Cold weather camping in the TM

[Bill]

There has been some discussion about the TM water systems and cold weather camping. With the hope of helping out, I'd like to describe my thoughts and experiences. A lot of it seems obvious, but I didn't anticipate some of the subtleties.

In December a year ago, my wife and I made the trip from Maine to Arizona in sub-freezing weather, and everything froze. I was so new to TM, and having such a good time, that I didn't learn much from the experience. This year we made the same trip, but I paid more attention, figuring out what I should have done different. To set the context, it is important to know that we travelled every day, and set up the TM in a campground with water and sewer connections every night. Nighttime temps were in the teens, daytime temps in the 20's. When we closed the TM each morning, some of the heat from the previous night remained inside and kept the interior above freezing. The outside pipes and fixtures, of course, got no benefit from this leftover heat, and that's the part I wasn't really expecting.

FRESH WATER: First, you can't connect your water hose to the faucet at your campsite and just leave it, because the water in the hose will freeze solid during the night. Not only will you have no water pressure in the morning, but you will have a hose full of ice that you can't coil and put away. Instead, use the hose to fill up the 20 gallon storage tank. As you are filling, open a hot water faucet and turn on the demand pump - this will fill the water heater. When both are full, turn off the water, drain the hose and coil it, and put it away. The storage tank and demand pump will supply your water needs, and they are inside the TM so they won't freeze. In my TM, they are under the sink, so I leave the cabinet door open to ensure that they both stay warm. Your location may be different.

DUMP VALVES: When you get to your campground, you will find that the sliding gate valves on the black and gray sewer outlets have frozen into whichever position you last left them. In all probability you left them closed, and if so, they are now frozen closed and you can't open them. On the other hand, if you left them open, you won't be able to close them. Which is the best plan? In my opinion, it is best to leave them both open. Gray water will drain out immediately and won't freeze in the tank. Since the black water tank is inside, it won't freeze either, and dumping the black tank can be done with the valve at the base of the toilet.

SEWER HOSE: If the grey water is going to drain continuously, the sewer hose must be supported so as to have no low spots in it. If you allow water to collect and freeze in your drain hose, you will probably have to replace it. Ice kills 'em.

WATER HEATER: The water heater is inside. It also is its own source of heat, with a nice thermal blanket around it to retain that heat. As a result, I don't worry about it freezing while we're on the road, day or night. When we get home, of course, the story changes - you must be careful to turn off the burner and drain it.

FRESH WATER DRAINS: I hate to travel with water in the fresh water tank or the water heater. This is a weight thing - the TM is already quite close to the axle weight limit, and I don't want another 100-150 pounds of water. In summer, I drain them onto the ground before we start out each morning. In freezing weather, it is not so easy because the four little drain valves under the TM are frozen and you can't open them. How to get all that water out? To drain the 20-gallon tank, simply to turn on a faucet and let the demand pump run until the tank is empty. This doesn't drain the water heater, though, and I don't know an easy way to do it. I tried thawing the drain valve on the high-pressure side of the system (which includes the water heater) by immersing it in a big cup of hot water. That worked, but it was messy, uncomfortable, and required me to kneel in the snow for several minutes while the valve thawed. I may add another high-side drain valve under the sink, where it won't freeze, and leave the outside valve open.

OUTSIDE SHOWER: The hose and the hot and cold faucet-valves seem pretty immune to freezing, but the shower head is not. At the end of the summer, I had left a little water in the shower head, and it broke when it froze. In hindsight, I should have removed the shower head, drained it, and kept it inside, and I will certainly do that in the future. But to make matters worse, one of the faucet-valves wouldn't quite turn off. Water seeped past the valve and dribbled out the broken shower head, so we had a mammoth icicle hanging out of the shower enclosure each morning. I don't yet know why it seeped, or what to do about it.

CONCLUSION: Cold weather camping in the TM is fun, but it requires some different planning. It is worth noting that on both of our trips, the propane furnace was MORE than adequate to keep us warm. I would not hesitate to rely on it at temps down to zero or below.

I would like to read about other cold-weather experiences. We all learn from them.

Bill