Cold Weather Camping - plumbing

Only have electric heat right now. Rebuilding the propane heater, one that requires no electric fan, though we have small/ quite/ low draw computer fans to move the heated air to the back of camper.
Westend did a great job documenting the rebuild in his the Hilton so I'm following his lead.

Yup, the electric heating is nice if you have full hook-ups or like to run a generator. Good choice on the heater, the RV style are power hogs, noisy, and inefficient. The propane fired heater I use in the Hilton is now in it's third RV and I find it works out great. Yes, I've used small computer fans to distribute the heat but if camping for more than a day, the mass of everything eventually heats up so moving that hot air isn't a chore. Typically, when everything is cozy inside, the heater gets turned down to idle--just the standing pilot or a small flame so we don't over-heat. The air supply pipes to the heater also seem to help quite a bit. In previous installations, I didn't supply the flue so that any make up air was being drawn in, mostly around the door. That is now not the case.

Keep up the good work on Diddums, you deserve the results!

fallsrider wrote:
My wife and I are planning a trip to the mountains of NC, and the extended forecast is showing lows of 19 to 23, with highs in the mid-40s. This particular CG does not have water and sewer at the RV sites, only electric. They have a fill-up spot for filling your FW tank, and a dump station for when you leave. Our FW tank is inside under the bed, so I'm not worried about the plumbing, though there is always the low point drains which hang down underneath.

I'm more concerned with the BW and GW dump valves. Should I be OK with them exposed, or do I need to wrap them with some type of insulation? I've never camped this cold before, with the lows being only about 25 previously. Thanks.

I camp in the cold quite a bit. I just leave the camper winterized. All it takes is water to freeze in small orifices and lines to cause damage and expense. A thermal package does little unless you want to keep winterizing and dewinterizing for every trip which can get expensive and not worth the hassle.

I just find a campground with heated shower rooms and usually bring one of my porta potties for night emergencies and an aquatainer and bucket for washing dishes, hands, etc.

rbpru wrote:
...Therefore, you have to modify your behavior to match the weather and the limitations of your TT...

True. Here's what I do. Once I winterize (doing this this week), my DW will no longer go, so I take our DS on a few one-nighters locally through the winter as long as the night time temps don't dip below 25 or so. I use a 2 gal water jug with dispenser, and we use the Cleanwaste Toilet in a Bag for the toilet. They are not cheap, but they are pretty easy to use, and they work.

rbpru wrote:
We all have our comfort zone. The DW and I keep the TT at 65 to 68 during the day. Then 58 to 62 at night.

We carry a water jug and have antifreeze in the black and gray tanks. We use the heated wash house when possible.

We try to get out a couple of times to snowshoe at the State Park.

I want my DW to go with me. At those temps, I would be going solo! :(

CavemanCharlie wrote:


Glad to hear that you had a good trip !!! :)

Thanks.

jamesu wrote:
We have camped in below freezing only a few times. Only problem was the "garden hose" leading from the spigot to the trailer freezing up. It warmed up the next day luckily and that ice melted so the next night I unplugged that hose, drained it, and rehooked it in the AM.

That's why you use the onboard tank. Campgrounds close because folks leave the hoses attached and the hydrants freeze and break. One that I know puts a padlock on all hydrants to prevent the problem and will only unlock it while you fill.

We have camped in below freezing only a few times. Only problem was the "garden hose" leading from the spigot to the trailer freezing up. It warmed up the next day luckily and that ice melted so the next night I unplugged that hose, drained it, and rehooked it in the AM.

fallsrider wrote:
Update:

DW and I enjoyed 3 really nice days in the mountains. I chose to take the conservative route and poured a whole gallon of RV antifreeze in each of the GW and BW tanks. It cost me $5 or so, but I wanted to be safe. I also wrapped some pipe insulation around the low point drains. We had no freezing issues at all, but part of that was helped by the weather changing. It got down to around 20 only one night. It was close to the freezing mark the other two nights.

Our two electric heaters sure ran a lot, though, especially that one night. But we were toasty inside at around 72 degrees.

I love the mountains...I'm ready to go back.

Thanks for updating!

I think the thing to remember when winter camping, is that you are camping in the winter and only a few TTs are designed for such use.

Therefore, you have to modify your behavior to match the weather and the limitations of your TT.

The easiest way we have found is to dry camp. Carry water separately in water jugs, use the CG wash house (except for those mid night potty trips) :) and we try to limit our trips to low temperatures in th 20s with sunny days.

I know others will take on all sorts of weather, so did I when younger but thing can get rather dicey when the weather drops into the teens.

I am talking degrees Fahrenheit of course.

We added a separate pump for the toilet that grabs fluids from a 4 gal container with RV antifreeze... The rest of the water system is "off" / winterized. We utilize a hand pump coming out of a 7 gal blue containers for drinking, cooking, and eating. IF that freezes we have 1 gal jugs of drinking water.
All of our drains P-traps are HepVo so no standing water in the drains...
P-trap eliminator

Only have electric heat right now. Rebuilding the propane heater, one that requires no electric fan, though we have small/ quite/ low draw computer fans to move the heated air to the back of camper.
Westend did a great job documenting the rebuild in his the Hilton so I'm following his lead.

These are custom things but none of them cost much and hoping they will make winter/ ski trip camping easier and more enjoyable. Without having to undo the winterization process each time we use diddums.


-Repo