Camping in 12 degree weather, Help

I am heading to my kids, I will use all the electric I want, they lived off me long enough with college and all. My time to get even.

I plan on draining all the tanks except the toliet to be used only in the middle of the night to save the trip inside of the house. If I open all the valves (4 of them) and leave them open, will that drain enough so nothing will freeze or should I pull the anode on the water heater to drain it completely. Just replaced the anode this past Saturday so would not be a big deal to pull it out.

Thanks guys for all the help. You all are really great in your advice. John.

[rvcycleguy]

I'm sure your kids will be happy to offer as much electricity necessary, but the point some were offering is to take care plugin into their outlets from an extension cord that's not rated for the power or blowing a breaker for the house or the TM.

But I'm sure you knew that. Sometimes in the written word, it loses some of the inflexion of humor. Have fun and take care. These winter storms of late seem to be unforgiving...

[thewayneo]

Originally Posted by Tampajohn

I plan on draining all the tanks except the toliet to be used only in the middle of the night to save the trip inside of the house. If I open all the valves (4 of them) and leave them open, will that drain enough so nothing will freeze or should I pull the anode on the water heater to drain it completely.

Use a gallon of RV antifreeze for the "charge" water in the toilet.

No need to remove the anode, I tested this when I first bought my TM.

Residual water in the water pump will freeze. Most likely it will be OK as long as you don't try to run the pump before it thaws.

What we do is run high usage items, ceramic heater, microwave, on separate circuit plugged into a different circuit and only one at a time (20amp). Then we plug TM into another circuit and plug no heavy draw items into the TM. Yep we watch the amps pretty close. Thanks for you advice and concern. We pull really close, next to the house so the 12 gauge extension cords work pretty well. John

I love to use their electric. They did not know how to turn a light switch off until they started paying the bill.

Lots of good advice here about handling the cold weather while camping in the cold but not much said about getting there in possibly hazardous weather. Hopefully, you have driven enough on icy roads to know when not to drive, but if not, please be very careful!

I lived for five years in upper Indiana and Ohio and found that blizzards come most often during the high school basketball tournament seasons with Feb/March having some of the worst of the storms. I always kept studded snow tires on my vehicles during those times (they are legal from NC/TN northward) plus an emergency kit and shovel in the trunk/bed. Pot (huge) holes on those roads up there can be nasty and hard to see.

Pulling a TM on an icy road is something I've not tried, but perhaps some posters here can offer some advice/experiences on that subject. In any case, Good Luck, and be sure to tell us how it went.

Your fellow FL camper and loving it!

[rickst29]

temps can vary 40-50 degrees in a single day. That's because of extremely low humidity levels, and leads to a possible issue for the fridge: The cylindrical round tank, in the center of the unit about 1/3 of the way up from the bottom, is for holding separated water, becomes prone to freezing when ambient temps are very cold and the Fridge heater (AC or DC) has not been running for a while. The Propane heater runs continuously, and some of that heat flows up and sideways to the water tank -so it's much less likely to have the problem.

At 5AM, when this minimum temperature typically occurs, the heaters are unlikely to run very much. (And maybe not at all.) This tank can be protected from freezing temperatures by adding another heater underneath that water tank, at about 1/3 the wattage of the standard 3-way fridge heaters (AC, DC, and propane flame). Something like a 60W light bulb, or (avoiding all of the "unfriendly" light at night) one of the 40W, 12V heater for use in 3D Printers. (Search Ebay for "reprap heater", and you'll find a bunch of ceramic heaters, with leads (traditionally red) already attached. Typical cost is $5-10, including shipping form China. As I write this, here's such a listing: www.ebay.com/itm/12V-40W-Cartridge-Heater-for-3D-Printer-Prusa-Mendel-Reprap-Makerbot-Mendel-/171068148484.

An advantage of the RepRap heater is the small cylindrical body; you can tape it directly to the water tank cylinder, using aluminum heater vent tape. This makes a much higher of the generated heat go into the water cylinder than you get with a "nearby, in free air" light bulb.
I've got a RepRap. The problem isn't common, but frozen water in the tank or pipes can actually crack open the sealed refrigerant system, leading to huge repair costs.

Freeze failure of ammonia systems is so rare it should not be considered a risk. If it were more common, RV owners would not be able to store their equipment outdoors in sub-freezing temperatures.

People normally complain their units have frozen and will not cool properly, when in reality the low temperatures have stopped the boiler heater from providing enough heat to vaporize the ammonia mixture. In addition, ammonia clathrates, an icy chemical mixture of ammonia and water, can form and block flow.

As temperatures drop, the first thing to do is block off the lower refrigerator vents to reduce cold air flow and create a warmer zone for the boiler.

[rickst29]

The other issue (which you indicate to be much more common) can be mostly resolved with the 5-way Fridge Mod.

It allows up to 320W by using a combination of two heaters at full power: Propane with DC electrical allows for power levels of either the constant propane flame output or that level plus 160W (depending on whether DC is fully "ON" or Fully "OFF"). It needs "fresh combustion air" from the vent undeneath. DC with AC is either double-power (320W) or Zero at any given moment, but allows you to block that fresh air inlet vent underneath.

Yup the cold is certainly a different can of worms. I added insulation around water lines - and extra 1" foam under the bed - spray insulation in all the factory holes and behind all exterior plates. Also we always put anti freeze in the gray and black dump valves. We've been in below weather - managed to stay warm, but water freeze ups is always a problem. Everything else worked very well and after the insulation project hope we got the freeze ups solved too. Oh yes, the biggest problem was the ice build-up on the leveling jacks - had to use a hammer to bust it off. But, as I've said before - TMs just weren't made for real cold weather...don't think they think much of it in TN?? Take heart...it can be done.

[ThePair]

Originally Posted by rickst29

The other issue (which you indicate to be much more common) can be mostly resolved with the 5-way Fridge Mod.

It allows up to 320W by using a combination of two heaters at full power: Propane with DC electrical allows for power levels of either the constant propane flame output or that level plus 160W (depending on whether DC is fully "ON" or Fully "OFF"). It needs "fresh combustion air" from the vent undeneath. DC with AC is either double-power (320W) or Zero at any given moment, but allows you to block that fresh air inlet vent underneath.

If one only has one mode controlled by PID (i.e. AC like mine), couldn't you just wire in a parallel switch for the DC element, and run AC + DC simultaneously, with DC always on, and AC giving the Watt boost as controlled by PID?

How much wattage can that heating element take, anyway? I know there are two heaters back there, but I was under the impression that one was gas and the other electric (DC or AC). Does having both AC&DC going into the same element create a problem? I know you run a combo of gas + DC, but those are separate heaters (IIRC) and wouldn't conflict. I'm curious about the DC/AC combo.

Just thinking out loud, here. There's little chance I need to worry about this for myself... but one never knows!