Winterizing Roadtrek RS Adventurous

gordonhks · 03-25-2011, 02:43 PM

Hello, I have de-winterized our 2006 RoadTrek RS Adventurous. It is supposed to get down to 26 in the Kansas City area this weekend for one night only. After that we should be well into the time of year when freezing is highly unlikely.

I hate the thought of re-winterizing the unit. It is not because it is hard, time consuming or expensive to winterize. It is primarily because, I spent a fair amount of time flushing the fresh water system when I de-winterized the unit a few weeks ago.

My question...If I put a small ceramic space heater in the living quarters and set the unit to 70F or so, can I safely avoid having to re-winterize this?

Davydd · 03-25-2011, 03:24 PM

On the road we had endured nights going down to 22F with no problems with no heat on other than when getting up in the morning to heat the van with the propane furnace. The ceramic electric heater on all night should work along with maybe turning on your water heater if it is only going to temporarily dip down to 26F and below freezing just a few hours overnight. Open your bathroom door and an cabinet doors that have water lines behind them.

If you are still not comfortable, drain your water again, open all your faucets and leave open including the outdoor shower. Leave the hot water heater off (obviously without water) but run the ceramic heater inside the B. Water is easy enough to refill. I'm assuming not much is in your waste tanks, so you wouldn't have to worry about them. You could also put a cup of anti-freeze in each of your waste traps.

gordonhks · 03-25-2011, 05:06 PM

Davydd, thanks for the quick reply with helpful information.

Gordon

tontobird · 03-25-2011, 08:01 PM

gordon, I second what Davydd said. My husband and I have boondocked in our 2011 RT 190P many nights in mid-teen temperatures.

We would typically keep the furnace thermostat set at 40-45F while sleeping. We would turn on the water heater and either leave it on or turn it off after the water was all warmed up. The water is highly unlikely to cool down and be in danger of freezing.

If we had to leave the unit unattended during the day with temps in the mid-twenties, we would set the furnace to 50-55. Your fresh water tanks are unlikely to freeze with one cold night.

Agree with opening the faucets and anti-freeze in the traps. Also turn on your fridge, we just put ours on the lowest setting. Not sure why, but our RT manual says to turn it on for winter use of the water system.

You should be fine!

Davydd · 03-26-2011, 03:54 PM

I'm not sure about the refrigerator either. Nothing is said in our manual about it. In order to get a refrigerator cold you must throw off heat. Maybe that heat is helping behind the cabinets or something where water lines are in a Roadtrek.

tontobird · 03-26-2011, 06:03 PM

That is my suspicion about the fridge, as well.

Mike · 03-27-2011, 03:09 AM

Just got back from a 12 day outing to the warmer south, which found us in the colder/higher
elevations of eastern KY and VA/WV on our return leg, for some overnighters. Davydd's suggestions
are all we did, opening access doors and panels to the inside air space of the van, for better circulation,
and turned on the HWH to help keep the lines warm, and set the thermostat on the furnace to 45F or so,
just in case the interior temp dropped too low. I would also probably leave the furnace set to a reasonable
above freezing setting while away from the van for any length of time in sub-freezing outside temps.
If the fresh tank is full, and the holding tanks are empty or even slightly winterized/anti-freezed, you should
be fine.

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