Glacier Package & Storage Hatch

[newlandsj]

2010 Mountaineer with Glacier Package, expected to be in use during below freezing conditions. How is the front storage hatch heated where the water line control panel is? What additional precautions should I take to prevent freezing water lines beyond this standard Glacier Package?

[Festus2]

Your question about how effective the various designations - Glacier, Arctic, Polar - to name a few has been thoroughly discussed here on the forum. If you do a forum search, you will find numerous threads and posts which discuss these Keystone packages and how effective they are and what others have done to prevent pipe freeze up.
Keep in mind that any warm air that is directed to these areas will be minimal at best and your furnace has to be running for that warm air to reach the storage hatch. If your furnace is off, no heat will be generated.
Do not rely on your furnace to prevent pipe freeze up and do not be misled by Keystone's advertising gimmick and designations of "Glacier", "Arctic" or "Polar". They are, IMHO, a misconception and misleading.
When you say that it is "expected to be in use during below freezing conditions", are you going to be hooked up to power or will you be dry camping? Are you going to be moving around or stationary in which case you should look into skirting. Are you going to be in below freezing conditions for a long period or just for the weekend?
Let us know a bit more about your situation and in the meantime, try using the forum search feature. Most of the answers and recommendations, to your concerns and questions can most likely be found in existing threads and posts.

[geo]

Originally Posted by newlandsj

2010 Mountaineer with Glacier Package, expected to be in use during below freezing conditions. How is the front storage hatch heated where the water line control panel is? What additional precautions should I take to prevent freezing water lines beyond this standard Glacier Package?

Newlandsj -

First, here is a reference to a recent thread, that references some older threads, that you should probably take some time to peruse.

http://www.keystonerv.org/forums/showthread.php?t=8309

As you will see, your Glacier package most likely consists of (as Festus2 mentions) a single 6cm heating duct that has vents directed towards all the dump valves and a small pad of R-7 insulation at the bottom of the tanks. Though you are located in far southwest Beautiful BC, your winters are a little more intense than the American Southwest.

Festus2 is entirely correct in his reply! I know it is getting cooler around your area, but before you try to use this Mountaineer in temperatures below 0 Celsius, I would highly recommend that you take a simple ratchet, crescent wrench, etc., and remove a few of the bolts holding the coroplast. Most likely the tanks are located immediately forward of the axles (but not always), so that would be the place to remove these bolts. Get your flashlight or droplight out and peek inside the underbelly of your Mountaineer - draw your own conclusions to the Glacier Package. The coroplast, steel I-beams, and the aluminum coated bubble wrap will do extremely little to provide any kind of insulation for the underbelly or tanks. But I do encourage you to look for yourself!

For all the work I have done on my Alpine to "cold weather proof" it, if I were to stay in your area, I would want to skirt the Alpine, heat the storage basement, and apply additional insulation to the sides of the slides (where there is only R-7 insulation).

Cold weather can be a real challenge for RVers who are not in a true "full timer's RV" Having seen how a true "full timer's RV" is constructed, I would like to encourage you to truly and quickly do some more investigation on your own RV.

Ron

[Bushman512000]

Originally Posted by newlandsj

2010 Mountaineer with Glacier Package, expected to be in use during below freezing conditions. How is the front storage hatch heated where the water line control panel is? What additional precautions should I take to prevent freezing water lines beyond this standard Glacier Package?

Drain and add antifreeze to the system for cold weather or have frozen pipes...sorry to say but these trailers for the most part are warm weather outfits....Bushman....Oh yes You could go south also as a lot of Us campers do.I run into warm weather before I add water..

[hankaye]

newlandsj, Howdy;

Know a few (2 or 3 ), folks back in Utah that use a
mechanic's 'Trouble Light', the type that uses an
incandesent bulb (small one's like in a fridge), of
maybe 15 or 25 watts. They never complained about
a freeze up that I'm aware of.
Used to do the same thing when I lived back East and
the water pump was located outside the main building.
Adjust the wattage for the size of the space. Made it through
the March Blizzard of '93 and the ice storm of '94 when I
lived in St. Mary's Co. Md. Of course when the power went
out I just opened the taps till the power came back on 3 days
later in '93 and 10 days later in '94 , never had a busted
waterline, Landlady did. Didn't open her taps.....

hankaye

[JRTJH]

Maybe a way to descibe the "glacier pack" or the "Artic Pack" is to say that your trailer "should stay warm" in Florida when the glaciers are freezing or when it's snowing in the Artic. As many others have said, having the "cold weather package" is usually not much more than a sticker by the door and an increase in the total package price for the RV.

Sure, there's a little extra insulation in some packages, an extra layer of aluminum lined bubble wrap in the undercarriage of others, and even an extra heat duct in the "basement" of some. But, you can only do so much with 2 inches of wall thickness and 1 inch of access door thickness. One of the best things any manufacturer could do to improve the cold weather functionallity would be to realistically seal the RV against cold air infiltration. Just a can of spray foam and better placed weather stripping would work wonders for heating most of the RV's I've seen.

[newlandsj]

We are permanently parked for the next three years at an RV Park in Burnaby, BC. Hooked to water, electric and sewage. Not allowed to skirt the RV here at this park. We have an electric hose for water intake.

We are looking at putting a temperature controlled electric heater into the hatch compartment. We have experimented with restricting heat air flow in the registers to get a stronger flow into the bedroom. This has been successful. We will use heat tape on the water lines running through the top of the hatch compartment. As yet we have not openned the underbelly compartment but will do this. I see plenty of places caulking is necessary.

Thanks for all your comments and suggestions.

PS: Is it possible to find online a schematic of the plumbing and heating systems layouts for a particular RV?

[f6bits]

You'll not find schematics of anything. Trailers are assembled like houses. Stuff is routed in different ways depending on who's on shift and what parts happen to be in the parts bin.

[mikell]

Going on 4 th winter here in Michigan. Wal Mart has oil filled heaters for $40 and I just bought 2. I use one in the basement set on 600 watts on all the time. it gets warm but not too hot so stuff can be stored close to itand it keeps the bedroom floor WARM!!Take a section of the wall our between the basement and crawl space and store it somewhere else. On a sunny day climb in the basement and look for light coming in plug it with whatever you can find to doi ti with. If your propane tank area backs up the the basement glue insulation to the basement side. I use another extension cord from the pedistal to run the heat tape nad the heater in the basement just fish it through the water line hole before you plug it with insulation.
I wrapped my heated water line in bubble wrap and put it in PVC sewer pipe for protection.
And the list goes on and on

[Myyke]

Just bought a 2013 Laredo 303TG "glacier package" only to find the water constantly freezes at -10 and lower. Seems as this summer i'll be looking into heatracing all lines. Had to find out on my own where the water pump/ city water connection was, in the unheated front compartment. now it has a electric heater in it, until i can heat trace it and build an insulated enclosure.

I haven't had a chance to look yet, but is the underbelly very hard to take down and put back up?

[geo]

Originally Posted by Myyke

Just bought a 2013 Laredo 303TG "glacier package" only to find the water constantly freezes at -10 and lower. Seems as this summer i'll be looking into heatracing all lines. Had to find out on my own where the water pump/ city water connection was, in the unheated front compartment. now it has a electric heater in it, until i can heat trace it and build an insulated enclosure.

I haven't had a chance to look yet, but is the underbelly very hard to take down and put back up?

Myyke -
If you do a search on "tank heater" or advanced search on posts started by "geo", you will find a full description of removing the coroplast, attaching tank heaters, insulating the underbelly, and closing the coroplast. (Too hard to do the links from this smartphone!). To answer your question, though - in July and August in Alberta, it probably won't be too bad. About like February down here in Texas. . But do search for those posts, they will help. You can PM me if you have questions about what I did. After all, I do get teased about being "Lord of the Underbelly".

Ron

[geo]

Myyke -

Oh yes. If you do pull the coroplast, do yourself a favor and get a set of See Level Tank Gauges to install. The installation is very simple once the coroplast is dropped.

Ron

[mtl4]

Originally Posted by geo

Myyke -

Oh yes. If you do pull the coroplast, do yourself a favor and get a set of See Level Tank Gauges to install. The installation is very simple once the coroplast is dropped.

Ron

I've never heard of those gauges before, is there any one in particular to get? Any better pricing elsewhere?

https://www.securewebexchange.com/rvgauge.com/sale.htm

[geo]

Originally Posted by mtl4

I've never heard of those gauges before, is there any one in particular to get? Any better pricing elsewhere?

https://www.securewebexchange.com/rvgauge.com/sale.htm

MTL4 -

The company, Garnet Instruments, is based in Canada and has established a US subsidiary, Garnet Technologies (Granbury, Texas), to handle their products in the US. Garnet has a wide range of tank monitoring systems that are "passive monitors", that is, they are not in direct contact with the tank's fluids to monitor the levels. What that means for the RVer is that there are no sensors to foul or give false readings.

Basically, the "tank sensor" is a strip of plastic with one side adhesive with an attached wire. Tabs at the top of the plastic have conductive loops within them. You cut the tab off corresponding to the tank the sensor is placed upon so the sensor will "know" which tank it is reporting. The sensor is then applied (with specific directions) to the side of the tank. If the tank is deep, two sensors are applied along the side. The designated wires feed back up into the RV control panel area and are attched to the monitor panel.

Actually, it is very simple. The directions are very well written and easily followed. But, MTL4, you are correct. Depending upon how many tanks the RV might have, usually 3 to 5, with or without propane monitoring, pump switch, etc, the price for this system can range from the low US$200 upwards into the US$400 (which utilizes RV-C communications links for motorhomes). On Garnet's website, there is a list of distributors and dealers, but I would guess that the best price for a DIY would be directly from Garnet. The current US order page is

https://www.securewebexchange.com/rvgauge.com/

There is a link to the Canadian order page on the above webpage.

But I would suggest looking at the products page first

http://www.rvgauge.com/rv.htm

to understand which system would best fit one's RV.

Yes, they are more expensive than the standard, sensor based system that comes on our RVs. But they are also independent of being fouled by the tank contents and give a more accurate reading of the contents. For example, the standard sensors on my black tank presently read "1/3 full", but the See Level reads "15%". When I first got the RV, I did a "clean water" test before "using the black tank" and am certain that the See Level is giving the proper reading.

Note: I have no connection to Garnet Technologies or Garnet Instruments other than I am a customer and do have the Model 709 See Level installed on our fifth wheel.

Ron