water hookup comp too cold

[Fred B.]

My wife found a remote sensing thermometer & brought it home yesterday. I proceeded to put it in our water/sewer hookup compartment that has a exterior shower faucet in it. Put the heat on & started checking temps & didn't like what I seen. The temperature was basically 1-2 degrees above outside temp even with the heat on & the thermostat satisfied at 65 degrees. I guess I'll start with insulation to keep the heat in (its about 45 deg. in the upper part of the area) & then see if I can get a 110V line down there for a drop cord (I can run the drop cord off of the inverter). We're leaving on feb 2nd to go south & I want to carry water in the tanks, so DW can use the commode. The other compartments are in the 50 deg. range and thats where the water tanks are at. My concern is that durned exterior shower & its water lines while traveling. The temps will not get above freezing in the forseeable future. Any suggestions will be appreciated, except not to carry water in the tanks.

[Fred B.]

My wife found a remote sensing thermometer & brought it home yesterday. I proceeded to put it in our water/sewer hookup compartment that has a exterior shower faucet in it. Put the heat on & started checking temps & didn't like what I seen. The temperature was basically 1-2 degrees above outside temp even with the heat on & the thermostat satisfied at 65 degrees. I guess I'll start with insulation to keep the heat in (its about 45 deg. in the upper part of the area) & then see if I can get a 110V line down there for a drop cord (I can run the drop cord off of the inverter). We're leaving on feb 2nd to go south & I want to carry water in the tanks, so DW can use the commode. The other compartments are in the 50 deg. range and thats where the water tanks are at. My concern is that durned exterior shower & its water lines while traveling. The temps will not get above freezing in the forseeable future. Any suggestions will be appreciated, except not to carry water in the tanks.

[tomsm]

Fred, since those below floor compartments are heated by the floor heater ducts, maybe blocking off or restricting several of the floor vents would force more heat into the compartments and also force the heat to run longer before the themostat is satisfied.

Also, maybe running a fan in the cabin directed down into a floor vent would force some warmth down there.

[UPS 34]

I am new at this but here is my thinking. We are going to Fl. about the same time. The system has the pink stuff in it now. I plan on filling the tanks with water and go. The 1 day trip will get us to where we are out of the real cold weather. Will bring water to drink and will flush the system at the camp ground. Now I have to figure out the return as we will be coming back March 1...
Might look at heating that area when we are sitting around doing nothing in Fla.

[DonavonP]

Hi Fred, I'm not sure this is what you're looking for but my wife and I just use pink antifreeze to manually flush the toilet and if we know we'll be in warm weather soon we'll use windshield washer fluid. Just keep a couple gallon jugs in the commode and let'er rip. And don't slow down until you get below
Kentucky because this cold air we have in Minnesota now is heading your way.

Don,
Where did you get the idea to use window washer fluid in the coach. It is toxic and can contaminate your plumbing.

Heres an idea for those going south. Don't fill your fresh water tanks until you get to areas that record temperatures above 32 degrees at night(think about wind chill factors). Then when you get there, add only about 1/3 of filtered fresh water to your tank. There is no reason to haul all that extra weight, if your going to have a full hook-up site where your going. Even so, with all the Flying J's and other service areas along the way, your have plenty of water and dumps available.

Also, if you have the problems we had with our coach's winterizer valves leaking, you appreciate not having a flooded electrical compartment from all that water.

Tomcat F 15

[TXiceman]

Tomcat,

Wind chill does not have any bearing on water in pipes. The wind chill comes into play with exposed surfaces of human, plants and animals which have water in the skin or surface. The effect is the evaporation of the water which causes a lowering of the temperature.

So, the water in the pipes or tank is not subject to evaporation, thus is not effected by "wind chill".

Ken

[rvten]

On two of my FW Mh's. I put the insulation on the compartment doors. I used the silver lined stuff. That has silver on both sides. This helped a lot and looked pretty good when the doors were opened. I used silacone adheiseve to glue it to the doors.

[DonavonP]

Just for the sake of clarifing my statement, only use windshield washer fluid in your TOILET. Don't put it in your fresh water tank. It's just a last resort method of keeping the black tank loose and the valve in the black tank from freezing, as well as rinsing the bowl. The toxicity that Tomcat refers to is Methanol and it goes into the sewer system at your next dump station where it evaporates.

Tomcat F15 - thank you for pointing out that my post may have been confusing to some readers.

Ken,

Tell that to the frozen pipes when their frozen, I don't think they know about the laws of physics, they just do what they do.

Don,

Thanks for the clarification, but toxic waste shouldn't be put down the drain and into the waste water. Thats wy they make RV antifreeze.

I'm not being a smart ____, I'm just stating the facts, that we all need to abide to or we'll loose a good thing.

Tomcat F15
"We are the stewarts of this environment, and our jobs should not be taken lightly."

[BucknJeff]

Tomcat,

Like was said, Pipes don't know from windchill. These ideas might be brought to you by the people that sell "engine blankets" to keep your engine warm overnight. Thats just silly (at least in MHO). Only the ambient temperature (or lack of...) will cause the dread freezing.

We think on the same lines with respect to use of forign chemecials in the holding tanks. I suspect its not terribly bad, but consider;

I wonder if the high alcohol content in Washer Fluid would be harmful to the waste valve gasket/seal materials. You may also want to consider that some tank deoderizer/liquifaction products could be neutralized by the Washer Fluid.

Hope this helps

[TXiceman]

Tomcat, all the pipes know is 32 degrees Farenheit and below they freeze. You can have a 35 degree wind blowing 50 MPH and a wind chill to 20 degrees and the pipes will NOT freeze. Simple law of physics, thermodynamics and heat transfer. Now if the actual temperature is 32 degrees or lower and 0 degrees wind chill, the pipes will freeze.

You can demonstate a simple wind chill by wetting the back of your hand and blowing across it. You will fell the cooling caused by the evaporation or removal of the moisture. It feels cooler and is actually cooler to the hand, thus wind chill.

A cooling tower or swamp cooler works the same way...the evaporation cools the remaing water and air that is blown across the wet pads.

Ken

.....w/w fluid is good in toilet or you can use just salt water[1/4 cup salt to a gallon of hot water and shake] and flush out the tank about Atlanta or Macon Ga.....pink stuff will work also but expensive.....you are only talking one days trip out of the cold and into the warm-8 hours from Cincinnati.....she could make it that far or run enpty and don't worry about it....geof kaye

[Tom N]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> Where did you get the idea to use window washer fluid in the coach. It is toxic and can contaminate your plumbing. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I puts the windshield washer fluid in his toilet. No contamination there.

[/QUOTE] Heres an idea for those going south. Don't fill your fresh water tanks until you get to areas that record temperatures above 32 degrees at night(think about wind chill factors). [/QUOTE]

Windchill has nothing to do with water freezing. If the windchill is 25 degrees and the air temp is 33 degrees water will never freeze.

[TXiceman]

Something else to add about Wind Chill is that this is an index or a number to reference. It is based on anbient temperature, humiduty and wind velocity. It gives you a number to relate to that it "feels like" it is x degrees instead of the actual temperature.

In the summer there is a heat index for a temperature that due to the ambient and humidity, gives a "feels like" temperature.

They are not more than numbers to relate to what the body perceives.

Ken

[GG1]

I don't understand whats the big deal. Keep the gas furnace on and fill up with water before you leave. Put a little rv antifreeze in both holding tanks. Dont pull the dump valves until you are in temps above freezing for a day or so. If things are working right you will have no problems. You are pulling extra weight but its worth it for the convienence

[Fred B.]

Thanks to all for the help. I beleive we solved it with a 100 watt light bulb & some quickly improvised insulation. At 12 degrees out side temp, with no heat in the MH I was able to maintain about 36-38 degrees in the lower part of that bay. That means when we are running the furnace we should be in even better shape, cause the area up above in that bay around the holding tanks was in the middle 40s w/furnace running.I guess when we head out for LA for Mardi Gras my DW won't have to hold it till we get below TN.

[Tom-NC]

All the responses were good and would be what I would do. In case the black holding tank does freeze on the way home, you can add water softener salt to it to thaw it out without causing any damage to tank. I did this on my '87 Winnebago and had no problem plus the tank was not in a heated area. I used to put WW fluid in gray holding tank. Never put anything in Fresh water tank.
One last point that no one mentioned, if you have Motoraid heater on this coach there is a switch on the dash for rear heat. This will keep heated compartments warm while you are driving.

[UPS 34]

Never thought about water softener salt. Sounds like a good idea to me. Think i will mix water and salt and poor it in before i leave. 5 gal of water and some salt mixed should work.

[rvten]

Hope your motor aid heater works better than mine. Blower motor froze up. Looks like a bear to get in and fix.