Freezing Weather and No Heat Tape

[RockyMountainFreezr]

Hi. I am new to this forum and actually found it by accident doing a Google search for UltraHeat pads. It looks like I’m in luck; in reading the posts, it is clear to me that there is a lot of experience here! My family and I are not yet in a situation like all you adventurers; we’re tenderfeet, but we are winter campers nonetheless.

In a nutshell, my wife is in an RV park in Colorado; she traveled there from Seattle for her medical care. I am going to be joining her before too long, but I am not able to be there yet. Since she is in an RV park, she has electric power as well as fresh and waste water hookups. We have an old but solid fifth wheel with an enclosed underbelly (’89 Prairie Schooner). The trailer has a propane furnace, which heats the underbelly somewhat. The trouble is, propane is $32 a tank, and with current nighttime temperatures now below 0F, keeping the trailer heated enough is no easy task unless we totally bust our budget. Right now she is using more propane than we want but way less than is comfortable, keeping the main cabin heated to around 52F.

I have a few questions for this forum, but I’m going to start my first post with the most straightforward question: The trailer had a freshwater inflow hose that was wrapped with a heat tape, but the heat tape broke. We are unfortunately on a very tight budget because of my wife’s medical expenses and, as I said, I am not in Colorado yet to do any repair work myself. In addition, I am new to RVing, so I don’t particularly know what I’m doing. My wife is disabled, so she can’t make repairs herself. Now, you could legitimately ask how we could get ourselves into this mess, but that’s another story that I will save for later…

Anyway, the RV service people we called wanted $250 to make a new heat tape/fresh water hose combination, but that’s really more than we can spend right now. My wife is letting the cold water in the shower run a small amount continuously, but with the intense cold (it has gotten down to -11F) we are worried if that will be enough by itself to prevent damage to the trailer, what could go wrong if that’s all we do, and whether there are any inexpensive fixes any of you might recommend. Thank you so much for any suggestions!

[shum]

Welcome!

First off as you've probably discovered reading making your own heated water hose with teat tape is not that hard and certainly not that expensive. $250? Jeeze lets try to be nice.

Regarding your wife letting the water dribble this should be enough to hopefully keep that water flowing through the hose. Moving water is way less likely to freeze. Are you keeping the dump tanks open or are you letting them fill then dumping? Reason I ask is that this can lead to a build up of ice in the dump hose. It is usually worse for the black tank as all the waste can start to freeze to the bottom of the tanks. They should be dumped when full. I understand though if this is not possible for her to do.

For heat in the cabin I would certainly recommend a couple of ceramic or regular old electric heaters to supplement the furnace. They can be had just about anywhere from $10 for regular resistance heaters to a little over $20 for an introductory ceramic model. These heaters on low will only draw about 600W's or about 5 amps and provide a nice increase in temp to the unit. We regularly run two of them while camping and can keep the rig at an easy 20C/70F with the furnace only coming on during extreme cold occasionally. Heated matress pads are real nice as well and can really cut back on your need for a lot of heat at night while sleeping. Very cosy

Now knowing this remember you'll need to have the furnace run occasionally in order to keep the underbelly of the rig heated so play with the thermostat temp to find where it will occasionally come on every hour or so for a while to dump heat into the basement.

There are lots of tricks to keep comfortable but some do require more physical effort than your wife may be able to handle.

Any questions please ask away!

[Bosco Bear]

Hi and welcome to this forum! I agree with Shum that the electric mattress pads would be great in a situation like this. Is the electricity cost a flat rate or is it metered? Do you have a 30 amp or a 50 amp connection? The electric heaters would be nice if you're paying a flat rate but might be more expensive than the propane if you're paying by the amount used. I'm not sure how many ceramic heaters you would need to maintain a comfortable temperature in a fifth wheel. As for the heated hose, how far does it have to reach? As Shum said, that $250 quote definitely sounds pricey. Hopefully the bitterly cold temperatures are just a short-term unseasonably low blip that will go away soon. Good luck, I hope you can overcome these challenges.

[another_newfie]

I don't have much to add to the specific problems you have mentioned as you have already been givein some good advice. You didn't mention the length of the stay at the RV park, but if it is an extended stay you will want to remember to keep the air moving inside the coach to keep the moisture under control. Not only can it be very annoying in terms of where it accumulates, but it can damage areas of the coach. Keep your vents cracked open (hopefully you have Maxxair vent covers) and keep some fans going. In fact using fans can help heat the inside by moving around warm air.

Welcome to the forum!

[GoinKZ]

Anyway you could move a smaller fresh water supply inside where it it heated (say an Aquatainer or something) and draw the water from there? At least it wouldn't freeze.

Another_Newfie has a "remote" water setup like that...

[High-Tech Redneck]

First off,,,Welcome to the forum,,,,,,I really can't give ya much advice on cold weather prep ,,,,,but most on here has survived a few seasons of winter and will provide you with alot of good advice,,,,,,I can say that a few 6 inch oscillating fans would spread the warmth as they do the AC in my case,,,,,and that price you posted for someone to wrap a few feet of heat tape is just a rip-off,,,,,but people will take advantage of others who are in a bind,,,,,,it's sad ,,but true.,,,,,,,hope all works out for the best...

[another_newfie]

GoinKZ is correct, I do draw water from inside my rig. Check out my webshots for details on that. I can provide more specific information if you require it.

[RockyMountainFreezr]

Well, thank you to everyone! What a wealth of good suggestions… and we also look forward to developing a new group of Internet friends with you too. I only hope that we will have something to offer the forum, but given that we are going to be in Colorado for a while more at least, and that it’s going to be -5F tonight at the park, my guess is that like it or not we’ll eventually have some “lessons” to share with others. I am getting ready a post about UltraHeat pads and trailer insulation, but I want to make sure it hangs together before I lean on you again. Anyway, thanks again everybody.

[shum]

Lean away

[Elizabeth]

Lean away

Trust me, I know first hand that you can't find a better group of people to lean on.

I am sure if your trailer was in an hour or two drive from them they would have already preformed one of their trailer swarmings.