I wonder why with all of the abilities of the DX3, there wasn't more thought put into the wet bays being heated for winter travel. We got our 37BHHD in September and are using it to travel to the various trade shows that we setup at to eliminate the logistics and need to get motel rooms. The last show we traveled to was from Indiana to Philadelphia on the weekend of December 16th. The temperature outside on the day of travel to the show was 8 degrees and a windchill of negative 5. We have the extend-stay fitting on our propane tank and take 4 of the 20 gallon propane tanks that you can exchange at most big box stores. We fire up the furnaces while at home and on shore power a few days before travel and then fill the water tank and lines to prepare for the trip as the day before the trip we are loading the coach and the trailer with trade show cases. The ambient temperature from the coach furnaces keeps all of the internal lines from freezing.
The wet bay however even with the waste tank heaters on remains just above the temperature outside. This means that the water lines in the wet bay which are pretty important freeze.
I thought I had three options.
Option 1:
Use a 4" to 6" hole saw and cut a hole in the floor under the bed just above the wet bay and tab into the furnace ducts so that when the furnace is on the hot air will be fed into the wet bay.
(Option 1 Pros)
Nice hot/warm air is forced into this compartment by the rear furnace keeping it a nice temperature above freezing.
(Option 1 Cons)
The wet bay will only get the warm air when the nicely insulated rear bedroom temperature drops below the setting on the thermostat. This means that if it is nice and toasty in the bedroom which it typically is, the outside air temperature will start to cool the uninsulated wet bay down to below freezing toot sweet. The wet bay temperature will fluctuate often and rapidly especially while mobile.
Option 2: Purchase a small bird cage fan and force ambient coach temperature air into the wet bay through the same 4" to 6" hole I would have to cut.
(Option 2 Pros)
Keeps the wet bay at a similar temperature to the coach ambient temperature.
(Option 2 Cons)
Basically what my dad would always say. We're not paying to heat the outside. We would be basically venting all of our heat into space, causing the furnaces to run continuously using more propane. We would also have to install a separate thermostat on the blower to try to mediate so much loss of the interior coach heated air.
Option 3:
Run 110vac outlet into the wet bay and install a space heater or heat lamp.
I went with option 3 as I did not want the actual wet bay temperature to continually fluctuate due to the heating of the compartment being dependent on the the rear bedroom thermostat telling the furnace to kick on only when the rear bedroom temperature fell below the setting.
So here is what I did.
I ran 14-2 romex inside of a water tight conduit from the bedroom bedside outlet to the wet bay and installed a really nice "extreme water resistant" plastic single gang box with a two GFCI receptacle and an accordion outlet cover that you could literally spray directly with a hose with two cords plugged in and not worry.
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Next I purchased a small 110vac switchable 750/1100 watt enclosed ceramic space heater from menards.
While at home on shore power the space heater on the 750w setting kept the wet bay temperature at 54 degrees with the outside temperature at 8 degrees and windy with the wind chill at negative 5f. The space heater thermostat knob was at 1/4 power/temperature. So just that little bit of extra heat kept it a perfect temperature. I could have turned it up to 1100w and full power but I only need to keep it above freezing.
This all occurred 2 days before the trip as the waste tank heaters that I turned on 3 days before the trip did nothing to keep the wet bay from freezing. They may have kept the bottom of the waste tanks from freezing but did nothing for the wet bay itself.
Once I got the power run and the space heater set up, and the coach and trailer loaded it was time to go with no extra time to securely mount the space heater.
The good news was that the space heater had a spring loaded button switch on the bottom of it so that if it tipped over it would turn off and not a vibration detector to turn it off. This meant that as long as it would remain upright it would remain on and if it fell over it wouldn't catch something on fire. The bad news is that it vibrated out from being wedged in between the hose reel and forward bulkhead when I left for the trip causing the spring loaded switch to trip and the wet bay temperature dropped to 22 degrees in about 10 minutes as I was monitoring the wet bay temperature with a remote thermometer when we left. I mapped the nearest Menards to I-70 near richmond and stopped.
I only had time to grossly strap it down with metal plumbing straps. The second thing I did was buy a 15' heat tape and run it over the water lines inside the bay as well as the shower coiled hose which was frozen solid in that short amount of time.
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Albeit hideous, it worked perfectly for the rest of the trip until we returned and I could weld up a mounting bracket for the space heater to hard mount. Driving in the cold weather literally causes the basement compartment temps to drop really quickly. I did verify before ever leaving it alone, that on the 750w setting and low thermostat setting I could hold my hand less than 6" in front of the forced air coming from it without the fear of being burned. It got hot, but not enough to cause me to pull my hand away.
I have since welded up a nice aluminum bracket to secure the space heater to the inboard bulkhead. There is a flat surface on the back of the space heater that mounts to the frame and keeps it planted. This location I thought to be the best to keep the direct hot air off of any components. If there is some kind of spraying leak that gets into the space heater components the GFCI will trip to prevent any shocking events and it will be noticed when the remote temperature thermometer drops dramatically.
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The other big issues that I'm not happy about with my DX3 is that the main 100 gallon water tank low point drain is routed at the rear bulkhead of the propane compartment and is exposed directly to the elements. Yeah great, it allows the entire tank to drain. But what keeps the plastic valve and exposed PEX tubing from freezing and draining my entire tank on the highway behind me. Luckily it didn't occur, but I am going to tap into the tank PEX under the bed and install a primary water cutoff loop towards the foot of the bed to keep the water inside the coach and prevent it from freezing the line.
I already plumbed in the overfill bypass line with an accessible cutoff towards the foot of the bed to allow me to fill the tank to capacity and then seal the system with the valve to prevent dumping a 1/3 of my water from sloshing. The first time I ever took my toy hauler to a race, we dumped over a half of our water from our under frame water tanks due to the hilly inclines on the way to the race. After that I plumbed overflow cutoff valves to keep my water where it belongs.
On the DX3, I hard plumbed the valve and added a safety flag to our collection to ensure that the valve is opened at destination to prevent a vacuum on the tank when using the water pump.
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Overall I am very pleased with the DX3 37BHHD. It is Titties and Beer for sure
The next mod I will doing is installing a HERD Defender Bumper on the front to protect from roaming deer and liberal commie moron protestors that like to meander and play on the highway. I already installed a nice set of train horns behind the stairwell which significantly gets the attention of idiot truck drivers that like to swerve all over in front of and beside me for some reason.
I will also need to address the vast amount of thermal glacier cold air in the winter and thermal nuclear hot air emanating from the front of the cab when at the shows which causes the heating and cooling systems to pretty much run constantly.
The good news is that my business has a lot of sewing machines so we can custom make an insulated front cab cover to put up behind the cab seats when we arrive. Because that basic pleather windshield block just isn't cutting it.
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