Dometic 2 Door Fridge with Ice Maker Winter Use

[rrlowther]

Greetings everyone. As some of you know, we have been doing improvements on our 2000 Safari Zanzibar for winter use. We will be traveling to the Boston area in late February and staying for 3 to 4 weeks to wrap up a project we have there.

Our Dometic 2 door fridge has an ice maker in it. When we purchased the coach in April of this year we noticed that the ice maker went through the motions but didn't produce any ice. So, 6 weeks in the shop and $1,800.00 in charges later, we have a heated water line from the water valve on the back of the fridge to the ice maker. Here's the thing the water inlet hose sticks out about 6 inches in the vented area on the outside of the coach. (See Picture). It does NOT have any kind of heat trace on it.

The question:

How can we insulate this little section of plastic pipe and the black water line to the water valve and with what kind of material to prevent that little six inches from freezing?

[shields]

How about standard extruded foam pipe insulation? It's cheap, flexible, and available at most hardware stores. I haven't seen it made for small diameter pipes, so you might have to cut some extra strips and pack them in the center to reduce the inner diameter for a good fit.

Good luck,

Tim