12 Degrees & Kitchen water froze.

[linuxkidd]

Well, it's 4:32am. 12 Deg F outside with wind chill of -4. Got woke up by the Mrs at about 3:45am cause the water wouldn't run in the bathroom. So, I went outside, and realized I was a dumb as... and hadn't insulated the city water valve. A few minutes w/ the hair dryer and all was well.

Until, I checked the Kitchen. The Kitchen is not flowing at all. Hot or Cold. I really didn't expect this with the heated underbelly. Any suggestions on this one guys??

Also.. I'm VERY concerned now that I've looked under my Augusta's Kitchen slide that the Water line for the Ice maker is running completely exposed and is of course frozen too at this time.

Thanks for any input.. It's not supposed to rise above the freezing mark till Friday, so any suggestions on un-freezing the Kitchen line before any real damage would be greatly appreciated.

FWIW: We're using the propane heat exclusively. It's 66 deg F in the coach, and the basement feels pretty good. The exterior water supply line is heat wrapped and the bathroom water is flowing fine now. Kitchen still frozen.

LK

 

[jpmorgan37]

linuxkidd;

I can make a couple of suggestions. First, keep your cabinet doors open when you are enduring that kind of outside temperature. If you are going to be in that location for the duration of the winter, I would definitely get some skirting for the underneath. With wind chills that you are experiencing, you need to have that area blocked from the wind. We have had no problem, but the lowest temps we have seen were in the upper teen's and without the wind chill.

Good luck

John

 

[jbeletti]

Hi LK,

The water line going to the icemaker may need to be heat-tape wrapped. Also, if the water solenoid at the back of the refer gets frozen solid, it will be toast. I blew one apart 3 years ago by not thinking of winterizing it before I put it away for the winter. The solenoid itself and the water line after the solenoid is typically wrapped with a heating wire by Dometic. So you may be fine there.

In some CGs where people full-time in cold winter weather, I've seen the city water faucet wrapped with heat tape, then with insulation of various sorts.

If not already done, your sewer discharge will need to be converted to PVC and insulated and possibly wrapped with heat tape too.

Most things I have read is "don't" leave the tank valves partially open and "don"t leave the water running a trickle in the trailer. I speak of no first-hand experience here but I am sure some full-timers will chime in.

Did you end up skirting around the trailer? You're not going to see above freezing temps until Friday

Good luck,

Jim

 

[Cooper]

I keep a drop light on in the basement plumbing area. It keeps that area ok and heat tape on the hose. If you use your heat pump the basement is not heated. If your basement is like mine it could use more insulation. Thats the next project insulating the basement area and then I will remove the bed a insulate under it my career gets cold.

 

[linuxkidd]

All great ideas guys.. Definitely gonna be working on this today..

Thanks,
LK

 

[Pulltab]

I think I would unhook the icemaker. Can't imagine ice is the first thing on your mind. Why risk the damage.

 

[nhunter]

I winterized my ice maker and then shut the valve coming off of the supply line.

 

[linuxkidd]

Good idea on the Icemaker... I may do that next..

I called Heartland and their suggestion to get the Kitchen flowing was to block off all but the one vent closest to the furnace ( in the Augusta, that's the one in the bathroom ) and crank the heat up. This forces more heat into the basement and will hopefully thaw the line. So far.. no go.

I also learned the hard way today why you don't let your dump valves stay open. I had been leaving both gray tank valves open out of convenience, then flushing the black tank as needed. Well, today was one of those needed days and I quickly found that there was a frozen slug of water in my sewer drain line ( Down close to the city end ). In a futile attempt to restore the septic flow, I ended up rupturing the flex sewer hose I was using.

This led me to my main project today... Switch to a hard line for the sewer. One trip to the local RV shop and one trip to Lowes later.. and I've got an ABS Plastic sewer line.. Dumped fine after this was installed, and then closed my dump valves.

I also now have my tank heaters on. It would have helped a BUNCH to have had the RV manuals from day one. They just showed up in the mail from the dealership a day or so ago.. I've got a bunch of reading ahead.

Thanks to everyone for the help so far.. This is my first winter in an RV and I'm definitely learning a LOT.

LK

 

[HappyKayakers]

Ditto to John's suggestion about leaving the cabinet doors open.
And we can certainly attest to the foolhardiness of leaving a faucet trickling with a tank valve open. Had to replace 30 ft of sewer hose and several connectors last winter in Amarillo.

 

[jbeletti]

LK,

Glad you don't feel funny sharing your boo-boos with us. Sharing your struggles and others sharing their ideas is the strength of this online community. Thank you for sharing.
You ought to read some of my early posts - talk about bob-boos. Look for the one where the tree jumped in front of the trailer Or the stop sign jumped in front of the trailer Or when they moved the light pole ext to my new truck while we were in the theater

 

[vangoes]

I can also attest to the "trickling a faucet" thing is not a good idea! Last winter I tried the "trickling" and in my infamous wisdom, I drained the grey tank and closed the valve overnight to keep the sewer hose from freezing up. Who would have thought that a "trickle" would fill up a holding tank overnight. Guess what.......IT DOES! When we woke in the morning the kitchen sink had backed up and overflowed. We spent the rest of the day trying to dry out the carpet. Soooo, it seems that the trickle thing just does not work in any condition!!!!!!! Lesson learned.

 

[sjrellis]

We are in Wisconsin for the winter in our 3670. Dh has put insulation completely around the bottom, heat taped, light bulb in belly, ordered it without the ice maker..so that isn't an issue, BUT a few weeks ago the kitchen faucet was not running. Dh was not happy and figured something had been done wrong at the factory...NO...he had not insulated a low point drain. The low point drain had frozen. He thawed it out with my hair dryer and then insulated the heck out of it.

We went to Texas for 2 1/2 weeks and just returned last night (it was 4 DEGREES!). But, we had winterized, left the heat on 55 and everything was great. We were back up and running in about 30 cold minutes. It is supposed to be -2 tonight, but we will be comfy. I know, I know, ya'll say the wheels are for going south, but...

 

[linuxkidd]

VERY good point about the low point drains.. They are definitely frozen. I just didn't realize where they were in the flow of things. I started to thaw them yesterday, but got side tracked.

I'll try that today when I get home from work. I never liked the way they were hanging down below the coach... I'd rather the valves be inside with just the exit pipe below. But I guess it'd be hard for them to be the low point if that were the case.. I may look into moving them a bit. ( Or just insulating the heck out of them... )

No worries on sharing my blunders here. Heck, if ya can't laugh at yourself, you might be missing the joke!

LK

 

[linuxkidd]

One more word of warning... If the wife calls you frantic cause the bathroom has backed up with water due to one load to many of laundry between tank dumps... And says the Dump valve handle won't open... DO NOT tell her to pull harder...

Turns out.. the Dump for Grey tank 1 is right next to the under belly lining and had frozen. She pulled hard enough to disengage the control wire from the gate valve itself. SO... I ran home and pulled down the underpinning a bit, loosened up the set screw while she pushed the handle in and then I tightened the set screw. About 15 minutes with the hair dryer and all was good again..

More words of discovery from the winter trials of the Kidd family.

Boy am I look'n forward to the 40 degrees tomorrow.
LK

 

[jbeletti]

LK,

40! Dang near summer! You'll be out there in shorts and a t-shirt under the trailer insulating this and that. Wear a garbage bag - you're going to get muddy under there.

Not sure if this is viable for you but maybe you should "consider" trying an electric gate valve for one or all of your tanks. Sure, they may freeze too, but maybe not. If you can access one of your tanks where the discharge pipe connects to it, you could add the valve there and maybe with tank heating pads and the heat in the underbelly, the valve would prove usable in sub freezing weather. Electric valves can be manually actuated as a backup but on some, you have to have access to the valve itself to do it manually. Think I saw one at Camping World recently that used a cable pull for backup and an electric motor to pull the cable when used electrically. Just a thought. Could be folly.

Jim

 

[linuxkidd]

I like the electric gate idea... For that, I think I'd add a few switches inside the RV. That way we don't even have to go out in the cold unless something is frozen. ... Yes.. I like that idea a lot actually..

One update on the original topic. Thanks to the info from sjrellis, I checked the low point drains again. There is a T connector right at the skin of the underbelly. This T connector DOES supply the kitchen. A few minutes with a heat gun and my Kitchen water was flowing again.

**Edit: One other thing that is a bit frustrating. The 2 grey tanks.. It seems that the smaller of the 2 is connected to the highest volume water users. The Shower, Clothes Washer, and Bathroom Sink are all connected to Grey 1... The wife has now figured out that it only takes about 3 loads of laundry to fill the tank. I'm considering putting in a valve controlled cross connect between Grey 1 and Grey 2. That way, when the first one is full, I open the valve and shoot it down to Grey 2. Any one have any input on this??


Thanks again to everyone for their suggestions!
LK

 

[aquiring signal]

I'm frozen, too

Thanks for this thread, I learned a couple things. I'm having a frozen kitchen water problem, too. I'll check those low drain points.

I have a thread named "Temp in the teens overnight, kitchen hw froze" over in Bighorn - Plumbing Toilets, Sinks, Pipes, Faucets, Valves, Fresh/Grey/Black Tanks, Pumps, etc. //heartlandowners.org/showthread.php?t=4184&highlight=temp+teens

I'll be watching this thread to hopefully learn more and get my hot water flowing again.

 

[davebennington]

linuxkidd,

I have found that 1 tank may fill quicker than another, if you install a slide valve on the end of the pipe that you hook the sewer hose to you can open both gray tank and they will equalize and when you want to dump all you have to do is open the slide valve that you have installed. Of course you don't want to leave the black tank valve open during this time.

Dave

 

[linuxkidd]

Morning Dave,
I like the idea but I think I'd have a bigger problem with my current situation. With both grey's open and the valve closed on the outside, I think that'd be inviting an ice slug to form inside the drain lines of the RV. If I were not full-timing in the RV it would be the perfect solution!

Thanks!
LK

 

[jpmorgan37]

linuxkidd,

It will work if you wrap a heat tape around it and then insulate it. Bubble wrap is a cheap way to insulate it and it works well over the heat tape. It's quick to unwrap, dump, and then rewrap.

John