Our first winter in our 93 Breakaway. We will be traveling in the north during the cold parts of the year. What steps are neccessary to make sure the old girl does not freeze up? We will be staying in it daily. Thanks. kc

IMHO, job #1 is to be sure that all of your water system, including your tanks, is in heated areas. I'm sure that most recent Barths had the plumbing inside the coach, except the sewer drains & the outside of the water inlet, but take the time to become familiar with your whole system, & be sure.

My fresh water tank & water heater are under a bed, wholly inside the coach, & all my plumbing runs along the floor inside. My holding tank compartments are insulated with a furnace heat outlet under one bed that feeds one compartment, a 4" plastic crossover pipe that connects it to the other compartment, & a vent in a closet that permits the circulated air to re-enter the coach.

There are places where my plumbing runs along the outside walls, & if I expected real cold, I'd leave drawers or cupboard doors open to be sure warmed air circulates everywhere.

If the temp. gets below 20 degrees F. you'll be hard pressed to keep yourselves warm with typical RV furnaces & insulation, but if all your plumbing is exposed to warm air it's not going to freeze. Electric heaters can be a boon to supplement the RV furnaces which tend to be irritatingly noisy after awhile.

If it gets really cold, an exposed dump valve can be a weak point. If your dump valves are in heated compartments as mine are, it's a matter of being sure there's no residual water in the drain lines. If the dump valve is below the floor, there's a possibility of freeze up there, & if your holding tanks are exposed to the outside, you'll need some auxiliary heating. Electric holding tank heaters are available.

I've had exposed travel trailer holding tanks & a water inlet freeze in AZ, & one winter in a GMC fwd, we had to come out of Joshua Tree Park, & spend 2 nights at a lower altitude before the frozen tank thawed enough to dump.

Go back & review Job #1, & please, please, please, don't leave your Barth unattended & unheated with an undrained water system when it gets really cold. Ask me about repairing frozen pipes under the galley faucet, though it was the guy I bought it from who let 'em freeze, not me.

Little Known Fact: At temps near zero (F) for more than a day or two, Dometic refrigerators will "freeze" and stop working - permanently. I discovered this in Montana 3 months after delivery of my new Barth (1997). It was warranted, but still a mess. Dometic allowed this could be a problem but (my phrasing) "most folks aren't in an RV in zero weather" and "it happens rarely enough we don't publish it". If you're going to be in cold weather block the vent behind the Ref; many Dometics have a removable panel below the door which will allow air and interior heat to circulate behind the Ref. and out the top vent.

Gunner:

This I did not know, thanks.

Timothy

I have 4 steps for winterizing. 1. Fill up the fuel tank,,,,don't want condensation in it. 2. Fill up the water tank. 3. Hook up the jeep. 4. Head south as fast as i can!!!!