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Old 11-03-2020, 02:28 AM   #1
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Brand: Thor Motor Coach
Model: Hurricane 34F
State: Virginia
Posts: 62
THOR #15498
Using 2016 Thor Hurricane 34F in winter.

So we have an outside kitchen, how do you keep the pipes, sink, faucet from freezing? I don't see anything in owners manual about it this first winter that we'll use it late into the season. Any ideas? Thanks in advance.

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Old 11-03-2020, 02:55 AM   #2
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Model: ACE 27.1
State: Florida
Posts: 16,425
THOR #7035
For the drains system use anti-freeze: pour a little down the drains after each use and keep some in the black & gray tanks.

Where's your FW tank? If inside the RV and you will keep the inside above freezing then no problem, but you may need to drain the FW piping between uses if below freezing for extended periods. Otherwise, use bottled water and campground bathrooms.

Remember, nothing freezes instantaneously at 32 degrees. You have to be below 32 degrees for hours to freeze small pipes, longer for large pipes and lots longer for tanks; BUT the farther below 32 degrees you are the shorter the freezing times will be.
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Old 11-03-2020, 04:01 AM   #3
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Brand: Thor Motor Coach
Model: Hurricane 34F
State: Virginia
Posts: 62
THOR #15498
FW tank inside under bed, BW and Grey tanks heated compartment, still outside kitchen, shower, I see no shut off for them inside. Kitchen plumbing near inside walls in an enclosed compartment, shower not so much.
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Old 11-03-2020, 03:51 PM   #4
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Brand: Thor Motor Coach
Model: Hurricane 34F
State: Virginia
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THOR #15498
Quote:
Originally Posted by 16ACE27 View Post
For the drains system use anti-freeze: pour a little down the drains after each use and keep some in the black & gray tanks.

Where's your FW tank? If inside the RV and you will keep the inside above freezing then no problem, but you may need to drain the FW piping between uses if below freezing for extended periods. Otherwise, use bottled water and campground bathrooms.

Remember, nothing freezes instantaneously at 32 degrees. You have to be below 32 degrees for hours to freeze small pipes, longer for large pipes and lots longer for tanks; BUT the farther below 32 degrees you are the shorter the freezing times will be.
Thank you
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Old 11-09-2020, 05:22 AM   #5
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Brand: Thor Motor Coach
Model: Hurricane 34J
State: Illinois
Posts: 81
THOR #12548
For the outside kitchen faucet, the tubing for hot & cold water are easily accessible by pulling open the panel next to your drawer. Doing so will show you that, while not just open to the bottom air of your RV, they are pretty exposed for a while before going into the walls to be split off of your shower/bathroom line. You may want to put some foam pipe insulation around them in that air space. There’s no shutoff that I’ve found to just keep those tubes from have water in them.

As far as the BW/GW tank heaters go, I’d double check on that. I do realize that there are different model numbers of Hurricanes. And each one may have different features. I have the 34J, and I too thought that I had tank heaters. The converter fuse panel shows space for the heaters. But there wasn’t a fuse in it. That’s because it didn’t actually come with one. What it has, supposedly, is an air chamber that lets the heater blow some hot air over the tops of it. It’s pretty hard to determine because the marketing language is pretty vague and says stuff about “heated tanks” without much details. Dig around in this forum For a thread talking about this, or your owners manual, and you’ll find the verbiage.

I’ve gone camping in some cold weather, where it got down into the 20’s at night. As a previous post mentioned, it’s not like once the temp hits 32 degrees—all your pipes instantly freeze. We were ok for those few cold nights and I barely ran any water through the outdoor kitchen sink. Never touched the outdoor shower handle, either.
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Old 11-09-2020, 12:10 PM   #6
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Model: Miramar 34.4
State: Iowa
Posts: 796
THOR #4488
I've camped for up to a week at a time with night time temperatures in the mid 20's in my Miramar. . How I do it is I go ahead and winterize the lines and empty the fresh water tank.

I use gallon jugs of water and a couple gallons of RV Antifreeze. I wash up like my parents used to do it... They called it a sponge bath. Never used the shower. Washing up with cold water is invigorating!

I used the antifreeze as a chaser to make sure my black/gray water valves wouldn't freeze. As long as the temperature was above freezing when I dumped I never had a problem.

You will go through a lot of LP at that temperature so I supplement with a space heater. During daylight hours the furnace barely ran.

I found the lack of worry about lines freezing made for a great time camping.
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Old 11-09-2020, 05:36 PM   #7
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Brand: Thor Motor Coach
Model: Hurricane 34F
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Cwray & Miramar, thank you I as well spent winter weeks up at Harpers Ferry in my class C, and never winterized, had to fill propane every other day, along with space heater. Only Dumped twice during that time, really nice heat vents to both tanks B & G. FW under bed, so we didn't have issues thoth frozen pipes as long as the ducted heat ran.

Has anyone used heat wrap for the outside kitchens? I've been thinking along those lines here lately.

Cwray, I have fuses in my panel, but how do you actually check to see if you have heat panels on the enclosed tanks? I have never seen an access to the B & G tanks
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Old 11-11-2020, 08:54 PM   #8
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Brand: Thor Motor Coach
Model: ACE 29.3
State: Alaska
Posts: 28
THOR #6077
Winter Camping

I have an ACE with an outside kitchen. The pipes are very close to the outside and need your attention.

First, get an indoor/outdoor thermometer with two or three probes so you can monitor your outside bays. This will go a long way to sleeping well.

Like others, I place foam pipe insulation around every pipe I can access. Some places I don't tape it so I can access valves.

Since you have a 110 volt outlet in the outside kitchen, do what I do and put a plug in thermostatically controlled heater. This makes me sleep very well!

I also put one in my main plumbing bay as the pipes go very close to the outside and I don't want them to freeze.

I camp all winter in temps to the low teens and since doing these things have had zero problems.
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