Below freezing travel and camping

[Pairofkings]

I’m planning for my first winter trip where I will most likely experience below freezing temperatures during travel and while camping. I want to make sure I am prepared to address and prevent any problems or issues.

I have a 2022 21C. It is equipped with spray foam insulation and tank heaters for fresh and gray water. Composting toilet. Frameless windows. Lithium batteries with 412AH capacity, 380 watts of solar and a DC-DC charger. Victron BMV-712 battery monitor. 2200-watt inverter. Norcold compressor refrigerator. WFCO 8955 Auto Detect Converter. Both propane tanks are full. I also added foam rubber mats under the bed and rear U-shaped seating area to add extra insulation.

Currently the trailer is completely winterized with -25 RV antifreeze in the water lines and all tanks are empty. It is stored in a fully enclosed non heated building with power connected. I have a temperature-controlled heater for the storage area where the batteries are mounted. The minimum temperature the batteries will be is 35F.

My plan is to fill my water tank just prior to departure and if the temperature will be below freezing, I will turn on the fresh tank heater. (The tank heater uses approx. 10 amps).

Once I arrive at my first boondocking site I will turn on the water pump to purge the antifreeze from the lines and then open the bypass valves to fill the water heater and then turn on the water heater. I have three options for heating, the furnace, Coleman Mach10 with heat strip and a 1500 watt ceramic heater. I have a Honda 2200i generator. The generator is equipped with the Honda Cold Climate Technology heater kit. The generator also has a remote attached 3 gallon gas tank and can run continuously for 12-14 hours at full output. I have tested the generator and it will easily run the Coleman Mach 10 heat strip at 1800 watts.

I will also have an air compressor, 2 gallons of RV antifreeze and the proper socket to remove the anode rod to drain the hot water tank, (if it is necessary to winterize the system during travel).

I believe I’ve taken into account all the preparation for a successful boondocking experience, but once I break camp at what temperature do I need to be concerned about my water lines freezing while traveling to my next destination? I will be traveling 6-8 hours between stops.

I believe the saying "Failing to plan is planning to fail"....and I don't want to have any problems that could have been prevented.

Thank you all for your suggestions and comments for my question.

[Mike G]

If traveling in freezing temps, I'd think you would need to either blow out the lines in the morning or else run the furnace while driving. Not to say that I've ever done what you are planning to do.


Keep in mind the worst case scenarios, like what if the generator decides to not start. Or what if the furnace decides to not run. Stuff can happen. Have backup plans.

[splitting_lanes]

You’ve done a good job of planning so far. We’ve had our 5.0 out in below freezing temperatures. I disconnected the water hose and turned it off, however the hose froze solid. It was 18f. We were cozy inside, we have the spray foam also.


I think the thing that will make the difference is how far below freezing do you anticipate, and for how long. A few degrees below freezing won’t freeze what’s in the trailer….

[alanmalk]

1. Based on my experience in purging RV antifreeze: It takes me most of a full tank of fresh water to clean out the antifreeze. If boondocking, that would leave you dry.
2. The most vulnerable item of plumbing on my E21 is the grey/black tank drain valves. I have had them freeze up in 25 F temps. Now I either keep a gallon of antifreeze in each tank after dumping, or wrap the valves as best I can with insulating material for short-term protection.

[JohnK]

Pairofkings, I wish our trailer was as well equipped as yours. No expert here on winter travel, but we did just drive two days during which the first half of each day started out at 27F and remained at or below 32F till late morning. We completed our two day trip uneventfully taking the following precautions. Route of travel was Newton KS - Santa Rosa NM for night then on to Tucson AZ via Alamogordo NM and Demming NM.

Water wise we remained fully winterized till our first evening destination with a low temp forecast that night to be 25. I dewinterized at that point but disconnected city water for the night using only fresh tank water and pump. No problems with that.

Battery wise we have a 230 ah LiFePO4 with low temp cutoff but did not depend on the BMS for low temp protection. Instead I have installed a solar panel cutoff switch and that and tow vehicle charging source disconnected when I was not sure how cold the battery cave was till after we exited freezing temps. While enroute I set the furnace to 55F I have cut an opening in our battery cave wall to more closely equalize cabin temps. I found that the differential can be as much as 20 degrees colder in the battery cave ba cabin with the furnace set as 55F. This is after keeping the battery cave at 50F with light bulbs till pulling shore power just prior to launching.

All the best with your winter travel.

[rubicon327]

Originally Posted by alanmalk

1. Based on my experience in purging RV antifreeze: It takes me most of a full tank of fresh water to clean out the antifreeze. If boondocking, that would leave you dry.
2. The most vulnerable item of plumbing on my E21 is the grey/black tank drain valves. I have had them freeze up in 25 F temps. Now I either keep a gallon of antifreeze in each tank after dumping, or wrap the valves as best I can with insulating material for short-term protection.

My thoughts exactly. Between adequately clearing the antifreeze and filling the hot water tank with 6 gallons you are spent. I would flush the antifreeze out at home, fill the hot water tank with water and then put it in bypass, and then blow the lines out with compressed air. You can run the hot water heater at home before leaving to start with a hot tank. With it in bypass it may weep water more at the safety valve outside due to expansion but no big deal. With the tank inside and insulated it should stay warm unless you tow in very cold temps for a very long time. When you get to your first site just turn on the pump and fill your lines. Take the hot water heater out of bypass and turn it on to keep it hot. The old Atwood 8012-II propane heaters in early Escapes work fine when traveling which is very helpful. I can’t speak to the newer Atwood AFSAD and Dometic DFSAD heaters.

In the 19 you can travel with full plumbing and heat on as no lines go outside. Unfortunately the 21C has a hot and cold line that traverses under the trailer. Those would be quite vulnerable to freezing in really cold weather.

One of the weaknesses of all the trailers is the exposed pickup tube from the fresh tank. This will hold water and freeze first. Ask me how I know. Underfloor insulation probably helps a bit in this instance especially with a fresh tank heater.

On a positive note PEX is more resilient than most people think. Despite my warnings my father completely froze the plumbing system on a Scamp he brought back up the east coast from Florida in late December. Thawed it out and everything was fine.

[gharper]

We have camped in freezing temps with an E19 with extra insulation, spray foam under the trailer and heated tanks - didn't boondock though. It works if temperatures are not significantly below freezing. We found a ceramic heater doesn't work as well as the propane furnace but you sure go through the propane quick. If temperatures throughout out the day and night are significantly below zero, i.e. > than -5 deg C or more, I think your tanks will freeze while towing and you will have to provide power to your heated tanks all night. I wouldn't do it at those temperatures.

[Bayner]

If you blow your water lines out after you run the antifreeze through them you would save yourself some water when you go to run fresh water through the system. It still takes a good amount of fresh to get rid of the smell and taste, but a lot less than without blowing the antifreeze out first. Personally, I'd be a bit nervous about the dump valves freezing if they see sustained below freezing temps.

[Donna D.]

I pump a weak bleach solution through the water lines to push the anti-freeze out. And let it sit for a couple of hours. Then run fresh water through the lines. Doesn't take long for the chlorine smell to disappear. And doesn't take a lot of water either...

[JohnK]

Our 2020 E21C has a valve to a separate hose which can be inserted into a bottle of anti freeze to be pumped through the lines without having to put antifreeze into the fresh water tank. Using that hose with water heater isolated I can winterize using less than one gallon. It makes purging easy as well. Caveat: we do not use the trailer water system for drinking water.
John

[Donna D.]

This is Glenn's picture, but this is how I winterize. No anti-freeze goes into the fresh water tank and with the water heater in by-pass it's not filled either. I think the hand pump was about $10 at an RV parts store...

[Iowa Dave]

I used the electric water pump and a bypass valve that I installed to winterize our 19 the years we owned it. When we got the 21 I went to the hand pump as Glenn and Donna show. It has worked well for several years. After antifreeze is pushed through they system and into the grey and black tanks the final step for me is to remove the filter cap on the pump and wick away any perched water. So far so good. We do have low point drains on our 21 so there’s not much water to push out with antifreeze. The pink comes quickly and undiluted.
Iowa Dave

[Bayner]

Originally Posted by Donna D.

I pump a weak bleach solution through the water lines to push the anti-freeze out. And let it sit for a couple of hours. Then run fresh water through the lines. Doesn't take long for the chlorine smell to disappear. And doesn't take a lot of water either...

I like the sound of that, I'll try it next time.

[Perry Butler]

We easily have over 75 nights camping below freezing. Last winter we had 30 nights below freezing with water in our tanks.

Since January 2019, we leave Minnesota around January 15 for three months in the southwest. I don't think it's ever been as high as 10° F in the early morning when we take off for Cracker Barrel in Kansas City. One morning it was -10° F. The day before leaving I start a 1,500 watt heater in the trailer to get it warm. At 6 am we pull away from the electric post and turn on the furnace at 50° F. Terry loads the refrigerator with items and by 7 am we're heading for Cracker Barrel. The furnace is running the whole time we're driving down the road. On the third day we are far enough south to add water.

If we need to use the toilet, we flush with a 50/50 mix of RV antifreeze and water.

The coldest we've stayed in the trailer with water in the lines is 10° F but the day high was slightly over freezing. We have many, many nights waking up to 15° F with water in the lines. If the night temps will go below 15° F I'll run the kitchen sink a couple of times at night.

If we know it's going to be below 20° F I'll add a half gallon of RV antifreeze to the black and a half gallon to the grey tank after a dump. We've never had a frozen valve.

We had tank heaters in our 5.0, but since we camp without services, they were never used. It takes a lot to freeze a tank of water, and it will never freeze when traveling down the road (OK, at -20° F it might) sloshing back and forth.

Down to 20° F we don't worry about anything freezing as long as it gets above freezing during the day and we're occasionally running water.

Works for us,

Perry

[brroberts]

+1 to what Perry said. We fully use the trailer systems down to at least 10F.

Perry, in our Bigfoot, we used systems well below 0F (-20), but only if we had enough propane for the furnace and enough electricity to keep the furnace fan spinning.

[Perry Butler]

Originally Posted by brroberts

+1 to what Perry said. We fully use the trailer systems down to at least 10F.

Perry, in our Bigfoot, we used systems well below 0F (-20), but only if we had enough propane for the furnace and enough electricity to keep the furnace fan spinning.

A Bigfoot is better equipped for -20° weather. It's a full four season camper, where our 5.0 was a 3 1/2 season camper at best. At under 10° F, cold would radiate off the walls and windows in the 5.0, but it's still nice and toasty in our Bigfoot. It helps that the center of the camper's floor is over the tanks that are heated by the furnace. However we easily use 50% more LP to keep the camper warm, but by having two 30# tanks instead of two 20# tanks we last just as long between fill-ups.

Once we got the rooftop 160 watt panel running and had the 100 watt portable installed we had no problem keeping the batteries (two 100 amp SOK's) full last winter. Last June/July I removed the 160 watt panel and installed three 200 watt 24v panels, run in parallel to a Victron 100/50 controller. I doubt we'll need the portable, but we will carry it just in case.

Enjoy,

Perry

[brroberts]

3 1/2 season is how I would describe our setup on our Escape as well. We thought about another Bigfoot, but wanted a few things and also a smaller lighter trailer at the same time.

[AllanEdie]

Originally Posted by rubicon327

My thoughts exactly. Between adequately clearing the antifreeze and filling the hot water tank with 6 gallons you are spent. I would flush the antifreeze out at home, fill the hot water tank with water and then put it in bypass, and then blow the lines out with compressed air. You can run the hot water heater at home before leaving to start with a hot tank. With it in bypass it may weep water more at the safety valve outside due to expansion but no big deal. With the tank inside and insulated it should stay warm unless you tow in very cold temps for a very long time. When you get to your first site just turn on the pump and fill your lines. Take the hot water heater out of bypass and turn it on to keep it hot. The old Atwood 8012-II propane heaters in early Escapes work fine when traveling which is very helpful. I can’t speak to the newer Atwood AFSAD and Dometic DFSAD heaters.

In the 19 you can travel with full plumbing and heat on as no lines go outside. Unfortunately the 21C has a hot and cold line that traverses under the trailer. Those would be quite vulnerable to freezing in really cold weather.

One of the weaknesses of all the trailers is the exposed pickup tube from the fresh tank. This will hold water and freeze first. Ask me how I know. Underfloor insulation probably helps a bit in this instance especially with a fresh tank heater.

On a positive note PEX is more resilient than most people think. Despite my warnings my father completely froze the plumbing system on a Scamp he brought back up the east coast from Florida in late December. Thawed it out and everything was fine.

The exposed lines that cross beneath the E21 was exactly what froze for us at ~-6C overnight. We had been out in -3C without problems earlier.

To reduce the risk, I re-located the lines away from the steel frame (brilliant design for cold weather that - stupid comes to mind), and foamed the lines where they were exposed. So far so good, but I think with the new location and insulation, the trailer should be good overnight to at least ~~ -6C or so. Driving at that temperature would be different because the wind chill would cool the lines off a lot quicker.

[TTMartin]

Originally Posted by alanmalk

1. Based on my experience in purging RV antifreeze: It takes me most of a full tank of fresh water to clean out the antifreeze. If boondocking, that would leave you dry.

Blowing the RV antifreeze out of your lines with compressed air before you leave, might help reduce the amount of flushing needed.

[Telescopist]

Originally Posted by JohnK

Our 2020 E21C has a valve to a separate hose which can be inserted into a bottle of anti freeze to be pumped through the lines without having to put antifreeze into the fresh water tank. Using that hose with water heater isolated I can winterize using less than one gallon. It makes purging easy as well. Caveat: we do not use the trailer water system for drinking water.
John

I use the exact same method. And we bring our own filtered drinking water. Never have taken a sip of water from the fresh water tank.