pjogrinc@msn.com

We live in northern MN and fully understand your concern. We sent 3 + years full timing, wintering over in Boise, ID. We use to spend New Years at Bruneau Dunes state park about 70 miles south of Boise. Temps ran 0 to 20 above. What worked for us, then and now, was the Extend-a-Stay propane hookup. On our Monaco, the LP heat (floor) also ducks some air into the compartments. Easy way to tell is to put a thermometer (remote sensing or sensor makes it real nice for monitoring) in the water/tank compartment and run your LP heat for several hours or until the coach internal temp comes up to normal, then go check the thermometer. Even with our LP set at the lowest setting, our water compartment stays at 40 degrees. If we supplement our LP heating at the lowest setting with 2 ceramic electric heaters (set at low, 750 watt setting) our water compartment temp drops to 35 degrees. To help keep the water compartment/tanks from freezing, most of which need to be done during warm temps, you can try the following: 1. Get canned foam insullation and spray around any exposed water lines out side the basement if any, watch for lines that might run between compartments in the basement. 2. Put water line foam tubing on any and all of your water lines. This definately helped on the hot water line year round. You don't have to wait for the hot water at the facets! 4. Line outside or inside (whichever is the easiest) of the water/tank compartment with the blue sheet foam. This is used under concrete flooring and around the outside of concrete foundations. 5. Heat tape that has temperature sensors. Wrap your lines or on smaller ones, tape the heat tape to the bottom of the line and secure with the good old duck tape. Make sure you read the manufactures instructions. You don't need this on very often, you can watch the outside temps as compared to the water compartment/tank temperature. Any outside water feed lines will need to have heat tape anyway. 6. If you keep water in your tank, keep it at least 1/4 full as it holds heat better. On the gray and black water tanks, drain and then allow to fillup, then drain as required. Again, the fuller they are the more they hold the heat. Drain your tanks as required and lift your sewerline so as to drain all the water out into the sewer. If you are going to be using a lot of water, like a shower, drain your black water, then your gray water and leave the valve open. Shower water does a good job of flushing and removing any ice from the sewer line for you. Then close the valve. 7. When traveling, you have to worry about the lines freezing as you usually do not have the LP heat on. This is the only time we had a freeze up. Just one of those things that we did not consider. Took a couple of hours with heat tape to unthaw. If you do freeze up, start unthawing as soon as possible and thaw out slowly or you will crack lines. Water/Ice occupies the most volume when near 32 degrees. If any of this helps, great. If not, food for thought for others.