Vacation in areas of cold nights 30-36 Degrees

[trucking]

My wife and I are planning a vacation this month September where The Night time Temperature is forecast to be 30-36 degrees a Couple of nights, and 70's-8o's in the day time.
We would only be in the cold area for two nights at a time and one night at two areas.
The trailer is a 2015 Dutchmen Kodiak Express Ultra lite 223rbsl, Stock no pipe insulation.
Question: With hot water heater on and Trailer heater on, would this Keep the pipes from freezing on the road trip?
I could open up access doors, Drawers to let the heater temp into the pipe areas.
Any input would be Appreciated, Thanks

[franktafl]

Depends on how long it goes below freezing. If it hits 30 it will only be there for a short time, you should be ok. If it dips to the 20’s then cause for worry. IMO.

[trucking]

Originally Posted by franktafl

Depends on how long it goes below freezing. If it hits 30 it will only be there for a short time, you should be ok. If it dips to the 20’s then cause for worry. IMO.

The Night time Temperature is forecast to be 30-36 degrees a Couple of nights, and 70's-8o's in the day time.
We would only be in the cold area for two nights at a time and one night at two areas with full hook up, H20/Elect.
So the time with cold temp would be guessing when the sun set till sun rise,
8-9 hours.
With the heater, H20 heater on and access doors open, Drawer and sink doors open it should help keep the pipes from freezing, just a guess.
There is not much more we can do, This will be a good test for the Coach.
When we get back in October, I'll give an update.
Thanks for your input.

[ATCguy]

Originally Posted by trucking

My wife and I are planning a vacation this month September where The Night time Temperature is forecast to be 30-36 degrees a Couple of nights...

If your basement has the cut-outs for the ducted furnace as others have mentioned, and you're only going to be in the low 30s, I'd say you'll probably be ok with the furnace going.

Now, what I used to do when connected to full hookups (shore power) is the following:

Power is included with my campground fee, whereas I have to buy propane.

So I rarely ever ran my furnace in cold weather. What I did is something like what you mentioned in your previous post in re an underbelly heater. I got a couple of these electric fan-fed ceramic heaters:



They're relatively cheap ($40-$75), and can be picked up from almost any hardware store, Walmart, or ordered on Amazon. They have a thermostat control, and a tip-over safety cut-off.

I used one inside my living area because... again, free electricity from the campground is cheaper than me buying propane for the furnace. Duh! At night when the temps dipped, I opened all of my kitchen cabinet doors & drawers near the floor so the warm air could filter in to water plumbing was located just under them.

And I also did the following for my basement:





I cut a hole in the wall down there, and placed one of the heaters so that it would blow hot air directly into basement... my pipes were constantly kept warm all night long.

Now again, the lowest temps I ever found myself in were the high 20s (27, by my thermometer)... and I never had any issues.

One other thing you may wanna consider picking up is a heater water hose from the campground spigot to your rig. It's out there in the open, with nothing to keep it from freezing... and you don't want a surprise immediately following that 2AM bathroom visit, or when you go to take that early morning shower... only to discover that you have no water because your outside hose is frozen.

[trucking]

Thanks to all, Busy packing today, its going to rain sat.
First long 2 week trailering long ways from home, We are excited and ready to roll out.

[lcv800]

I can't believe a low temperature of 30 degrees for a few hours after highs in the 70's in an occupied RV would result in a frozen fixture, or worse a cracked pipe.
Rusty

[persistent]

Believe it. My kitchen faucet pipe froze when temperature dropped from 34 degrees to 29 degrees. It only took 4 hours in very light wind.

"All Season" makes a great sales pitch. One sentence in the manual says winterize when temperature will be below 32 degrees. Warranty says freeze damage is not covered under any circumstances.

[Local150]

With my 5th wheel I spent 1 night at 25 and the next night it got down to 19. I put a small electric heater in the storage area or underbelly and set it on low and the next morning everything was good. And then I headed to Florida lol

[trucking]

I wife and I just returned from our Vacation in cold night temp.
We were in Utah at Rudy's RV resort, Bryce Canyon City at Elev. 7654 ft.
The Night time temp was colder than the 30-36 degree forecast.
The temp was 25-28 degrees with day time temp in the 60's, I was very impressed how the 2015 Dutchmen Kodiak Express Ultra lite 223rbsl pipes held up.
I would have to say the heated Belly worked just fine.
We set the inside heater at 75 degrees and removed the Shower Access panel,
and the bathroom cabinet access panel to let trailer heated area keep the pipes from freezing, And opened the Shower, bathroom sink and kitchen sink Facets at a
Trickle.
The only problem was the Crazy toilet plumbing,
The toilet is connected with a round connector, and the tank is connected with a round Connector, the Crazy thing is there is a large void between the two round connectors causing Crap to get stuck. It would be better plumbed with the tank to the toilet to be one round pipe connector so crap can not get stuck in the void.

[franktafl]

If you leave your water “trickle” when it is cold enough and you have your gray tank valve open, the water will freeze in the sewer hose. If u don’t leave the valve open, you risk filling up the gray tank. In my opinion, get the heated hose, use small electric heaters with fans like tom suggested (no propane needed).and maybe set your thermostat to 60 if the heaters can’t keep up.

[trucking]

Originally Posted by franktafl

If you leave your water “trickle” when it is cold enough and you have your gray tank valve open, the water will freeze in the sewer hose. If u don’t leave the valve open, you risk filling up the gray tank. In my opinion, get the heated hose, use small electric heaters with fans like tom suggested (no propane needed).and maybe set your thermostat to 60 if the heaters can’t keep up.

10-4 good buddy, What we did in the 25-28 cold nights seem to work just fine.
Thanks to all for the recommendations, we are done RVing for the season.
I will buy a some space heaters and hose heaters for the future.
Bryce Canyon City was cold at night, if we go again we will stay at Zion for the week where it is warmer and take the truck to Bryce Canyon to explore the scenery.
Thanks again for all gave input.