Cold Weather Camping (sub freezing)

[akozub]

Hello, I wanted to take my 2020 FourWinds up to the ski resort for a few days. The weather will range from 7 at night to 25 during the day. I don't have "heated tanks" that I know of. I will have Electrical Hookups but no water hookups. Am I ok if I only fill my holding tank halfway and keep the temperture inside the Motorhome above 65 at all times using a high powered electric space heater? Can I place additional space heaters near the water pump and near the Fresh Tank to keep the temperture up? I don't want to do any damage.

[EA37TS]

I do not know what the construction of the Four Winds does for placement of tank. etc... so I am not going to try to answer your question.

I will, however, say welcome to the forum.

[Bob Denman]

Wekcome aboard.
Since you haven't got the kinks worked of this stuff yet: you might better just stay in the Lodge...

[droregon]

Keep the under sink cabinet doors open to help keep interior pipes warm. I don’t know your rig, so I can’t speak to exterior exposure.

[Pete'sMH]

We’re in central Texas on our snowbird trip and the high is mid 20’s. Keeping warm with two space heaters and an occasional run of the furnace. I did a partial winterization yesterday to get antifreeze into the basement pipes and especially the water pump. If you had a small heat source in your water compartment you might be ok but 7 degrees is going to be tough. We’re heading further south tomorrow so should be able to thaw out again. At least until Monday. We have several gallons of bottled water for drinking, coffee and such and we are manually flushing the toilet with water and antifreeze. I’m not concerned with frozen holding tanks because we’ll be warm again before they get filled. I’m running the water heater once or twice a day to keep it from freezing too.

[JimOIB]

I’ve been in freezing weather overnight with temps getting above freezing during the day in my Class C. I have a slide and run an extension cord to the pedestal to run my 1500w oil filled electric heater and we keep warm. Propane heater tends to come on early in the morning. Holding tanks are fine in those conditions.

However, being below freezing night and day is a different story. Holding tank contents in a Class C will likely freeze unless you add anti-freeze to them. I have heated tanks and would not trust the heaters to keep up. Plus the coach is not insulated well enough for that environment. Everything I’ve read says “don’t do it, it’s not worth the risk”. I tend to agree and personally would not stay in below freezing weather for more than a day. That’s my engineer based assessment. You may be more risk tolerant than me.

[Jusjay]

I hear a 60w light bulb (Incandescent) will work in your water/sewer basement compartment or under your holding tanks if you have access.

[Bob Denman]

Antifreeze in the tanks is a good idea...
But it won't protect any of the pipes under the RV.

[Pete'sMH]

7 degrees might defeat a light bulb though especially if the high during the day remains under freezing.

Other thing to consider in very cold weather is condensation. We have double pane windows but the windshield was just dripping with it this morning. I actually opened a window and turned on a roof vent fan today for a while despite the cold just to air us out some.

Closing your slides won’t keep the water warm but it’ll make it easier for you to stay comfortable. And it’ll keep the snow off your toppers if that is a concern.

[lwmcguire]

We have two registers in the basement however I use a heat tape that has a built in thermostat on the wet bay piping. The water pump is there as well and keeping the basement in the 45 degree range along with the heat tape works well.

The heat tape is plugged into an outlet supplied by the inverter so this works both on the road and plugged in to shore power

[atreis]

Cracking a roof vent helps a lot with reducing condensation. We humans exhale quite a lot of moisture, it's not just from burning propane.

[The_Breeze]

I've read out here somewhere the valves usually fail first in freezing temps.

With highs of 25, you could be in for a hard freeze. I'd see if there was a way to introduce some of that antifreeze to surround the valve.

The outlet pipes to the holding tanks fill first. The heat tape mentioned prior is a good way to combat that problem.

I have tank heaters, likely because the rig came from Oregon. I don't do cold weather myself.

[Shoreguy]

When I winter camp, I keep my water lines and drains filled with antifreeze. There is no way that I can keep the tank valves from freezing with water/waste in them. I you realy want to, you can use the toilet by flushing with antifreeze.

[Gus3836]

Talk to the factory they can give you facts about what you can do should do and no way. The propane heater in the coach should keep any tanks and plumbing from freezing into the 20’s. That is why using too much extra heaters that don’t run through the ducts can cause problems. The factory rep told me the 20’s is okay but anything less than that is not recommended. I have a Tuscany XTE if that matters.

[IDguy]

Camped in many RVs skiing over many years NEVER use the water system. Bring drinking water and all paper utensils. Use the toilet in the bar.

[MJC62]

Whatever you decide I would get several gallons of the RV pink stuff and use that for all toilet flushing.

[Pete'sMH]

Originally Posted by MJC62

Whatever you decide I would get several gallons of the RV pink stuff and use that for all toilet flushing.

I alternate flushing with pink stuff and water but it probably would be more conservative to use all antifreeze.