One night below freezing for 11 hours

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   2020 R-Pod 180 Midwest Edition. Tonight in Alabama it will get down to 26° and stay below freezing for 11 hours. I’ve done some research and here’s my preparation: freshwater tank is empty. Black and gray water tanks have RV antifreeze in them. I am plugged into the house and will run the furnace throughout the night with cabinets and drawers open. I will also open the external shower faucet. My question is should I have the water heater turned on? I’ve heard different things: some people say that you should bypass and then drain it Which may or may not involve removing the “something rod”. But I’m taking a trip to Florida tomorrow and it will not be below freezing down there. I’m thinking I should just leave the water heater on and it should be fine, right?

Thanks for any input!

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in2thefire Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Newbie Joined: 06 Oct 2020 Location: Alabama Online Status: Offline Posts: 9	Topic: One night below freezing for 11 hours Posted: 17 Dec 2020 at 8:20pm
	2020 R-Pod 180 Midwest Edition. Tonight in Alabama it will get down to 26° and stay below freezing for 11 hours. I’ve done some research and here’s my preparation: freshwater tank is empty. Black and gray water tanks have RV antifreeze in them. I am plugged into the house and will run the furnace throughout the night with cabinets and drawers open. I will also open the external shower faucet. My question is should I have the water heater turned on? I’ve heard different things: some people say that you should bypass and then drain it Which may or may not involve removing the “something rod”. But I’m taking a trip to Florida tomorrow and it will not be below freezing down there. I’m thinking I should just leave the water heater on and it should be fine, right? Thanks for any input!

in2thefire Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Newbie Joined: 06 Oct 2020 Location: Alabama Online Status: Offline Posts: 9	Posted: 17 Dec 2020 at 8:21pm
	And I am not hooked up to a water supply.

Tars Tarkas Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Senior Member Joined: 14 Jan 2013 Location: Near Nashville Online Status: Offline Posts: 1454	Posted: 17 Dec 2020 at 11:16pm
	You are very unlikely to have any problems. Two things I'd do differently: no antifreeze in the waste tanks, especially for the temps you're talking about, and I'd use a little electric heater turned down just about as far as it can go instead of the furnace. What you're doing is fine though. Leave the bathroom door open too. TT
	2010 176 FJ Cruiser

Tars Tarkas Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Senior Member Joined: 14 Jan 2013 Location: Near Nashville Online Status: Offline Posts: 1454	Posted: 17 Dec 2020 at 11:18pm
	And yeah, leave the water heater on. But, again, you aren't likely to have any problems either way with temps only down to 26 over night with heat in the Pod. TT
	2010 176 FJ Cruiser

offgrid Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Senior Member Joined: 23 Jul 2018 Online Status: Offline Posts: 5290	Posted: 18 Dec 2020 at 8:44am
	At 26 you should be ok overnight. If you want to and have the ability to connect to city water you could hook up and crack a couple of faucets open, both the hot and cold lines, so the lines slowly drip through. The water heater can be left off, it won’t freeze in there. Water takes a lot to freeze so allowing a little to trickle through works well as long as it’s not really cold. Just leave a little heat on inside and the gray tank drain open.
	1994 Chinook Concourse 1995 RV6A Experimental Aircraft 2015 Rpod 179 - sold

Pod_Geek Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Senior Member Joined: 04 Dec 2019 Location: Colorado Online Status: Offline Posts: 261	Posted: 18 Dec 2020 at 9:03am
	http://www.rpod-owners.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=14122&KW=&title=rpod-survives-9-hours-of-subfreezing-temperatures As a follow-up to that experience, we returned from warmer climes to the Denver suburbs on the Sunday after Thanksgiving this year in the unwinterized R-Pod, arriving after dark. Temps at the house were predicted to bottom out at maybe 26 degrees F for maybe 6 hours. Well, once again we must have been lucky as they sank to the high teens for most of the night. I did run a space heater in the Pod overnight. At about 10AM I hooked up the compressor and attempted the blowout. Outside shower/goat washer blew out fine, but air would not move through any of the inside lines I tried a couple more times. No luck. At about 2 PM, with temps in the 60s and the R-Pod in direct sun the lines finally opened up and all blew out as normal. I don't think anything broke, but when we next hook up to city water we'll see just how big a dumba$$ I was...
	2020.5 R-Pod 195 Hood River 2018 RAM 2500 6.4L