Short 4-day winter RV trip (Advice/help needed please)

[mrrv119]

Hello everyone, I am new here. After reading articles on the internet I decided coming onto a forum to chat with experienced RV’ers would probably be a better decision since most of the canned articles I was reading seemed to apply for “Winterizing RV’s or being in below 0 temps for long periods of time”.

With that all said, our family has an upcoming trip to Mammoth mountain in CA March 24th-28th they recently got hit hard and might even get hit hard again between that time. I have been watching the weather the best I can “we all know how that goes” and it appears “Average temperatures for these dates are between (40 highs and 15 low) we have a 28ft toy hauler that does not have an “Arctic package”.

I am wondering how I should go about keeping my lines/tanks from freezing or not, while wondering if we can still somehow utilize our toilet without having to get dressed up and hike to the camp ground bathrooms, is this even an option or thought for a short trip?

The RV site has Water/Electric, so I would assume their pipes are insulated really well for year round, I would have to constantly hook/un-hook the hose going into our “City line, to be sure no freezing happens at night”.

But that leaves the question of, “what about the water in my pipes inside the RV from the water we used?” My first thought would be, open all faucets etc and that is all. Furthermore, leave our fresh water tank “empty since we would hook up to the city side for fresh water “when we need it, cooking, bathroom, and shower”.

As for the grey/black tank I think buying some RV antifreeze and dumping a few gallons in each tank should help that issue and any water we use going into the grey/black should hopefully not delude it that much more?

In the case that the campgrounds water hook ups are not available, would it be safe to fill our fresh water tank up 20-30gallons? And use it as normal? I have considered buying some Thermal heat pads and sticking them on the fresh water tank as an “extra precaution to this approach”. The main thing here is we will only be in town for 4days, if weather only peaks below 30’s at night I would think we are ok, but if we stay below 30 all four days, I might be concerned.

Any advice, suggestions, would be awesome!


Thank you all so much!
C-Fam!

[okcnewbie]

I would leave it winterized and use RV antifreeze to flush the toilet manually. I don't think you'll have to worry about the black tank this way and you won't be using the grey/fresh water tanks.