Furnace on 40°F vs. Winterizing?

[snoobler]

Have 2007 Montana and a 420# propane tank next to it.

I have the ability to remotely monitor:

• Furnace cycling on and off via blower electrical use
• Interior temperature of RV with text/email alerts.
• Propane tank level

Located about 3.5 hours away @ 6500ft in N AZ where temps can get pretty chilly. Recently observed 10.6°F and has snowed twice already.

Rather than winterizing every visit (every 2-4 weeks), I've decided to leave the furnace on at 40°F (the lowest setting). It's been running that way including the period we saw 10.6°F on the weather station. I can verify that the furnace has maintained the living space at no less than 39°F since we started this 12 days ago, and the furnace seems to cycle on for about 5 minutes out of every 15-20.

Basically, anyone think this is a stupid idea?

Thanks,

Steve

 

[Notanlines]

Steve, we reserve the term ‘stupid’ for opponents during towing weights, rv tire requirements and half-ton towing discussions!
In your case I think that you are facing an uphill battle with the weather in months to come. I would simply blow out all the lines and THEN leave the thermostat on 40-45 or so. No more than 15 minutes to blow out the system will give you a lot of insurance and peace of mind.

 

[St. Michael]

A bit ballsy. Cross your fingers

 

[JBM3M]

Steve, we reserve the term ‘stupid’ for opponents during towing weights, rv tire requirements and half-ton towing discussions!
d.

So true

 

[Viper02]

Small pancake air compressor and 10 - 15 minutes of your time max to blow out the water lines and drain the water heater... One time that furnace fails to light up and you will have an expensive and PITA amount of repair work to accomplish.

I also am not fond of leaving the RV unattended with the furnace running and LP on for that amount of time..

YMMV

 

[DutchmenSport]

I'm in agreement with everyone else here. You cannot depend on the furnace. Any number of things can happen that will result in furnace failure.

I also agree with blowing the lines with an air compressor and draining the water heater. Draining the water heater is no problem, just pull the plug and let it go. Put the water heater in by-pass mode and blow the lines.

There was a time in my past when I drained the water heater every time the camper moved, from campground to campground, or home to campground, or campground to home. That eventually changed when we started going on longer and longer trips and sitting in one spot for longer periods of time. But still, I drain the water heater now about 4 or 5 times a year, regardless of where we are, at home, winterizing, or on the road now. I also flush it out and get the particles out of the bottom of the tank and check the anode rod at the same time.

If your outside temps do not drop below 32 degrees, and you just want to make sure (in case of).... then blowing, instead of using RV (pink stuff) antifreeze is the way to go.

 

[jsb5717]

I can support the concept but would question the method. I agree with Chuck on leaving the furnace unattended for lengths of time. Yes, they can fail.

We don't excessively winterize our rig since we have moderate winter weather. But we do clear the water and drain lines and empty the water heater. Those are good practices for your rig in potentially extended freezing weather. But I don't use the pink stuff in the water lines. I do leave a ceramic heater set on low in the rig to protect against freezing and moisture. It's worked for us for many years.

If the water and drains pipes are empty then your colder weather shouldn't create much of a risk for the plumbing. The 15 min to get that done well is time well spent and cheap insurance.

 

[emugel]

x2 what Jeff said (post #7)

In 14 years of RV'ing I have never "winterized" a trailer. I drain the tanks and water heater. I open the low point drains. I used to remove the water pump (I don't on this new 5er - it's behind a wall in the storage bay and hard to get to). I do not blow out the lines. ( I do not worry about p-traps - the small amount of water in them evaporates out pretty quickly. ) I put a ceramic heater on the counter set to a low temp.

Like Jeff said, we have moderate winter weather in the Portland metro area. But we can have sub-zero weather for 2-3 days at a time occasionally. I have never had an problem or an issue. This year I placed a cheap ThermoPro bluetooth room thermometer in with the heater so I can monitor the temp and go out and adjust the heater as needed.
https://www.amazon.com/ThermoPro-Bluetooth-Hygrometer-Thermometer-Greenhouse/dp/B08LKCLFR6/ref=sr_1_16?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.rtfaUhNRTvUOQ1asjI0lEMkk7iFmAjtVI_n9DRqus4pDqucHNu95czIb5PZC2IIkXKy2tOsOcEbu5VgdO-VUhajNobKeT_4vZgWi3-C6nT4-LWJ5e3wU08sWRonX9TIU9KKmJ9VG615QxZa4WcH_mGlerWNlYzN8wGqjQpJ0iFr92VPzQQB85U51GrHRou75iMCSus-SL4ecywwLlXLY5mq9dPNDD5HuxPPj0P2xMMFopRPVHAkzxKtZNbCYmpC8W4JosrzbkUTVQ8kRBzYnPDIlnrolDZEi9az8-U52Ls4.BjKffWnXK-zFFpQEIOccyNF19luxDyigDjDUWVEzexE&dib_tag=se&keywords=Wireless%2BRoom%2BThermometer&qid=1731855182&sr=8-16&th=1
We'll see how that goes.

 

[snoobler]

Thanks for the feedback. I'm very familiar with winterization as I've done it on this rig about 15 times in the last 3 winters.

For those in milder climates, we see single digits, particularly in Jan/Feb. We also have our site water stored in IBC totes, and it does get cold enough to freeze those a handful of days every winter. It's a bit unpredictable. Throughout most of the winter the risk of overnight freeze is generally low... until it isn't.

Concerning furnace reliability, I hear you. I recently had to facilitate repairs as I was getting an ignitor lockout error. With new control board and igniter in hand, I discovered it was neither. Mud dobbers had nested on top of the burner/ignitor, so I cleaned it out and replaced the ignitor because I was there. Spare ignitor and control board held in reserve.

I wouldn't consider doing this if I didn't have the ability to monitor everything, and I'm willing to drive the 3.5 hours if necessary to winterize to avoid freeze damage. Yes, it would completely defeat the point of the added convenience, but that's the risk. I've attached last night's interior temperature data. Ambient hit 19°F last night.

I expected responses of doom and gloom, and I was looking for something I hadn't thought of. I got it in the suggestion to blow out the lines. I have a decent wheeled compressor, and that's part of my normal winterization routine, but it does represent a minimal effort, and it won't be a big deal. I shouldn't be so lazy. It will also give me some margin on the timing of the 3.5hr drive. Thanks for that.

Personally, I'm more worried about tank freezing.

Concerning the water heater, for two winters in another rig, I had the water heater electric element on a remote timer, and it would run for about 1.5 hours (could run longer if it needed, but this was what was needed to hit set temp) every 24 hours and prevented freezing even with no interior climate control. This is something I plan to implement on this one. I really don't think it's necessary with interior temperature control, but there's other reasons to do it (like having hot water available upon arrival). This is also something I can monitor and control remotely.

I likely will stop doing this for Jan/Feb and just winterize. MOST days don't run a real risk of freezing, but there's the occasional overnight cold snap or overcast days where average temps drop low enough to risk freezing.

I'll be up there again next weekend to implement the final tweaks. Thanks again for all the comments!

Steve

 

[flybouy]

3.5 hrs away? IMHO "monitoring" from that distance essentialy is like the "idiot lights" that were in cars, basically letting you know that damage has occurred, not may occur. If there's a power failure how long will the battery last? And if you notified how long will that 3.5 hr trip really take if it's icey or snowing?

I agree with the drain & blowout the lines. I wouldn't leave the lp on (or obviously the furnace) while the trailer is unattended. JMO, YMMV.

 

[snoobler]

3.5 hrs away? IMHO "monitoring" from that distance essentialy is like the "idiot lights" that were in cars, basically letting you know that damage has occurred, not may occur. If there's a power failure how long will the battery last? And if you notified how long will that 3.5 hr trip really take if it's icey or snowing?

I agree with the drain & blowout the lines. I wouldn't leave the lp on (or obviously the furnace) while the trailer is unattended. JMO, YMMV.

Disagree with the "idiot" light concept. Water takes time to freeze, but I agree that blowing out the lines gives valuable margin.

I'm my power company. I haven't had an outage that I didn't cause while on site in 5 years. Never had an outage while offsite. Battery will power entire site for 3 days.

The biggest risk for me is Starlink going down, so I can't monitor it. Hasn't happened yet. My primary power system notifies me if contact is lost for 30 minutes, so I'll at least KNOW I can't monitor it.

 

[snoobler]

Almost two months in.

So far so good. I have remote visibility of the tank level, and I can see the furnace cycle on and off between the power system and the interior thermometer. I've used about 20-25 gallons of propane in 8 weeks. There have been three visits spanning 2-3 days where temps were kept comfy and water heater/stove were used, so usage went way up, and I suspect each of those visits gobbled 1-2 gallons alone.

Temps have been pretty mild with just a few exceptions. Running from 20-50°F most days, so the freezing risk is pretty low, but there were a few days where the average was below freezing for 24-ish hours.

Temps are trending down, so next weekend's visit will put an end to this insanity.

 

[jasin1]

Almost two months in.

So far so good. I have remote visibility of the tank level, and I can see the furnace cycle on and off between the power system and the interior thermometer. I've used about 20-25 gallons of propane in 8 weeks. There have been three visits spanning 2-3 days where temps were kept comfy and water heater/stove were used, so usage went way up, and I suspect each of those visits gobbled 1-2 gallons alone.

Temps have been pretty mild with just a few exceptions. Running from 20-50°F most days, so the freezing risk is pretty low, but there were a few days where the average was below freezing for 24-ish hours.

Temps are trending down, so next weekend's visit will put an end to this insanity.

I use these heaters for my boats…the larger one is for my express cruiser that has a fairly large engine room that you can just about stand in…the smaller one is for my sons old boat that had a engine box over the Volvo diesel…his new boat has twin Cummins with block heaters that get the whole engine room toasty…kinda pricey but really safe heaters and would work well with the propane in rvs as they are explosion proof

 

[snoobler]

I use these heaters for my boats…the larger one is for my express cruiser that has a fairly large engine room that you can just about stand in…the smaller one is for my sons old boat that had a engine box over the Volvo diesel…his new boat has twin Cummins with block heaters that get the whole engine room toasty…kinda pricey but really safe heaters and would work well with the propane in rvs as they are explosion proof

Unfortunately, without modification, those heaters won't be effective at keeping the tanks from freezing, and resistance electric heating is the worst way to heat with electricity. We are 100% off-grid.

There's already a 1500W "fireplace" heater in it. I do eventually plan to put that on a remote wifi plug to heat the interior with surplus solar energy during the day as we only use about 1/3 our total potential generation when we're offsite. This would just go towards saving some propane.

For scale, our off-grid battery is equivalent to 1,940Ah of 12V (about 17 225Ah 6v batteries). Running the heater for 8-10 hours would nearly tap us out.

 

[jasin1]

Unfortunately, without modification, those heaters won't be effective at keeping the tanks from freezing, and resistance electric heating is the worst way to heat with electricity. We are 100% off-grid.

There's already a 1500W "fireplace" heater in it. I do eventually plan to put that on a remote wifi plug to heat the interior with surplus solar energy during the day as we only use about 1/3 our total potential generation when we're offsite. This would just go towards saving some propane.

For scale, our off-grid battery is equivalent to 1,940Ah of 12V (about 17 225Ah 6v batteries). Running the heater for 8-10 hours would nearly tap us out.

The heaters would go in the basement in theory but i assumed you had shore power…probably not a good idea even though they are perfectly safe for boats……. and they are really just for keeping the engines and generator from freezing

 

[daywood]

I don’t winterize my trailer in the Portland metro area either because we frequently have to move into it for a day or two or three when the clowns at the power company can’t keep the power on (six times already since September).

I have a small space heater plugged into a WiFi-enabled plug-in in the trailer that I run at 45 degrees or so and, just for good measure, I leave the under-sink cabinet doors open and the cover open for the water pump. I also leave the water heater on.

I have In Command that I use to monitor the indoor temperature, and I keep an eye on the weather forecast. If it’s going to drop below freezing at night, I use an app to shut off the space heater and In Command to turn on the furnace at its lowest setting. When the temp gets above freezing again, I reverse the process. It’s a bummer that I can’t remotely control the tank heaters because I like to turn those on if it gets really cold.

It’s easier for me to address anything that goes awry because I park my trailer close to my house. If it were any distance away I’d probably at least drain the lines, water heater, and holding tanks each time before I left to keep from having to make an unexpected trip at an inconvenient time, or maybe even a time when weather prevented travel.

 

[jasin1]

I don’t winterize my trailer in the Portland metro area either because we frequently have to move into it for a day or two or three when the clowns at the power company can’t keep the power on (six times already since September).

I have a small space heater plugged into a WiFi-enabled plug-in in the trailer that I run at 45 degrees or so and, just for good measure, I leave the under-sink cabinet doors open and the cover open for the water pump. I also leave the water heater on.

I have In Command that I use to monitor the indoor temperature, and I keep an eye on the weather forecast. If it’s going to drop below freezing at night, I use an app to shut off the space heater and In Command to turn on the furnace at its lowest setting. When the temp gets above freezing again, I reverse the process. It’s a bummer that I can’t remotely control the tank heaters because I like to turn those on if it gets really cold.

It’s easier for me to address anything that goes awry because I park my trailer close to my house. If it were any distance away I’d probably at least drain the lines, water heater, and holding tanks each time before I left to keep from having to make an unexpected trip at an inconvenient time, or maybe even a time when weather prevented travel.

How in the world is the power company gonna be able to handle all the new EV chargers being used at the same time every night….seems crazy that your power would be off for days at a time…I guess we go back to odd and even days for who gets to charge vehicles? With smart meters they will be able to shut off whole blocks of meters at a time…I’m going to camp as much as I can in the next 10 years and maybe I will be willing to move on to something else by then….well that’s my little rant for the day….happy camping everyone lol just some light hearted observations

 

[snoobler]

How in the world is the power company gonna be able to handle all the new EV chargers being used at the same time every night….seems crazy that your power would be off for days at a time…I guess we go back to odd and even days for who gets to charge vehicles? With smart meters they will be able to shut off whole blocks of meters at a time…I’m going to camp as much as I can in the next 10 years and maybe I will be willing to move on to something else by then….well that’s my little rant for the day….happy camping everyone lol just some light hearted observations

Kinda off topic, but I'll bite.

The grid has substantial reserve capacity in off-peak hours.

The forecasters predict 26.4 million EVs by 2030. If they're driven 13,500 miles per year, they will increase the load on the grid by 2.5%. Some estimate the grid will need to be expanded approximately 1% per year between now and 2050 where most if not all cars are expected to be EV at least from a planning perspective.

Over the last 70 years, US electricity demand has increased 3.2%/year without the existence of EV charging through the vast majority of that time period. With all cars turning EV, we'll need an average of 4.2% increase in the grid per year vs. 3.2%.

Yes. These are all averages, and some places are really bad, but this is more about historically poor infrastructure and poor support of a growing population and their demands, i.e., piss-poor management.

 

[jasin1]

my apologies for going off topic….Im sure it makes sense in theory but i guess we will all have to wait and see how it works out


pictures below…… coming to a neighborhood near you soon


just having a little fun…I’ll go back outside and find something to get into…have a good day all

 

[snoobler]

Madness has mostly ended...

Tanks/water heater drained, lines blown out and a splash of antifreeze down each P-trap.

Furnace remains on 40°F. Why?

Compromise. Two winters ago, extreme cold caused issues with our countertop dishwasher (needed replacement pump) and Keurig. Rather than bring them home like we did last winter, we're leaving them there. Also, I hear rumor that extreme cold can be hard on refrigerators. 40°F means we avoid those issues. We've used about $65 worth of propane in the last 40 days.

Also wired in the electric fireplace to a wifi switch. As an experiment, I ran it for 15 minutes, and it made a noticeable difference when it was 23°F outside (pic attached). Plan to use this when we it can be run free on solar and supplement the propane furnace.

Also added a remotely accessible temp sensor in the basement.

Cost and reduced risks are acceptable.