Sundance 287rl xlt heat underbelly or not?

Does anyone know the answer to this question? We bought this unit May 2008 this is a 2009 unit.....and at the time we were told it was a heated underbelly ( by the dealer sales dept) the website for Sundance also appeared to be saying it was, I called our dealer's service dept and he could not say for sure but didn't think so, we are having it de winterized for a trip from IL to Tx we really enjoyed this unit all last year. We camp spring,summer,and fall would camp in winter if we lived somewhere warmer than IL ....now I am worried about things freezing up on us if the underbelly is not heated...the dealer service guy said if we keep the heat at like 55 it should be ok ......are my pipes gonna blow?

Well, I'm not sure about your rig, but I had to drop my underbelly a couple years ago in a SOB, what they are calling a heated underbelly is just a 2 inch hose coming from the furnace just laying in the underbelly, not sure if in real cold weather this will help maybe so ?? Where we stay in Michigan there are several people that stay in there rigs all winter and take very extreme measures keeping the pipes from freezing, heat tape, pipe insulation rap, insulation, Ect. they also put some sort of a barrell with insulation over where the water comes out of the ground. Hope this helps

Thankyou for your reply I just got off the phone with one of the dealer sales people she is going to call a rep at heartland to get all the details... i.e. if it is just enclosed are we ok with the fact that we are de winterizing now and just keeping the furnace set to 55 until we can get it out of our driveway..I'm assuming it will be ok (no heat) while driving the first day she said they were told it is forced heat, which sounds like what you are explaining...we love this unit, just want to make sure we do things right if it gets too cold over the next few days...we are leaving Thursday looks like a few cold nights ahead of us i.e. 20's overnight 30 to 40 during the day....thanks again

We have a similar setup in our Landmark. It has gotten as cold as 18 at night and 36 during the day for several days and while here at home I drain all of the holding tanks and water heater then keep the furnace on 50. So far so good. We have traveled during the daytime with temps in the high 20's and low 30's without any problems. Part of the consideration is the length of time the temperature is below freezing. If it only stays below freezing for 3-5 hours and only then in the middle to high 20's you should be okay by keeping the furnace on 50. Remember it is the furnace that heats the underbelly and not an electric heater in the coach. I know some people keep an electric heater in the basement but I don't trust the electric heaters that much. My opnion.

I asked the same a while back and I will paste the answer from the rep. I was hoping for heating pads on tanks.
We do not install heat pads here at heartland. The dealers can install them for you if you need them. We do have extra insulation "Flex Foil" in the underbelly and it has an R14 insulation factor. We also have forced air from our furnace to the underbelly as well. This is one of the reason that we use a 35,000 BTU furnace instead of a 30,000 BTU like our competition.

Thanks,

Dave
__________________
Dave Willis, Sundance Brand Manager

The Heartland rep is partly wrong. Heartland does install heating-pads/tank-heaters, at least on the Landmarks, I got them on mine. Maybe they do not install them on the sundance line?

I think maybe the confusion is the Sundance line compared to the Sundance XLT there are a few differences. Our XLT is very nice we love it, just got confused over the underbelly. I do believe the Landmark's are considered the higher end Luxury fifth wheel, where ours is listed under the Sundance line but if you read further in the on line Sundance Brochure the Sundance XLT is listed under Ultra Light weights.....ours is just over 7,000 pds. Thanks for all of your replies.