prevent fresh water from freezing

Photomike wrote:
This will take you to an article I wrote on cold weather camping. You may find some ideas there.

Cold weather camping

Excellent advice, especially the knowing your RV..Having had several RV's in different configurations, I find none of them react to the cold the same way, as another..Each had there own week point in extreme weather.

With our motorhome and cabover the damage has been in the toilet valve. I don't know how to prevent that for sure without totally draining the system after each outing. I dumped a gallon of RV antifreeze in the fresh water tank and ran the pump but never did see pink in the water after running the pump for a long time so don't know if the toilet valve is protected. Gave up and drained the whole thing. For actually using it in freezing weather, keep the furnace on.

Photomike, nice article, thanks.

Unless you have a 4-season camper or only see freezing for a couple of hrs per day then it might be a hopeless cause.
That section of water line that is way back, close to an un-insulated outside wall and hard to heat will freeze and shut you down. Your only choice to keep it warm is to run the heat and use a fan to blow the warm air back to the cold places, which will, in turn, more quickly cool the cabin, which will cause the heater to run more and pull down your propane and battery. you will need big tanks, and lots of batteries.

As others stated, figure out how to camp not using the on-board water system, rather use jugs of portable water. This means no showers, you will have to sponge bath in the shower stall with a pan of water or use a tree shower bag.

If you want to get creative and have a rigged system then bypass all the camper water lines, close them off, blow them out, and attach a hose of some sort to the water pump, and run that hose to the sink and or shower so you have it all inside. The big water volume will probably not freeze,and maybe easier to just keep the pump warm than a whole system. But this is stupid, the jugs of water are easier.

I was camping and the temp unexpectedly got to 11. The propane ran out in middle of night, and within a couple of hours the inside pipes froze. No damage, but they were frozen up and useless. I wished I had jugs of water then.

Grit dog wrote:
the bougeswah spelling that includes an additional E!

Hmmm..

This will take you to an article I wrote on cold weather camping. You may find some ideas there.

Cold weather camping

That's almost as bad as a customer that flew into Redmond, OR for training while I was waiting in Redmond, WA - I would have preferred to be in Oregon with him.

ScottG wrote:
It's "Bellevue" ;)

No, actually it's not. It's Bellvue, CO ... on your way up the Poudre (for another funny spelling)

jaycocreek wrote:
I cold weather camp all the time..I blow out the lines with air then we use a porta-potti and bottled/jugged water...Using a catalytic heater to keep things warm during the day out snowmobiling or whatever...

I fought trying to keep things from freezing for years.0 to-35 degree's everything wants to freeze...2" Foam on the doors and behind all water lines and under..It just isn't worth it after plenty of mornings with a hair dryer thawing out pipes and lines..

It's just to easy to blow out the lines and use jugs of water..

Yep! Ditto! :D

Like others have posted, run your heater on a low setting to prevent your lines from freezing - The lines and pump will freeze much sooner than your tank. You will need a dual battery setup with daily recharging due to the duty cycle of the blower. Those that use catalytic heat, still have to use some type of fan to circulate the heat through the camper to prevent lines from freezing.

Solar may help recharge/prolong your batteries, but you will need to keep the panels clear of snow to capture as much of the shorter winter days as possible.

My last three RV's carried dual 30 lb propane bottles, so supply has not been concern for me. I did get reduced flow at very cold temperatures since my propane was not insulated. I can go through one bottle in a cold weekend, so a single 20 lb bottle may not be enough for cold weather camping.