The hangy down parts will freeze

[Cate&Rob]

Travelling north, we had to decide where to winterize.
Spent a comfortable night in Indiana with fireplace and furnace, but well below freezing.
Heading for Michigan, we had to winterize.
Early the next morning leaving Indiana . . . low point drains . . . frozen. Water tank drain . . . frozen.
Note to self (and others) you can't "winterize" these rigs once you are below freezing.
I can think of a number of ways to keep these valves inside the warmed area.
Will work on this before next winter.

Rob

 

[dirtclod-MGRV]

Rob, what did (or didn't ) the Arctic 4 seasons protection package do for you? How cold? Any damage? We need to be able to leave our 303 for days at times full of water, how warm must we keep it to keep from freezing and causing issues? Good luck!!!

Mike

 

[Canyonlight]

Rob--your experience with the LP drains and FW tank dump valve freezing has occurred to me as well. Surprised more folks have not brought this up. I too want to do something to keep these areas from freezing and I look forward to seeing what you as a engineer ultimately come up with to address this.

Safe travels home if you are there yet.

Thanks,

Dan

 

[TucsonJim]

I wonder how difficult it would be for you folks who use hour rig in the cold parts of the country to wrap those items with heat tape and insulation?

 

[Cate&Rob]

I haven't gotten in to this yet, but it seems to me that since the underbelly is "heated" the drains should be inside this underbelly. For the low point drains, this might need a trap door of some type in the underbelly pan. For the FW tank drain, I don't know if there is room to move it inside the underbelly with a remote pull (which would be more convenient anyway)
or an insulated opening cover might work over the current location with the underbelly cut back from the valve to allow warm air circulation.

Rob

 

[Dave and Monica]

If the hangy down parts will freeze, I guess your camper must be a male!

Dave

 

[dirtclod-MGRV]

Maybe someone could explain to me what the Arctic 4 seasons protection package does for us if the hangy downy things freeze?
How cold was it Rob?

 

[Cate&Rob]

Hi dirtclod,

The temp was low 20s F. The coach was quite comfortable with the furnace and fireplace and there was no damage to the exposed drains . . . the issue was that they couldn't be operated to drain the water systems. The problem was solved with a hair dryer. It just seems to me that I should be able to drain a warm trailer even if it has dropped below freezing outside.

Rob

 

[Steve and Lynne]

Our experience was that we spent the Christmas season camped at a friend's in Castle Rock, CO. A couple of nights it got down to -20 degrees F. The furnace ran pretty much continuously those nights but kept us warm. We were able to use our on board fresh water with the pump. When I finally was able to thaw a hose to refill the tank, no go even with a heat gun in the Kantleak valve box area. When we pulled our Reflection to Cabela's to dump, removing the drain cap it looked very slushy or iced up, but pulling the cable for the black tank it started flowing very slowly. Of course their hose for flushing the black tank was froze. It all was fine when it warmed up. We'll let Dave characterize how these parts relate to our anatomy!

 

[dirtclod-MGRV]

This is probably aimed at GD, what does the Arctic 4 seasons protection package do for me in these situations?????????????
they promote this in there propaganda, but they never say what it really means ( -20 with furnace off or on)???