Insulating Water Lines?

rmchad

Heartland Owner
Hi Everyone -- we had a few posts last month regarding water pipes that froze. I saw mention of insulating the water pipes that run under the floor.

To do this, do I remove the corrugated insulation that's attached to the bottom of the frame and use the foam pipe insulation available from the big box stores? I plan to use expanding foam insulation if I found any holes that are not already sealed.

Is this the way to go or should I be doing something else? I have never opened up the bottom of the trailer (removed the insulation) -- to know what is in there.

Thanks!
 

cgunn

Well-known member
Insulation

Chad,I will be checking out the replies to your questions.
There are some very experienced people on this Forum.
I have had my line to the kitchen freeze up in real cold weather.
One place that is most likely is your "Low Point Drains".
They hang down thru the underbelly insulation and will freeze first.
There are several posts on this subject.
I am going to open up the underbelly and insulate these lines also.
I am also going to make sure they are not touching the frame at
any point because it conducts cold so bad.
I even thought about putting a heat tape on these lines and
plugging it in only in real cold weather.
There has to be a way to keep these lines up in the underbelly
from freezing.You can bet when I get it open I will be stuffing it full of
insulation. I have also read that some Fulltimers like myself
have eliminated the low piont drains altogether..
 

cgunn

Well-known member
Insulation??

Hey Guys Where are ya??
How about Chads questions??
I figured some of you RV Pros would have chimed in by now.
I know some of you'all have opened up the underbelly and done some
insulating. I also would be curious of how it was done.
As several posts have mentioned,the low point drains are one weak point.
I have more trouble with those lines than anywhere else.
I am going to open her up under there and stuff lots of insulation in there.
As mentioned B4 I may do away with those drains altogether.
I am sure there is someone out there on this forum that can give some
good advise on this subject.

Thanks in Advance,Guys......
 

rmchad

Heartland Owner
HI Charlie -- I appreciate your reply and how to see others too. It looks like a socket driver should be all that is needed to remove the underbelly material. We have snow on the ground now, so I won't be getting to it soon, but I want to get it done before we had out. Living in Colorado we can have nights dip into the 20's at times even during the summer. I may also look at heat tape on a thermostat as a backup to keep water lines from freezing.
 
Hello All,

My Big Country is new. I have only had it 3 weeks. I have been in it full-time since I bought it...and the key for me is heatape on the water hose and water hydraunt. I keep a heatlamp going in the UDC all the time with a regular 60 watt light bulb in it and it keeps things perfect. Now...the floor water lines have not been a problem for me so far. We had a lot of cold weather since I bought the RV and I have been fortunate. But taking down the belly is not that big a deal. It will be much easier with two people to keep it from tearing. I think they are 5/16" screws. I don't know how many because I have not had to take mine down. But my plans once it warms up here, is to take it down, and insulate all the holes in the floor. Sealing up the coach is my priority. Sealing and preventing water intrusion is so important. Keep the humidity low in the RV too. winter is a famous time for wet condensated windows and that all runs down the walls and into the carpets and molds can grow. So keep that in check. We use a dehumidifier for that. Works well. The heattape on the water line works well. Tape it on every 8 inches or so, then put the black or brown foam rubber tubes over it and tape them every 12 inches or so. Once you have that going...you are good to go. Just keep it plugged in all the time and you will have water at 2 in the morning when you get up in the middle of the night....

Good Luck!
 

rvn4fun

Well-known member
I want to get into the underbelly also as we have had the waterline freeze up already. Outside temperature was down to 10 that night. I ran a digital thermometer wire down our kitchen sink drain pipe hole, in the floor, into the underbelly, temp was 27. That was with the furnance running constantly and no wind that night. In fact I have checked this temperature several times and it showed below 32. So I know we have a problem. I decided to take the bottum off and found there was more work then I thought. I thought I could just take the street side loose and reach up there and insulate the water pipe without taking all the bottum off. Didn't work as there is some aluminum insulation in there and I couldn't see what I was looking for. Guess some time I am just going to have to take more time and take whole buttom off as I have to get this done. I would like to enclose the whole tank and water pipes in a styrofoam box and extend the factory 2 inch vent into this box as know this vent is not doing any good. Also I would like to look at the factory heat ducts, I think they are very inefficient. Either not insulated enough or have two many bends in them something. We are just burning way to much propane here in San Antonio Texas. We turn the thermostat down to 60 at night. We run the fireplace ans sometime another electric heater during the day. I realize we are having one of the coldest winters in history down here, but we used to regulary camp in a lot colder weather then this up in South Dakota. I know that this new rv is bigger inside but our old rv was way easier to heat and the water never froze, but it had a way better design for the water system. We still like our Big Country, it will just take some time to get things right.
 

grizzlygiant

Well-known member
Understand that insulation simply slows the transfer of either heat or cold. With this in mind you want to surround the (pitiful factory) belly heating with insulation from the exterior and be sure that water lines and tanks are on the inside of the surrounding insulation. I am re-doing the factory heat supply and insulation this summer. We are now living full-time in weather below freezing 24/7 and near zero at night. No problems now since I put a full skirt around the RV with a 1500 wat heater running full time.
 

rmchad

Heartland Owner
Hi Scott-- thank you for the suggestions. I'll start looking into heat tapes. I hope I'll have enough sunshine in the next couple weeks to pull off the underbelly and get the work done.
 

caissiel

Senior Member
I took the underbelly out of mine earlier this fall to work on the hydraulic lines. When I put the liner back I made sure the plastic bubbled insulation was well installed compared to the factory installation. I made sure the insulation was laying from beam to beam flat on the liner, and tucked in on the beam flanges. We spend 3 weeks in the cold in NB this fall and never had any problems with under freezing of the water lines.
One small crack in the cold can realy freeze a line fast, and be impossible to heat with an electric heater. The Furnace has 7 to 8 times the BTU of the Fireplace and will use lots of propane, but cracks in the insulation will also cause lots of heat lost in the piping area.

I found that the insulation was just laying there, and lots of rolled over areas were there originally, you will surely see that.
Never put any FG insulation in there because water collects in the underbelly.
 
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cgunn

Well-known member
Caissiel....You stated ...."Never put any FG insulation in there because water collects in the underbelly."

It's just me but...
If water collects in MY underbelly....
I would think I have a serious problem!!!
I'm just saying...
 

jbeletti

Well-known member
It is possible for water to enter the underbelly from traveling in rain if there are seal voids anywhere along the underbelly. If this is happening, I'd check the following areas:
- Along the length of the outer flange of each of the 2 frame rails where the Coruplast underbelly material end (i.e. their edge).
- At the front of the RV at the front edge of the Coruplast
- At the back of the RV and the back of the drop-frame area (if so equipped) at the back edge of the Coruplast
- At any item penetrations through the Coruplast (plumbing etc.)
- At any location where your underbelly may have been entered and closed back up

In all of these locations, you'd want as tight a seal to the frame, plumbing and other such items any Coruplast edge comes into contact with.

None of this is from personal experience - only my own surmising. Others who have had water in the underbelly and have ruled out plumbing/tank leaks may have a whole lot more experience and therefore, more to share on what they found/did.

Jim
 

Iver

Active Member
Can someone give me a rundown on best practices for heating my trailer. It is only in the 40s here in Carlsbad tonight and with the thermostat at 60 the heater comes on about every 30 minutes (and loudly runs for about 1 minute). Have plenty of access to Electricity but Propane is expensive and inconvenient. Do folks use space heaters? If so, what kind is the best. With these temps there is not a line freezing problem so the underbelly can go ambient ????
Your experience is appreciated.
 

rvn4fun

Well-known member
We use electric heaters during the day when we are in the rv. Sometimes one and the electric fireplace. We run the furnance at night, thermostat set at 60, but we still burn a lot of propane. Cold this winter in Texas. We have tried quite a few electric heaters through the years. I like the big radiator style, but the take up space. Now we are using a small size ceramic 1500 watt heater, I don't think brand matters. We found that running a electric heater will give you quite a reduction on your propane bill. Another good trick is to buy a heated matress pad, something that is hard to find here this winter. Many of our neighbor campers are using these and then turning there heat way down at night. Global warming???????
 

Iver

Active Member
Is the underbelly getting enough heat to avoid freezing if the space heater is keeping the living space at 65?
 

rvn4fun

Well-known member
We have found that the underbelly on ours does not get enough heat to keep the waterline that runs from the tank up to the water pump from freezing, if the furnance runs all the time. We installed a digital thermostat down into the belly where I assume the freezing occurs and after a cold but not windy night at 10 degrees the underbelly temp was 27. Inside we were at 75. And the water was froze up until the underbelly warmed to about 34. We just have this problem when we get below 20. That isn't that great of a problem down here in Texas but when we travel up into South Dakota this spring I am sure we will go for days without water as it might not warm back up during the day. We have modified a back furnance vent now to blow down in the belly when we have had these cold nights and we have been sucessful at keeping it 34 underneath. We plan to modify things underneath if we are to keep this rv long term.
 

h2ok9

Member
I read on here somewhere, where a fellow strung a couple of lights in the basement (150 watt) and turned them on for additional heat in basement. Sounded like good idea but think he ran them 24/7 in the cold. I use a plug in adapter ( turns 1 outlet into 3) that has a thermostat built into it. It automatically turns the lights on when temp drops below 45 degrees. I use it in an insulated box i built for my outside water line hook up. Hasn't froze all winter and we've seen temps below 20 several times in last 30 days.
 
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