Winter Driving and Camping

We purchase our TRX 1781 last spring and have had several trips with temperatures in the high 30's to mid 40's and now problems.  We are looking at doing some traveling soon (February) which will most likely have us seeing below freezing temperatures (20's?).  We have the tank heaters and of course plan on turning them on as well as the water heater.  A little concern about the outside shower head-will either remove, insulate, or both.

This is our first RV so we are a bit inexperienced.  Any advice or comments out there?

How to protect the outside shower from freeze damage....

If you depressurize your plumbing, then open the hot and cold outside shower valves and the shower head to take in air, then open the two low-point drains, this will drain the hot and cold water from the outside shower fixture and associated plumbing.  Then close tight, the hot and cold outdoor valves, then re-pressurize your house plumbing back to normal.  This will maintain air (not water) in the outside showerhead and associated plumbing.  It can then freeze all it wants without any damage to that system.

We purchase our TRX 1781 last spring and have had several trips with temperatures in the high 30's to mid 40's and now problems.  We are looking at doing some traveling soon (February) which will most likely have us seeing below freezing temperatures (20's?).  We have the tank heaters and of course plan on turning them on as well as the water heater.  A little concern about the outside shower head-will either remove, insulate, or both.

This is our first RV so we are a bit inexperienced.  Any advice or comments out there?

Do NOT 'boondock' overnight, always have 120v pedestal power for overnight. Those tank warmers draw a fair amount of power and can easily draw down your house batteries!

I agree with all advice above and will add some more.


My first winter trip I drained the outside shower, but not the inside shower. In my 2900D the shower plumbing is in the outside wall with the city water connection.  It got down to 17F with a north wind hitting that wall over night and the shower plumbing was frozen in the morning, so I would/should assume the city feed plumbing was frozen too. After the sun rose and temps got above 25 to 28F it thawed and no leaks.


The next night I slept with the bathroom door open, AND the low dropped to 12F outside. The shower never froze.  - - albeit the shower water was COLD in the morning and it took a while to warm up!!!  Brrrrrr the next couple nights we're 10F and nothing froze. Lesson learned.


With the door closed I would say the bathroom was about 50F, and with it open it was 70 to 72F.... That was enough to keep the plumbing in the outside wall warm.


I've thought about how to force heat into that wall. It's open to the space under the fridge (next to the shower) and I could put a 12V computer fan and force air flow... But I doubt if I need to prepare for winters below 10F so I never added the fan. I also improved the furnace duct to the bathroom that is routed through the floor aluminum framing. It was leaking air to the outside and wasting (a lot of) heat from my furnace and causing it to run more frequently/longer. Btw, that was after the 10F nights  . So I'm probably in better shape now.


Larry

Our 2007 2350 has a heat register in the bathroom.  As long as the furnace cycles on/off, our bathroom (with door closed) is the hottest place in the motorhome.  Naturally if we use an electric space heater elsewhere in the motorhome, that reduces "furnace cycling" so then the bathroom will cool down significantly.

We have another heat register in the bedroom under the main coat closet.  When we boondock on cold nights, we open the bathroom door a crack, and close the pleated privacy curtain.  This helps contain the warmest air inside the bedroom and bathroom together with reduced furnace cycling.  Our thermostat is mounted above our bed which nicely stabilizes the tempersature behind the pleated curtain.

Admittedly, the lowest overnight temps we slept in was around 25F, so we never experienced serious cold weather.  So all your comments are of great interest to me, what I could expect when temps really drop.