Hot Water Drain Line Freezing

[RingoFam5]

Note: Post edited from original by moderator (to separate issues into their own thread). -Howard

Hello! New user/owner. Picked up our 2021 Imagine 2800BH in late December 2020. Been camping twice now at our local ski resort RV parking lot at the base of the mountain at 6500' and with night low temps in the low 20s or high teens.

Our hot water line freezes below 30 degrees (+/-). No hot water supply at the bathroom or main kitchen sink. cold water lines are still operational. I suspect the drain lines that are protruding below the black felt lining at the under belly...and have tried leaving the drain line cracked for a slow drip, but this just burns through our water tank supply (no water hookups available). anyone have a good solution for keeping these HW & CW drain lines from freezing that stick below the belly lining?

[mpking]

Hi RingoFam5 .
I don't think the issue is the drain lines.

I think it's the hot water heater itself. Let me explain. The hot water heater is located on the Curbside in the rear. It's surrounded on 3 sides by the outside. the back is the outside access panel (The brown panel on the back wall of the camper). The Curbside, and the access panel inside the Outdoor Kitchen.

This a lot of surface area for cold to seep into the area that the hot water is in. If you leave the Outdoor Kitchen door open, you are allowing a lot more cold air into this area. I bet this is where your pipe is freezing.

Are you leaving the Outdoor kitchen open?

Perhaps closing it will provide better performance. Perhaps running the Fridge out there? (I would assuming it would generate some heat with the compressor running?) I'd even venture maybe putting some kind of heat source in the outdoor kitchen, but It also sounds dangerous to have a heat source in a enclosed space.

(**EDIT** I just realized that the hot water heater Itself should be a heat source in that compartment. I guess my question about the outdoor kitchen door becomes my only advice.)

I will also mention, I'm not really sure you'll be able to solve this problem, since they are not really designed to run during winter. I've never cold weather camped, so I don't have an advice to offer in that area, but others in the forum will. The last time I cold weather camped, I was in my Pop-up, and we just used bottled water (in coolers to keep it warm) and we just left the rig winterized.

[flyfshrockies]

We are not familiar with your particular unit but had experienced a similar issue in the past on a different brand r.v. First I tried shortening the drain lines to keep them closer to the underbelly, no joy on that however they were better protected from road hazards after that. What did seem to help was I fashioned a rubber plug for the slide out tube that kept a lot of cold air out of the underbelly and seemed to help with the bathroom heat as well, just DO NOT forget to remove plug before retracting the slide as it could get into the works. I improved this plug idea later so it was easier to put in place due to a silly rodent that crawled in to that same whole and kept us awake all night on time.