Away from home

Hello all,
Happy to be part of the forum. I am new to all this RV stuff, been in ours since the middle of September. We are currently in New Mexico, where I believed it would be warm for the winter. It currently gets down into the single digits at night. :( We are taking our first extended vacation away from the trailer and I am wondering what others have done to not come back to a mess. My plan currently was to disconnect the water and open the faucets in the trailer. I was going to leave the heater set to about 40 degrees but I do not believe that one of the 30lb tanks that came with the trailer will be enough to run it even that low for 2 weeks. Just looking for suggestions.

Thanks all the help is much appreciated,

PS also what does the red light up switch under the control panel do?

Cheers,

Nic
 

danemayer

Well-known member
Hi GL15Brewer,

Welcome to the Heartland Owners Forum.

You really need to winterize the rig. Our Winterization Guide will help you through it.

Keeping the thermostat at 40 (F) will allow the propane to last longer, and there's a possibility it might last. But it might not. And other things can happen where the furnace stops heating. Also, with thermostat at 40, you won't be pushing very much hot air into the underbelly or around the water pump. So there's a pretty good chance you'll have freeze damage here and there.

You didn't mention what rig you have and what year it is, so it's hard to say for sure what the switch is.
But a wall-type light switch that illuminates when on is probably for the Yeti package which includes tank heating pads.

You only want that turned on if you have some water in each holding tank. The water dissipates heat from the pad. It is possible to burn a hole in the tank(s) if left on with empty tanks.
 
OOPS, Yeah I own a 2016 road warrior 427. I actually didn't see the message saying my post would have to be processed and would not show up until then until after making this thread over again. lol. I am pretty new to the forum thing as well. Is winterizing a process that can be undone after just 2 weeks? I will check out the thread on that.

Thanks
 

danemayer

Well-known member
OOPS, Yeah I own a 2016 road warrior 427. I actually didn't see the message saying my post would have to be processed and would not show up until then until after making this thread over again. lol. I am pretty new to the forum thing as well. Is winterizing a process that can be undone after just 2 weeks? I will check out the thread on that.

Thanks
Winterizing can be done and undone repeatedly. It doesn't take too long and RV antifreeze is relatively inexpensive.
 

donr827

Well-known member
Could you rent a larger propane tank that would last much longer. You could also keep the thermostat set a little higher. I have never needed to do this but more experience campers will post .
 
So final decision was a bigger propane tank and leaving the temp at 60. I still plan on disconnecting water lines and purging system. I have a neighbor who said he'd check the propane for me and the park will fill it if I call and ask. Thanks for all the input and help.

Cheers
 
Just wanted to say thank you all for the input. We had a great holiday away from the trailer. We ended up buying and hooking up a 100# propane tank, left the trailer heat at 60F. We opened all the faucets in the trailer and the drain valves under the trailer. When we got back to the trailer I hooked the water back up closed all the valves and everything worked just fine. Thanks again,

Cheers,
Nic
 
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