Below Freezing temps Over The Road

Going from Lead, SD to Aberdeen, SD on Monday and the temps will be below freezing the whole trip. Do I need to run the plumbing bay heat whilst running down the road? Cheers........JR

ABSOLUTELY!

Well it seems like you might as well run the bay heat, since you are thinking about it and are aware of it on the coach. Now if you didn't know it was there and or forgot to turn it on, I don't think you would have a problem when you are running along.

JIM :o

Jim, Accepting advice from a Vision and a Liberty owner may not be the best thing. Not that these guys give bad advice, but because their advice may be in the context of how their coach is set up.

I haven't studied my present Liberty with respect to bay heat, but on the previous coach which spent 10 years traveling in cold winter weather, sometimes as low as minus 20F I had a clear understanding about whether I needed bay heat. In the case of that bus the answer was I didn't have to do anything because heat in the living area was also diverted into the bay.

I have a heat exchanger in the water bay on my current bus, however I have not looked to see how it is regulated. It may function the same as in the previous bus by heating the bay when the Webasto is working or when the bus engine is running. I also have a thermostatically controlled electric heater that is controlled in my 120V electric panel.

Your Vantare may be set up different than my Liberty, jim's Liberty, or Pete's Vision. It also may be set up different than other Vantare's so it might be safest for you to get advice from a Vantare owner or expert, and then verify that information. Usually I am not so dubious about advice here, but if you start feezing in your water bay and various components bust it can very expensive.

As a FWIW comment the best protection against freezing is a warm water holding tank. I used to keep a 500 watt cube heater aimed at the water holding tank on our first bus when it was parked. That heat output over time warmed up the mass of the water in the tank to 50 degrees or so and despite some bitter cold periods nothing ever froze because that 130 or so gallons of water kept the bay from freezing.

Thanks to all. Got a friend who drives for NASCAR, maybe he can shed some light here as well. I have noticed that whilst running in temps which are cold but not freezing the plumbing bay stays pretty warm without heat. Am assuming this is heat from the radiator which sits just in back of left side plumbing bay. This bay on the Vantare has the choice of a diesel heater or electric. There is another plumbing bay on the right side of the coach which has only electric heat. Both electric services have circuit breakers. Cheers everyone

Your bay inside temperatures should not be influenced by the heat from the engine or the engine radiator. However if you have a hot water heater that uses engine coolant for a source of heat to supplement the electric heat then it is probable while driving you are going to get some heat in the water bay from that and the pipes leading to it.

Jim,

I believe we have both electric and hot water heat in our plumbing bay. I'll check later and let you know for sure, but I think the temps are set at 45 or 50 on the thermostats.

Regards,

Chris

2004 Vantare

Jim,

I checked bay and our 04 has both aqua hot and electric heat in that bay. I will try to post a pic of bay. Hope this helps.

Chris

I had Aqua-Hot in two plastic CC's and it was fantastic for controlling freezing. Even in the garage here in GA, it gets below freezing a few times during the winter. I just turned the thermostat's down low, ran the electric portion of the Aqua-Hot and it kept the bays warm as well as the coach.

Your very fortunate to have that system and not have to rely on just the diesel fired option.

Got some more info on the heated plumbing bays. On my coach there are really two of them one on the drivers side and one on the passenger side. The plumbing bay on the driver's side has both Aquahot and electric heat and the bay on the passenger's side has just electric heat. After driving down the road in 15 degree external temps I stopped at a truck stop to see if the plumbing bays were warm. With heat not selected on the plumbing bay on the driver's side was toasty warm. Fetherlite confirms that this is as Jon said hot engine coolant circulates around the aquahot even though it is not selected on. The passenger side plumbing bay was another story, it was pretty cold. I went a head and let some water go through the low point drain over there to make sure no freezing had occurred and then selected electric plumbing bay heat for the rest of the trip. Featherlite had said that I did not need to have plumbing bay heat on whilst traveling down the road but I wanted to err on the side of caution. Now if the shop can just fix my damn air leaks! Thanks for the info everyone. Cheers