and all the drains I have not use anti freeze for years other than the traps and a bit in the toilet I just hook up the air compressor and set the regulator at 50 and blow all the lines out no funny tasting water in the spring! Good luck .