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Freezing?


Pete-B

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Hi, At what outside temperature would you expect the water to freeze in the average motorhome?

 

It's just that I remember I once left my old Bessacarr on our drive and by mistake, not connecting it up and the temperature dropped to minus 4 degrees during the night but the water didn't freeze in the van!

 

This week we've had a white frost every night here and our outside temperature has been showing minus 2-3 below but the water in our bird bath hasn't really frozen, weird!!

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Not really, often the weather forecast will say there will be a ground frost then the ground temp could be ffreezing but a few inches above and it doesn't. Depending where your water tank is it will get some insulation just by being inside the van. Doesn't your van have a dump valve to dump your water when the temperature gets below 6 - 7 degs?
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stevec176 - 2021-04-16 4:00 PM

 

Not really, often the weather forecast will say there will be a ground frost then the ground temp could be ffreezing but a few inches above and it doesn't. Depending where your water tank is it will get some insulation just by being inside the van. Doesn't your van have a dump valve to dump your water when the temperature gets below 6 - 7 degs?

Hi Steve, yes,it does have a dump valve but it just got me wondering just how cold it as to be before it all freezes up?

 

I guess even with a dump valve it still wouldn't be worth taking a chance because there would still be water in the pipes and taps I guess

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Pete-B - 2021-04-16 4:21 PM

 

 

I guess even with a dump valve it still wouldn't be worth taking a chance because there would still be water in the pipes and taps I guess

When I had a ' freeze-up ' problem, it was water in the taps.

 

The tanks had been drained, and all taps ' open ' and levers centred - BUT unfortunately one tap lever had been moved sideways accidentally ( i.e. was still open ) - and the result was that the tap split down one side because there was still some water in it - which froze !

 

:-|

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Pete-B - 2021-04-16 3:11 PM

 

 

Hi, At what outside temperature would you expect the water to freeze in the average motorhome?

 

It's just that I remember I once left my old Bessacarr on our drive and by mistake, not connecting it up and the temperature dropped to minus 4 degrees during the night but the water didn't freeze in the van!

 

This week we've had a white frost every night here and our outside temperature has been showing minus 2-3 below but the water in our bird bath hasn't really frozen, weird!!

That's because it's not just about the temperature to which it drops, but for how long.

A cold January day where it hovers barely above zero and then drops to -1 overnight is far more likely to freeze the water and the systems in the van than an April day where, following hours of solar gain, it dips sharply to -3 or -4 for a short period just before dawn.

 

I have remote 'weather station' sensors in my van, one by the water pump and another by the Truma boiler, and despite waking up to -3 and ice-covered vehicles each morning this week the lowest temperature in the van was 2 degrees next to the water pump, so no issue.

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Steve928 - 2021-04-16 7:12 PM

 

Pete-B - 2021-04-16 3:11 PM

 

Hi, At what outside temperature would you expect the water to freeze in the average motorhome?

 

It's just that I remember I once left my old Bessacarr on our drive and by mistake, not connecting it up and the temperature dropped to minus 4 degrees during the night but the water didn't freeze in the van!

 

This week we've had a white frost every night here and our outside temperature has been showing minus 2-3 below but the water in our bird bath hasn't really frozen, weird!!

That's because it's not just about the temperature to which it drops, but for how long.

A cold January day where it hovers barely above zero and then drops to -1 overnight is far more likely to freeze the water and the systems in the van than an April day where, following hours of solar gain, it dips sharply to -3 or -4 for a short period just before dawn.

 

I have remote 'weather station' sensors in my van, one by the water pump and another by the Truma boiler, and despite waking up to -3 and ice-covered vehicles each morning this week the lowest temperature in the van was 2 degrees next to the water pump, so no issue.

Very well explained buddy

:

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The latent heat of freezing of water is 80 calories per gram. To express that another way, it takes as much heat loss to freeze a given mass of water at 0C, as it does to cool it from 80C to 0C. (Obviously cooling will be faster at 80C, than at 0C.)

 

The effect of this physical fact is that water is unlikely to freeze in a single nights frost, provided that it is in a sheltered location.

 

I live in an exposed rural location, and our with recent overnight temperatures falling to -3C, our exposed bird bath has frozen more frequently, than it did in January.

 

Alan

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breakaleg - 2021-04-17 8:33 AM

 

We have camped at -9 with a underslung tank and it didn't freeze also the other year we woke covered in snow (beast from the east) and we didn't freeze then either.

Pete

As Alan has pointed out, whether or not water will freeze will depend on the amount and the ‘exposure’ to the freezing temperature. The small amount of water held in my shallow stone bird-bath freezes rapidly in cold weather, whereas the 80 or so litres of water in the nearby plastic water butt won’t freeze unless it’s extremely cold for a prolonged period.

 

A fairly large quantity of water in a motorhome’s uninsulated, unheated underslung fresh-water tank would take quite a while to freeze when the vehicle is static and, as the feed hose going from that tank into the motorhome’s interior is usually not exposed, the motorhome’s water system will normally remain operational even in very cold weather. The drain-tap/hose of an external uninsulated unheated waste-water tank is vulnerable to cold and it’s often recommended that, in icy weather, the drain-tap be left open to allow waste-water to drain straight into an external container (eg. a bucket).

 

A few weeks ago I found that I couldn’t open one of my Rapido’s cab doors: rainwater drains from the Rapido’s roof down the door and this had frozen in the door seals. And, when I owned a Hobby motorhome, even after carefully ‘gravity draining' the vehicle’s water system, an extended period of arctic UK winter weather caused ice to push apart a water connector inside the motorhome. Nowadays I follow the draining methods commonly employed for static caravans and use compressed air to expel as much residual water as possible from my motorhome’s water system.

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