Oh No! Sureflo water pump frozen solid!

[Oregonconversion]

Looks like I need to heat my last bay.... Damn Greenhouse effect.

[TomC]

If it were green house effect, you pump wouldn't be frozen, and that white stuff would not be on the ground. I think the whole global warming stuff is huey. Good Luck, TomC

[Oregonconversion]

That part was a joke lol...


Anyways how do you heat your bays? Options?

[bobofthenorth]

Most of our plumbing is in the same bay as the ProHeat.  If its cold enough to freeze then we're running the ProHeat anyway and there's enough waste heat coming off the it to keep that bay warm.  Once it gets to -10C I need to add a cube heater in the bay that has the water manifolds. 

[bevans6]

How about just calling it climate change?  The reason you are cold is because the Arctic is warmer than usual and the jet stream is pulling cold air farther south than it used to.   It's still global warming, just not where you are today, which sucks...  The guys in the Arctic are probably pissed because they can't go seal hunting where they used to go...

After you insulate and seal the bay from draft intrusion, you can probably heat it with an incandescent or quartz halogen light bulb, a small cube heater, or even a blower pushing warm air from the interior of the bus.  In my case my propane furnace is in the same bay as the tankage and plumbing and it throws of a lot of heat.  The key is probably the insulating and sealing, if only because it's the hardest to do well.

Brian

[TexasBorderDude]

Oh No! Sureflo water pump frozen solid!
Mine's got a switch to pump ice cubes, so I just save as many as I can in the freezer.

As for climate change, can't we all just get along?

[sledhead]

Mine froze up on a trip home it was -25 out and the wind chill at 65 mph was cold. It was because of the drain holes at the seal of the bay door . No more holes , no more freeze up. Pump was fine after it warmed up .         dave

[Oonrahnjay]

...  After you insulate and seal the bay from draft intrusion, you can probably heat it with an incandescent or quartz halogen light bulb, a small cube heater, or even a blower pushing warm air from the interior of the bus.  In my case my propane furnace is in the same bay as the tankage and plumbing and it throws of a lot of heat.  The key is probably the insulating and sealing, if only because it's the hardest to do well.

Brian 

     Yeah, my fresh tank, water pump, and water heater are in the same compartment.  I'm pretty sure that two 100-watt light bulbs would keep the temps up above freezing there.  I don't expect for my bus to see temps any colder than about 18 deg F so we're not talking severe cold here.  I expect to store my bus from about January until April 1st.  But I have two issues/questions:

1)   There are only about 4-foot runs of PEX from that compartment to the kitchen sink.  They pass through a bulkhead and there would only be two feet outside the bulkhead in the undersink area.  I guess I could put a 50-watt bulb under there.  My bigger question/issue is that there are another 12 feet or so of pex (cold and hot) that lead up to the toilet, bathroom sink, shower upstairs.  They pass behind the kitchen cupboard/pantry cabinet, up the wall to the bathroom area over head.  Since my bus will be unattended/unheated (except for the small heat sources in the tank compartment and under the sink), how much danger am I of freezing those pipes up to the upstairs bathroom?  I don't remember if I have a cavity that I could blow warm air in that would cover all the pipe areas, the faucet locations, the toilet internal piping and valves, etc. 

2)    What would one do for grey/black tanks?  I would assume that I could dump them before winter.   If I use any water/ put anything into the tanks (I'd assume 4-6 gallons, at most) over the winter, would I need to worry about the tanks freezing enough to crack the tanks, etc?  If go, for 4=6 gallons, could I pour a couple of gallons of RV antifreeze into each tank and feel safe for 18 deg conditions?  (It wouldn't be convenient to dump the tanks every time I leave the bus, but it's *possible*, just very inconvenient.)

     I work out of the country for about 6 weeks over the winter.  The electric supply to my bus is pretty dependable at it's storage location so I wouldn't worry about the heating sources in the tank compartment and under-kitchen sink.

     So, I think that I have a few options --
1)  I have a "winterization" port into the water pump.  I drain fresh tank, put a funnel onto the winterization port, and pump in non-toxic RV antifreeze until antifreeze runs from all the faucets (kitchen sink, bathroom sink, shower head, toilet), then drain the waste tanks.  Then I just shut the bus up as well as possible and don't worry about freezing.  I could continue to do this but it's not entirely convenient for short visits to the bus before spring thaw.

2)  Put in isolation valves to the water lines to upstairs, winterize that part of the fresh circuit with antifreeze, and keep a few gallons of fresh in the fresh tank, install the low-wattage heat sources I talked about and just use the water in the kitchen sink.  (Actually, this doesn't help much - I'd still have the inconvenience of walking up to the storage office to use the bathroom and take a shower; I have a key so that's available 24/7 but it feels like a long walk in cold, rainy weather.)

3)   Try to arrange heat sources and methods of circulation that would keep warm air all the parts of the fresh circuits.  The drawback to this is that a severe winter storm sufficient to cut the power off for a few days would leave the system in danger.

    What I've done in the past is just "winterize" the system and live with the inconvenience.  I'm not at the bus much in the dead of winter and while not having water/waste systems isn't entirely convenient, it's liveable for the amount that I need it.  And I really, absolutely DO NOT want to have to tear out walls, etc. to repair cracked water pipes, water heaters, toilet valves, etc.
    Any advice???  Thanks, B Henderson   NC   USA

[Oonrahnjay]

Looks like I need to heat my last bay....

    I don't have any experience with a Sure-Flo but I hope that the pressure of the ice hasn't done any damage to the internal components (impeller, valves, etc.) on your pump and just warming it up will make all well again. 

[bevans6]

Advice is free today only!  What I would do is arrange a way to drain and blow out the supply lines, hot and cold.  Empty the hot water tank, the storage tanks.  Pour RV antifreeze in the P-traps.  Blow out the toilet valve, the water pump.  You should be good to go with that.  FWIW I do this to my house if I leave for more than a week or so in wintertime, I have it down to a 20 minute exercise.  Never put RV antifreeze in a hot water tank with an anode rod, it dissolves the rod into nasty white powder. 

Brian

[chessie4905]

   Remember to go out and try to start the coach as soon as the temp hits zero and share all the battery, starter, and air system problems, etc, etc that just happened to crop up at the same time.... 

[Lin]

For storage, winterization is the most dependable method despite the inconvenience.  Even if the storage area has a dependable power supply, you could theoretically have a power failure on a very cold day.  However, one could get freezing while in use, so if you are cold weather travelers, the bus needs the same level of protection that homes in those areas have.

[Fred Mc]

The nice thing about pex is that , if it freezes, it won't split.

[Scott & Heather]

Best winterization plan is to live in your bus all winter after 28 months of full timing we finally figured out how to keep things toasty. Finally.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk. Clumsy fingers may contribute to mistakes.

[gus]

Check your toilet flush valve, it is probably cracked too unless you drained it. When mine cracked the crack was invisible. I now keep a spare!

Antifreeze in the toilet will not help.