Making a trip in our Winnebago January-March. Area’s are Northern Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina. Question who’s do I protect my water lines during low temperatures at night?
To protect your water lines outside your RV, fill your fresh water tank while it's still warm, then disconnect and drain your hook-up hose before it gets below freezing, then use your on-board water. The water lines in your basement/storage area should be OK at, or just below freezing due to thermal delay and warm air leakage from the living area. Some RVs have a heated storage area - not sure about yours. Many folks use an electric space heater to heat the living space instead of using their propane for a cool night, but for a really cold night - be sure to use your RV furnace instead of just an electric space heater because there will be additional heating from the duct work in the storage area that you wouldn't get with the space heater. In a really really cold night (teens - low 20s), try supplementing the heat in your storage area with a couple of 100 watt light bulbs (incandescent, not LED). For the areas you mentioned, it's rare for them to not get above 25 degrees during the day.
Our previous motorhome survived a -4 deg F night with just one minor pipe freeze up. And our furnace kept us quite comfortable, although it did drink a fair amount of propane.
Most of time on moderately cold nights we use a space heater in our coach thus saving using our propane. On nights however when the temp does dip down to freezing and below we use the propane furnace as Bama Camper stated above as it not only keeps the coach warm and cozy, but it also radiates heat from the ducting further keeping the interior pipes and especially the water pump from freezing. We lost a water pump on one trip several years ago when the temp dipped into the mid 20s and we, actually I have to take the blame for this, forgot to turn on the bay heat. Cracked the plastic pump casing a good one. As Bama Camper also stated I too have a 100 watt light bulb enshrouded in a metal bowl shaped container that keeps the bay where the water pump and all of the water distribution hoses and piping from freezing if the bay heater was to stop working. A really good backup system and a very inexpensive one to carry along during winter trips................... BankShot...............(aka Terry)
