Help: Water heater output to fresh water tank

Yeah Goose I think you are right, stock tank heater would be dependent upon water level and may overheat, recirculation pump would be best or better yet dry camp, I saw a Post somewhere where they replaced the Thetfort toilet with a dry chem toilet so they could camp well into cold weather. As for us we will try to camp in Southern Ind for a couple more weeks, then its fire in the fireplace and wife and I will go into Winter home made soup cook off,  She has me beat on homemade vegatable beef soup, but I make a mean Filet Gumbo. Donna says I make the best home made Chicken and Dumplins she has ever had, I make em from scratch, they are fairly easy. Happy Campin

The black tank is an easier problem and doesn't require removing the stock toilet, just keep a gallon of RV antifreeze next to the toilet and use that to flush instead of water. The black tank contents should stay liquid with that much antifreeze mixed in. This is my plan for the upcoming winter trip (see my other post to you elsewhere).

The gray tank is much more of a problem since there is no way to keep the antifreeze from being diluted to the point of uselessness. True for the sink or shower, either "produces" many gallons of water. I would leave the gray tank drained and unused. Same goes for the fresh water tank, especially since there are exposed water lines coming from the tank, plus the exposed low-point drains elsewhere under the pod.

Alternatively, RVs that can be used in the winter have all plumbing and tanks enclosed and insulated with cabin heat blowing into the lower compartment. You may be able to box in the tanks and lines on the pod with plywood and closed-cell insulation (the pink or blue stuff), then cut strategic holes in the floor of the pod to install computer biscuit fans to suck cabin air into the compartment. Much more trouble-free than using tank heaters, plus it gives you the option to dry camp on battery power (there would be no way to power tank heaters from electric w/o a generator). You will need several batteries though, since they have lowered capacity in cold weather and biscuit fans use an amp or two per hour.

Decision made: Thank you for your input!

 

Thanks to everyone who responded, I read and considered every post and decided to have tank heaters installed. I take X-Pod in tommorrow and should have it back in a week. Several things applied....

 

1. Cheap <> Fast <> Good - You can only have two

 

- Since our first trip is coming up Thanksgiving week, excluding practice night or two locally, I needed fast and good.

 

- With enough time, say a summer, I think I could have made the idea work, but figuring out the system and troubleshooting would have taken too much time.

 

-  My dad was the final word on helping me get over the pain of spending this small fortune. He's never been into RV's but the wisdom from other projects still applied "get something designed, well tested and professionally installed its worth it becuase it'll work."

 

2. Winter - My big reason for buying X-Pod was winter camping. I just closed my eyes and imagined being in the camper, 20 degrees, wind blowing etc... and that visual walk through of a camp out helped because I came back to one over riding piece of wisdom I have learned. EVERYTHING is 10 times more difficult and breaks 10 times easier in cold weather. If I cobbled something together that works in summer testing, on a camp out in the winter is not the time to find out it doesn't work in the cold.

 

3. Likely I would have saved less than I thought after building >> testing >> re-buying >> testing (repeat)

 

Thanks for the help! I'm going to cry a little and pay "the man" for a good system. I'll only have to buy it once an hopefully it helps re-sale value.