Cold Weather Camping - Wolfpup 18TO

[josheaton]

Forgive my ignorance on this stuff, in South Louisiana we rarely get below freezing.

We are going to be camping this weekend and our third and last night it is going to be below freezing. 23 degrees is the low. The next day we will be traveling home and the weather will warm back up to mid 40’s (which is still freakishly cold for us).

Can I just add some antifreeze to the tanks, and not connect to water at all? I was thinking running the faucets till they’re dry, flushing all the water out of the toilet line and draining all the tanks (black / grey / and we never use the freshwater)? I also figured that I should probably drain the hot water heater. We figured we could use the facilities at the campground for showers and bathroom. I tested the furnace tonight and it lit and warmed well.

Thanks for any suggestions in advance

[moose074]

When I camp in cold weather I don’t hook my hose up I just run out of my freshwater tank now my underbelly is heated on my 5th wheel and also on my TT not sure if yours is or not if furnace is on everything in the trailer should be fine leave the hot water heater on it heats the water so it won’t freeze honestly the lines in most rv today are pex and while they might freeze they shouldn’t bust even with no underbelly heating if you keep the trl above 60 you should be fine others will disagree but running or going to bathroom when 23 outside will wake you up fast

[TheGerman]

I think your plan is overkill. I haven't seen a 18TO in person but if it is similar to the older 16 your fresh water tank and water heater are under the bed, inside the trailer structure. I spend a few nights with freezing temps in UT back in October, and I disconnected the fresh water and emptied the tanks in the evening. Ran the furnace through the night and everything was good. Except for the one night when I thought "it's not going to be that cold" and I left the fresh water hose connected and turned on. Didn't damage anything but I had a one hour delay getting on the road because a hose with frozen water in it isn't that cooperative ....

[josheaton]

Originally Posted by TheGerman

I think your plan is overkill. I haven't seen a 18TO in person but if it is similar to the older 16 your fresh water tank and water heater are under the bed, inside the trailer structure. I spend a few nights with freezing temps in UT back in October, and I disconnected the fresh water and emptied the tanks in the evening. Ran the furnace through the night and everything was good. Except for the one night when I thought "it's not going to be that cold" and I left the fresh water hose connected and turned on. Didn't damage anything but I had a one hour delay getting on the road because a hose with frozen water in it isn't that cooperative ....

No, I wouldn't imagine it would be that cooperative

I'm trying to find the bypass valve for the water heater. Any ideas?

[moose074]

My TT didn’t have one I still agree with the German except not sure why he emptied tanks if everything is inside or right underneath you should be fine

[TheGerman]

Originally Posted by josheaton

I'm trying to find the bypass valve for the water heater. Any ideas?

On the 16FB I have the valves are right on the back of the water heater which probably means you need to flip the bed up to get to them.

[TheGerman]

Originally Posted by moose074

My TT didn’t have one I still agree with the German except not sure why he emptied tanks if everything is inside or right underneath you should be fine

Clarification: Drained the black and gray tanks, not fresh water. It might not have been needed but the dump tanks are more exposed on the outside and it takes all of 30 seconds.

[josheaton]

Originally Posted by TheGerman

On the 16FB I have the valves are right on the back of the water heater which probably means you need to flip the bed up to get to them.

I found them. I have two valves. Cold on the bottom and hot on the top. There is no valve on the "bypass" line between the hot and cold line. I'm assuming one of these is multi directional. Any ideas?

[iconnekt]

I have a 16FQ, and if yours is like mine the tanks are all underneath the floor. However, we have plenty of below-freezing and I've seen that one night in the mid twenties doesn't do much. A month ago while I was "closing up" for the season we had one of those nights before I had the time to actually winterize the trailer, and with tanks half full nothing happened, I just waited till the following afternoon and everything was good.

[josheaton]

We ended up toughing it out. The last afternoon before the hard freezing temps really hit, we drained everything and used a compressor to blow all the lines out. There was a surprising amount of water in the lines, and I guess the water pump. Dried everything out and parked her in storage until this freakish weather passes.

Funnies thing is that when we bought it, I actually said out loud, when the hell would we ever need a heater in this thing? I was pretty impressed with how well the furnace warmed the camper. We only put it about a third of the way up at night and were completely fine inside.