Newby or dumb stuff.
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Forum Name: Podmods, Maintenance, Tips and Tricks
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URL: http://www.rpod-owners.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=10967
Printed Date: 29 Jun 2025 at 9:20am
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Topic: Newby or dumb stuff.
Posted By: rawest50
Subject: Newby or dumb stuff.
Date Posted: 30 Nov 2017 at 8:08pm
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Just finished our first freezing weather event camping. Just cold no snow.
1-water hookup. How do you keep your water hose from freezing? Froze the night temps got to 20 degrees. Did not bust. Thank goodness. 2-learned where the ground fault was located. We tripped it. Darn hair rollers. Lol. Did not realize it was on one of the outlets. 3-I could not figure out why the fan ran all the time when heating. Idiot time. I did not realize the thermostat had auto on it. What a difference. 4-propane usuage is really low. Heater performs great. It got down to 20 one night the other 4 nights 30-34. Used maybe 5” of our 20 pound tank. That was great to figure out. Now I have a feel for propane usage. 5 nights camping. One cooking meal. ------------- 2017.5 RPod 179 2017 Jeep Unlimited Wrangler 2017 Chevy Colorado Z71 Off Road Crew Cab 2 Weiner dogs Great wife puts up with my BS ❤️ Thoroughbred Racing. 
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Replies:
Posted By: WillThrill
Date Posted: 01 Dec 2017 at 12:18am
1. You can get https://smile.amazon.com/Camco-22911-Heated-Drinking-Thermostat/dp/B01ABONB0A/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1512109105&sr=8-1&keywords=heated+rv+hose - water hoses that are heated with electrical power so that they won't freeze. However, with freezing temperatures, you also need to be concerned about the plumbing under your Pod. This requires https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0002YWMNW/ref=asc_df_B0006BJLKI5287099/?tag=hyprod-20&creative=394997&creativeASIN=B0006BJLKI&linkCode=df0&hvadid=167152075850&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=3266018020242761249&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9033700&hvtargid=pla-306293422521&th=1 - heat stripping and insulation be placed on all water lines and your holding tanks. 4. The Pod's furnace will burn 1 gallon of propane every 6 hours that it is actually running. In cold weather, your furnace can easily run half the time, so that means you could completely exhaust a 20 lb. propane tank in just two days if you weren't burning propane for anything else. Running the furnace also consumes quite a lot of battery power (unless you're connected to shore power of course, but if you were, you should be using an electric heater instead of the furnace). For many, a Mr. Buddy heater is more efficient in terms of propane, and it doesn't consume any electricity either. If you aren't using the furnace, the Pod won't burn much propane. We camped for a month in ours last year and didn't even go through 20 lb. of propane, despite running the refrigerator on propane at least 2/3 of the time.
------------- "Not all those who wander are lost." Tolkien 2014 Hood River 177 2005 GMC Envoy XL |
Posted By: rpodmybe
Date Posted: 04 Dec 2017 at 1:05pm
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I'd definitely be cautious at 20 overnight on the r-pod plumbing.
A while back I saw an blog type post where someone was using an r-pod in the Ykon in the winter and he didn't hit 50% cycle time until approximately -25 degrees. He had installed skirting (which could help with freezing pipe in normal temperature), and done some other tweaks. 
There was also recently a post on the Facebook owners group of a Northwesterner camping at a ski resort. Everything I've seen suggests the heating system has pretty good output, if you seal up the basic leaky spots and a insulate the windows(reflectix cut to shape) the rpod will stay warm enough. The biggest thing is if you have enough heat to have running water, and that requires a lot of power(and insulation). |