cheating winter

[ronsmith100]

Hey... how many of you never winterize?

I don't (although I should probably flush every other year or so)
Nope... I just open all the doors in my casita and sit a "barn stall" heater in it and keep it up round 60.
My first year I didn't keep it up high enough and we had a record low of like 10 or something. Pipes partialy froze.. no damage.

I like to keep the egg ready to boogie down to arizona and mexico in mid winter
So I dont winterize and I travel a lot when football season is over. Like in a few weeks.


Think the patriots?

Mexico anyone?

[Gina D.]

oddly enough, I live in an area that does get some snow and below freezing temps frequently during the winter. We are in one of those times now.

I do not winterize for the same reasons you do not, I use the rig too often.

Instead, I make sure there is nothing in ANY of my tanks, water heater or toilet bowl.

However, this is not fail safe, the rig sustained freezing damage of the lines from the seller letting it sit unmoved at a very high elevation that gets more snow than I do. I do not know if he drained the tanks or not (They were empty and clean when I picked it up) It's a risk.

I consider it a "hassle toss up" spend the time winterizing and de winterizing frequently, or risk the possiblity of repairing lines on rare occasions.

I definitely have no fear of freezing tanks, I leave nothing in them to freeze and expand, but that too may prove to be a bad decision in the future. I feel the risk is minimal to minute. If it was a safety item, I would take the extra time to be 100% sure.

[Frederick L. Simson]

Hey... how many of you never winterize?

I don't. The coldest it ever gets overnight in metropolitan San Diego is maybe the high 30's. More common right now is the low 40's. Then it goes up to the low 70's by afternoon.

Think the patriots?

Go Chargers!

[Doug Mager]

While the Trailer Goddess an I DO live in a snow belt, it is rather narrow and thankfully rather short. Having said that let me add the fact that we haven't used our on board water system in over 2 years as we prefer to travel 'light' in that department and rely mainly on an outside 'white water hose' with a shut off valve on the end that is attached to the water supply at the sites we usually stay at/in. This said, NO we do not as a rule winterize. I do check regularly though to be sure there is r/v intifreeze in the lines and we keep whatever water is in the holding tank as fresh as we can with small amounts of chemicals to rid possible foul smells and mold/mildue.

[Byron Kinnaman]

Sometimes I think winterizing thing is over done, but maybe that's just me. In my case I have several things working for me. The number of days below freezing is small, my trailer sits under a canopy (yes that does help). I don't have toilet, shower, or hot water heater. I have a plastic freshwater tank, and vinyl hose for plumbing from the tank to the sink, manual pump at the sink. I keep the tank around 3/4 full. So what's to freeze. The tank not being clear full, but mostly full takes a lot of cold to freeze. There's enough expansion space that if it should freeze, I'll just have one large ice cube to deal with. If the plumbing should freeze there's enough stretch that it'll be ok, just a long thin ice chunk of ice. If there was water in the pump, it could damage the pump. But, I also keep a heater in the trailer running. Keeps the inside about 50°-55°. The holding tank has never been full, again expansion room in the very unlikely event that it should get cold enough to freeze soapy water.

Not carrying water could be a problem. I've been to RV parks twice in very cold weather, read everything around frozen. The water hook-ups were part of everything. So the only water was what I was carrying. And I wouldn't want to deal with a 25ft or 50ft long ice cube.

[Ian-Vicki]

Go Chargers!

Dreams die hard. Colts, maybe Jags as a dark horse.
cheers
Ian

[Greg A]

What's freezing?

Go Pack...

[Donna D.]

Why not use a Schrader Valve and blow out the lines, and then leave the tanks empty..ala Gina?

Go Packers!!!!!!!

[Joe Z]

donna....
my friend does that up here in the northeast for the last thirty years and just leaves the valves open after blowing the lines out(no pink in the lines at all)..... a little pink in the traps and that's it....he owns an rv shop and is very laid back
I wish i could be as confident as him but i run the pink stuff throughout.
Joe

[Alf S.]

Hi: Whats to cheat??? In the fall we had winter... now its winter we're having spring!!! Go figure
Wave...Alf S. North shore of Lake Erie Wave!!!

[Donna D.]

I know RV antifreeze is supposed to be nontoxic. But there's something nasty about the taste that seems to permeate "plastics." By blowing out the lines, there shouldn't be anything to freeze. I can see the value of adding a bit to the waste tanks and/or traps tho.

[Rick Helgren]

Here in Wisconsin, you've GOT to winterize. I personally use the RV antifreeze and thoroughly flush with chlorinated water in the Spring.

Ah Spring , , , birds chirping, grass growing, trees budding, fish jumping (sorry!)

A buddy of mine goes as far as first blowing out the lines THEN adding antifreeze. He said that he doesnt want any water diluting his antifreeze.

GO PACK!!!

[brendadave]

Up here where we have weeks on end of - 15C everything in the trailer freezes up like an ice block. All I do is make sure my holding tank is empy and dry way back in early September, after that I carry my water in portable jugs. I visually check the water lines just in case, I stop using them far enough in advance of freezing they are always dry. For the sink I pour in some RV antifreeze into the trap and let it run out through the drain...then in the spring (May) I will rinse it out and we are ready to go. We don't have hot water heater or anything else to worry about.

[ronsmith100]

these responses are so much different than the other forum I used to attend.

Someone was posting there about winterizing and in my response I said, "I done winterize"

One person responded with my statement in quotes with just one word: "stupid"



Anyway

[Frederick L. Simson]

these responses are so much different than the other forum I used to attend.

We hope each visitor is here to share the enjoyment of what this website is all about; and that we feel comfortable being HERE.
The moderators work hard to ensure that name-calling is not allowed; the vast majority of members here are good people.

[MillerK]

I'm just wondering if that person, the individual with the one word reply, was actually smart enough to know what was actually wrong with your initial statement, if anything was actually wrong. Not having seen the initial thread I can not comment. My guess would be no, they are not. To criticize someone, especially without offering a correction, is less than helpful. Stupid is how I would refer to the individual with the one word answer.

And oh yeah, Go Chargers!

[Gina D.]

Thank you for the compliment.





we are the Troll busters.

Now, back to your regularly scheduled winterizing stories.

Go Sonics!!!!

[Donna D.]

Go Sonics!!!!

ahhh Gina... wrong sport

[Tom Trostel]

No water in the on-board storage tank or line. Trailer has no hot water heater, so no problem there. Pour a little antifreeze in the sink trap and that's it for winterizing the Compact Jr. in north Texas. Does the pink stuff go bad or out of date? I've had the same gallon jug for 3 years.

Tom Trostel

How 'bout them Cowboys? Go Mavericks! Go Stars!

[Roger H]

these responses are so much different than the other forum I used to attend.

Someone was posting there about winterizing and in my response I said, "I done winterize"

One person responded with my statement in quotes with just one word: "stupid"

Anyway

I expect, Ron, that the person or persons who believe that have never had to replace a water line inside a wall along the entire length of a trailer. I had a '61 Bambi that hadn't been winterized, and the shower lines inside the shower wall (as well as a number of other locations) were split necessitating the re-plumbing of most of the trailer. That necessitated the removal of walls and most of the built-in furniture and fixtures. It would have been wholly unnecessary the previous owner merely winterized. OTOH, I picked the-then $7,000 trailer up for $1,100 because of the broken plumbing.

Tanks (particularly plastic tanks), if less than half-full, shouldn't present a significant problem if they freeze as the contents have room to expand as the water freezes. It's the water lines, faucets, toilet valve, water heater, and pump that will split, fracture, or otherwise open up to accommodate the water's need for expansion room as it freezes inside them. Then, presto-chango... in the spring the first time you hook the trailer up to water and turn it on, you have a brand new water-pressure testing station for anything that will fit inside your trailer with spraying coming from everywhere there's water lines!

Roger