Cold Weather

[Jamie Bradford]

Is there anything I need to do since the weather is getting colder?

I have the coach plugged in.

Thanks

Jamie:rolleyes:

[jonnie]

Jamie,

Is you bus inside or outside?

[dale farley]

Jamie,

If your bus is inside, you probably won't need to do anything. While in Yellowstone, I placed a 100w light bulb in the area where the water filter is located and turned it on when it was supposed to get really cold. Never had a problem. Of course, I was living in mine at the time, so there was some residual heat from the inside of the bus.

[Jamie Bradford]

It is outside under a carport.

[Gary & Peggy Stevens]

Jamie, does your bus have heater thermostats located in the plumbing bays? These will turn on small heaters in these bays when the temps get real low, to keep the pipes from freezing up. If not what Dale said is good about the light bulb in the bay. But if it is not stored inside, it may require more constant monitoring.

Gary S.

[Joe Cannarozzi]

If it is not going to be used for a prolonged period of time I would learn how to winterize it and get all the water out of it.

At first it seems like a chore but once you do it a few times it goes quickly.

I blow my supply lines out with air and have 4 drain traps that get filled with RV antifreeze and 1 gal takes care of all of it.

What is the procedure for getting the water out of the ice maker that is in the freezer in the buses with residential style fridges? Drain the water from the bus shut off the water pump and run the ice maker through a few cycles to clear the line?

What about the washing machines, how is the water removed from the feed side of the water solenoid?

[Jon Wehrenberg]

Jamie,

If you will be using it occasionally keep the water tank as full as possible. Rather than using the bay heater which looks like an industrial hair dryer I used a small cube heater in the bay, directed at the water tank. The heat of the water maintained very warm tempertures in the bay. Typically around 50 degrees when it was around zero outside. I only used the 500 watt setting.

For the coach interior I placed a heater on the kitchen counter. Usually it was set to the 500 watt setting, but if it was going to get into the teens I reset it to the 1000 watt setting. It had a fan and would reciprocate so it did a decent job of keeping the interior temperatures above freezing. Only if it got into single digits or lower did I go to the 1500 watt setting. But...it was in a drafty barn, and although it was bitter cold in the barn, the wind was not blowing on the bus so my methods might not work in the wind outside.

I did open the cabinet doors where there were pipes or drains.

Did that for 10 years and never had an issue.

[hobobimmer]

Jamie. We had ours outside all last winter while we were building the barn. We did not winterize, because we wanted to be able to go on trips and such. I kept plumbing bay heater thermostat set at 40 and put a light bulb down there on the really cold nights, that was plugged into a different power source just in case. I believe I raised the thermostat a few times when it was going to be near 0. Inside, I had 2 little ceramic cube heaters(one in the bathroom and one in main room, and I did leave cabinet doors open). I think heaters were made by Honeywell. They have a thermostat on them. I kept them pretty low unless it was in 20s or below, and then I set them on a higher setting. I still tried to check on things fairly often, since we had never owned a bus before and I didn't want to learn the hard way. We had no problems all winter, and it was pretty cold up here on the Cumberland Plateau. Hope this helps. Debbie Faires

[truk4u]

Jamie,

I'll give you the good and bad news!

The bad news, is CC didn't put an electric thermostat controlled heater in the plumbing bay like all the other Converters. The only way to warm the plumbing bay is with the Webasto heating the plumbing bay heat exchanger.

The good news, is you can use an ordinary 100 watt lightbulb placed in the bay, turn on the electric water heaters since your plugged in to 50 amp and your good to go. Also, do as Jon suggested, put some heat in the bus to protect the plumbing.

It will for sure get to freezing or below at some point in Choo Choo!:(

[adamdegraff]

Maybe this is a lame, wasteful idea, but when my bus was sitting for a couple of winter months, in addition to keeping some heat on inside (webasto set to 45), I also started the coach and the generator once a week and let them both run for 30 minutes. I also moved the coach back and forth, 20 feet forward and then back, and parked it in a slightly different location so the tires would rest on a different spot. I guess I could have just as easily take it out for a spin once a week, but I have to drive on my grass a little bit to get it out and it was a wet winter.

Like I said, maybe this was just an exercise in wasting $4 fuel. But the bus stayed in tip top shape.

As for the freezing issue in the plumbing area, our coach has a built in heater and it works like a champ. It is set at 40 degrees, but can be changed. I also like the light bulb idea.

~Adam

[Joe Cannarozzi]

Looks like I'm in the minority on this one but we leave ours out where there is no access to power and is sits for long periods.

Sawdust asked what was the correct way to clear the water out of his fridge ice maker without pulling the fridge, his is a residential style. That is why I asked about that, and the washing machine too.

[sawdust_128]

Joe:

Since you asked, I haven't done anything about winterizing my coach at this point. We typically aren't severely cold most of the winter. We also have a reasonable warning when to expect freezing temps and conditions. We do sometimes have some protracted periods of sub-freezing temps.

Here's my current train of thought.

1. If it is going to be cold for a few days, I'll just go stay in the coach at the storage facility. I have plenty of things that I can be doing in it.

2. If it is going to get severely cold for a week or more, I'll just run it down south of the cold for a few days.

3. I will only winterize it if I cannot do either of the above.

4. I am still trying to track down answers and plan on all those items we discussed.

Ice make, refrigerator, washer, built-in coffe maker, Insta hot water heater, all the supply lines, tanks and pumps, check the anitfreeze concentration in the winshield washer resevoir, remove liquid food stuffs (e.g., worchestershire, soy sauce, esp. those in glass bottles), drink the beer and wine.

All together, I have a couple of pages of notes and checklist items to run through. I'll be spending time this week trying to walk through all this and make sure that I have everything accounted for.

[Jon Wehrenberg]

Ed, if you have power where the bus is stored you only need a small cube heater in the water bay and you need to run a toe space heater or another cube heater in the house. No winterizing beyond that.

[truk4u]

Sawdust,

If you add the conversion and year of your bus to your signature, anything conversion specific that needs attention may show up.;)

[sawdust_128]

Ed, if you have power where the bus is stored you only need a small cube heater in the water bay and you need to run a toe space heater or another cube heater in the house. No winterizing beyond that.

Unfortunately, I have not found a storage facility near by at which I would have access to power. The only one I did find, is filled. So, now Plan B.

[sawdust_128]

Sawdust,

If you add the conversion and year of your bus to your signature, anything conversion specific that needs attention may show up.;)


Featherlite Vantare' H3 45 1998. Thanks.

[Jon Wehrenberg]

Plan B is no plan at all. You can winterize the bus for freeze protection, but after an extended period you have dead batteries.

When you have your bus hibernate for any length of time some consideration has to be given to batteries. Some coaches lose the charge on their chassis batteries in as little as a week without a charger.

Unless I completely shut down every single master switch, plus kill CB 19, 20 and 21 on my coach I have current draw on the batteries or at least potential current draw.

That still does not address the battery loss of voltage over time.

I like your idea of heading south when it gets cold or living in it for short periods.

FWIW, my garage is insulated well, and the coldest it has gotten even during periods when it has gotten below freezing for a couple of days and as low as 5 above overnight the inside garage temp hasn't gone below 45. I think the pit helps moderate temperatures because in the summer it is much cooler than outside.

[sawdust_128]

Jon:

I agree that Plan B is no plan at all. I am working on this because the reality is that I don't even have a Plan A. I have a concept of a tactical aproach to the issues. I have a lot of stop-gap options. But, at this point I have no plan. I am afflicted with the common malady of the new bus owner. I don't even know what I don't know. But, I do know that.

I am going through this now because I still have time before we should see prolonged sub-freezing temperatures. In some years we don't see them until we hit Jan. There are years where we have them in October. Fortunately, it appears that this year is not one of the later types.

I suffered a freeze problem on my shop floor. Overhead plumbing was poorly installed and essentially unprotected. Nothing happened for years. Then one windy, cold (single digit) winter night, an access hatch into the crawl space blew open. It was enough to allow cold air entry and it worked to chill the entire shop and warehouse. Well, all I could say was from the 16 foot ceilings, it looked like the inside of Carlsbad Caverns. Amazingly, the machinery was so cold, the water that did drip on it froze almost instantly. We were able to remove ice instead of sucking water out of the motors and controls.

Bottom line, I do not ever want another freeze related set of problems.

[Jon Wehrenberg]

To both Ed and Jim, The extent of your situation relates to how long you will leave the coach in storage.

If you will use the coach every few weeks that really muddies the waters. If you intend to store it until the weather warms up then the choice gets simpler. Not the solution, but the choice.

If it were me, I would find secure storage in the south. For example not far from the Prevost Service Center, Tom Murray, who is associated with Phil Cooper uses a large storage facility that has space perfect for coaches. They have big doors and power. The storage bays are lockable and private.

In both your cases, until you have a facility that makes dealing with the winters easier or until you go full time thats an easy solution.

Or you can winterize which means you pull the refrigerator and drain the line to the icemaker, drain everything you can, push non-toxic anti freeze back into the system to protect against anything overlooked or impossible to drain, like the washer, you fill all the drains, etc.

Then you have to have a plan to protect the batteries. To be safe once a month they need a 24 hour charge throught bulk, absorption and float stages.

Ideally you would support the axles to keep the tires off the floor.

Whew.

Drive the bus south far enough to get away from freezes and find a storgae with power. Then you can be ready to go almost instantly. Good excuse to get to the warmer temps.

[Gary & Peggy Stevens]

Jim C., didn't you just build this new barn for your new toy? I seem to remember a long and thought out process in the building of the barn, but don't remember any pictures?

Anyway, why not add an Emergency Auxilary Generator to your barn power system? That way if and when the electrical power shuts off in your barn, your emergency generator powers on (diesel or natural gas if you have it there) and continues to give the bus and the barn the electrical power it needs to stay safe during your cold weather?

I would think that should alleviate all the winterizing nightmares that you might have to go thru? Be sure and test the aux barn gen. set from time to time to make sure it comes on when the need arises.

Just a thought ? Or I can store it here in Texas next to mine. We don't get too many freezing winter nights.

Gary S.

[Joe Cannarozzi]

I recently found a charcoal in line water filter for the ice makers and the insta-hot units buried at the floor behind cabinets and I would be surprised if they could be completely blown out with air and am not sure what RV antifreeze would do to the charcoal.

If I had to guess I would say these need to be removed and replaced every winter when winterizing?

[phorner]

Joe,

I wouldn't run antifreeze through a charcoal filter. This is granular actvated carbon and it removes impurities by having them "adsorb" onto the surfaces of the carbon.

Safer and ultimately easier to remove and replace.....

[JIM CHALOUPKA]

Having recently investigated the ins and outs of winterizing a coach I have found that RV antifreeze will ruin the charcoal media in the filters we use.

You can remove the cartridge now and install a new one in the spring or if you don't want to open it now, just fill it with RV antifreeze after blowing it out with air, and then replace it in the spring after flushing out the system.

It's easier to work outside in the spring, so I say take the short cut now and go in the house and burn some fuel to keep warm.

JIM

[Darl-Wilson]

I talked with Jim today on his cell phone. The Skiff Family is without any reliable communication at their home in Maine.

I just received this from Jim:

No power none in sight we're gathering to sleep by the woodstove. Plenty of firewood but we are only in Dec!

Pass it on.

Jim
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device from U.S. Cellular

Earlier Jim told me they have their oil tank filled and lots of wood but the oil furnace isn't going to work without electricity. He also told he went to town today but the electric was off and places that had some sort of power did not have any WiFi connection. One good thing is the weather forecast is for sunshine and some warming over the next few days. Jim lives at Cow Sh*t Corners near Newcastle. Let's wish this tough family some good luck.

[Darrell and Linda]

To All

I don't know if any of my procedures will help but here is my two bits worth. We are in a situation that we will store our coach for months. Our coach was put in storage this year from Oct 1 and will pull her out April 1. It gets friggin cold here and it is not uncommon to have -40 temperatures for a couple of weeks during the winter (January) but always in sub zero for a least 4 months. We just purchased our coach in August. I don't know this coach that well yet but I winterized the coach based on my past experiences with other RV's that I have owned. No problems from them.

My new girl is a 1990 Prevost Liberty. I drained the water tank, black /grey water, the hot water tank, opened all low point drains I could find, drained and then closed, disconnected the lead hose from the water pump and ran a hose and pumped plumbers antifreeze into the system and opened each tap (sinks, shower and micro flush to wet the seals with antifreeze) until the pink stuff came out. We don't have a ice maker in the fridge but we do have a separate ice maker and washer / dryer. Both of these units were ran until the pink showed in the ice maker and filled the washer in the first cycle until drain. I also poured antifreeze in all traps. I again opened the low point drains and made sure the pink stuff was running out and closed the valves again. My coach used 13 - 4L jugs of antifreeze to complete this job. And yes, I removed all charcoal filters and will replace in the spring. The hot water tank was completely drained and bypassed when pumping antifreeze into the plumbing system.

As for batteries, I have 6 AGM house batteries, 1 generator starter battery - optimin AGM starter battery. I'm not worried about these batteries but my coach starter batteries concern me. I shut off the batteries and tested for any draw and none was found.... so I should be oK?? since they were fully charged.

I have only had this coach for 4 months now and still learning its in's & out's. It is stored inside but with no power to the building. I hope all will be well and will check on it ocassionally. Keep my fingers crossed.

JOE KNOWS:D

Darrell

[garyde]

My Liberty has several small parasitic loads on the coach batteries so I would recommend a tender charger for the batteries.

[Jon Wehrenberg]

No power to the building. No battery tender.

Calls for removing the batteries and keeping them where they can be maintained. Otherwise the risk for such an extended period is the cost of a new set.

[truk4u]

Darrell,

I think you did a pretty complete job of winterizing, sounds like this isn't your first rodeo in the frozen north. I would pull the chassis batteries, they will be completely dead (toast) in the spring and will probably be below 12.2 volts now.

[Joe Cannarozzi]

Darrell don't be so humble sounds like you have much experiance.

I do not pull my batts. but do run ours from time to time and that advice to get those batts indoors does not seem unreasonable.

If Skiffer had a bus he would be in a much better situation:rolleyes: