Monitoring and Heating Basement

[2Labs]

We'll be spending some time in our Sea Breeze this winter in cold weather and I've been thinking about some ways to provide some direct heat to the basement where the plumbing and tanks are.

I removed the cover panel on the passenger side as well as the plumbing panel on the other side today look around and I found a few things ....

- I found out where the mysterious acorns were coming from. Ever since we've owned our MH, periodically I'd find a broken acorn in a storage or water bay. Well it turns out that at some time in its life, our MH supplied shelter to what I guess to be a squirrel and a stash of acrons.



- I found some new storage ... in the space where the acorns were stored. I'll have to fabricate some panels to cover the tanks, but every inch of storage space is storage space, and as this newly found space is above the tool compartment, it will come in handy for overflow tools, car tie downs, etc



- there is "some" rigid foam insulation in/around the tanks, but I can certainly add some more

- I'm thinking about adding a small, 4 foot electric baseboard heater with remote thermostat to the bay in the area between the fresh water and grey water tanks. This electric baseboard heater is a 120V unit @1000 watts and is only 2.5" deep/wide. I haven't measured the space between the fresh and grey tanks, but eyeballing it makes me think that I might be able to put the unit there. I like this style of heater as its radiant with no moving parts and will support a thermostat that we can mount inside the RV





To keep an accurate eye on temperatures down there, I can add some remote thermostats like these units from Lacrosse.



I'm wondering if anyone else has taken on a similar project and/or what your thoughts might be.

I've been monitoring basement temperatures over the last couple of weeks using a single sensor and moving it around, and so far temps have been "ok" in the basement. On average between 12-18 degrees warmer in the basement versus outdoors. We've had some cold nights lately along with snow - we're currently in RI near TF Green Airport, but nothing as bad as at our home base in CT where much of our town is again without power. Luckily our home still has power.

In this limited cold weather so far this season, the interior of the MH has stayed relatively comfortable as well. We're running a Kenwood oil filled electric radiator in the middle of the living space and for the majority of the day that works ok ... cutting down a lot on how often the furnace kicks on. While we only have single pane windows, we haven't noticed a real problem with drafts and we keep the day/night shades down once the sun goes down. The only real drafts we have found so far are right under the bedside tables, and a couple of rolled up towels helped tremendously there.

We have some experience with winter and cold weather camping .. last year we spent the winter in a 32' Zinger TT - living on site helping an ill family member and the Zinger was nowhere as insulated, spacious and comfortable as our Sea Breeze *but* we made that work. This winter we'll be providing help to a couple of young parents and their yet to be born, baby - yes our first grandchild! and as the baby will be arriving in early February, we'll be spending another winter in a camper.

Ideally we'd like to be able to use the water/plumbing in the MH, so I'm thinking that adding an electric heater down there should go a long way towards this goal.

What do you think?

[Scooter]

Have not yet done this, but I was thinking of hanging a 60w light bulb in our plumbing compartment where the water pump and tank valves reside.

We have a 1500w space heater inside that is set to turn off at 60 degrees.

[DrScott]

I have a dropcord lamp and remote temp monitor I use. Kept the wet bays at 45 when it was 13-18F outside.

[kennersonf]

You might pull the inside cover of your furnace and see if you have a heater duct going into the holding tank area. My motorhome does. So as long as your coach furnace cycles on periodically, heat will be going into the holding tank area. That work for me last winter in Texas when the high was 29 deg and the lows were 13 deg. I also had to use the drop light trick in the plumbing compartment to keep the holding tank dump valves from freezing.

[Paladin]

I had cold weather problems last winter in my 2005 Tropical. Temporary fixes were 110 volt heater and heat taping but not permanent fix because of need for shore power and/or generator while moving or dry camping permanent fix was a DC Thermal 12 volt heater (same heater that Army installs in rear of Humvees) with temperature controller. My tanks are situated such that fresh water is on bottom with grey and black on top. Opened passenger side bay door and installed heater in right side corner; i.e., also shortest distance to 12 volt supply source. Heat blows across compartment. Contoller is on other side of bay (valve side). I have controller set for heater to come on at freezing and heater goes off after temperature rises 30 degrees. My tank bay is also heated by rear furnace but that didn't cut it. I have heater in bay on now and is working perfectly.

[Never_be_Rich]

Our unit is older, so the setup may not be the same. I found there was about 8 inches of exposed black water pipe between where it came out of the coach and into the utility bay. We were stuck in 6 degree weather, I had a drop lamp near the pipe that ran under the bed and a heat lamp in the utility bay. While the pipe froze, the heat at both ends did keep the pipe from bursting or ruining the dump valve.