We are moving into our old but in good condition 32 foot travel trailer. Yes, I know, everyone says they're going to live in a travel trailer in a frigid northern winter and then gives up on it but we're updating our travel trailer right now to handle the northern winter. Step 1 was to remove all the god awful Polybutylene plumbing, step 2 was to get PEX run to replace it. So far, I've only got the bathroom sink, shower and water heater hooked back up, but that's enough to meet the bare minimum for a residence in Minnesota (Cooking and bathing facilities). I have to take the toilet apart, it's got a leak somewhere and sprays water all over the floor as soon as water pressure is applied. The kitchen is on the opposite side of the trailer from all the other water for some reason, the original design had long water pipes route under the cabinets next to the passenger side tires to go from the water heater to the kitchen sink. I checked, it's freaking cold in that compartment so my plan is to just run new PEX pipes directly across the floor from the bathroom to the kitchen and cover them with a PEX walkway cover so they don't freeze.
I've already crawled from one end of the roof to the other with a roll of butyl tape shoving it in every crack I could find, we didn't get this camper early enough to strip all the old caulking out and totally redo it this year unfortunately. I also covered the roof vents with those "use your vents while your going down the road" vent covers that look like small air conditioners, the ones from Camco that don't have side vents. This way we can still open the bathroom vent to let humidity out when taking a shower without having a small gust of wind suck all the heat out.
I've also updated the water flow path so it can be filled from the city water port, the gravity feed seems like it would be an unholy pain in the butt when its 20 below zero. I'm planning on getting an on-demand self priming water pump similar to the one that pulls from the freshwater tank in the camper to pull water out of containers that I fill at the well pump, which is the only source of water in the winter time. This will probably be a 120 volt pump, I'm not sure how to get 12 volt power to the outside without drilling holes.
I'm also going to get heating pads for the holding tanks so they can still be emptied in January without pouring 5 gallons of RV antifreeze into them. Might still need some RV antifreeze for the tanks even with the heating pads but not as much.
My requirement is not matter what I do, I still want to be able to take the travel trailer to a campground and hook up to normal camper stuff, so I'm not going to hardwire the power or remove the holding tanks.
I've already crawled from one end of the roof to the other with a roll of butyl tape shoving it in every crack I could find, we didn't get this camper early enough to strip all the old caulking out and totally redo it this year unfortunately. I also covered the roof vents with those "use your vents while your going down the road" vent covers that look like small air conditioners, the ones from Camco that don't have side vents. This way we can still open the bathroom vent to let humidity out when taking a shower without having a small gust of wind suck all the heat out.
I've also updated the water flow path so it can be filled from the city water port, the gravity feed seems like it would be an unholy pain in the butt when its 20 below zero. I'm planning on getting an on-demand self priming water pump similar to the one that pulls from the freshwater tank in the camper to pull water out of containers that I fill at the well pump, which is the only source of water in the winter time. This will probably be a 120 volt pump, I'm not sure how to get 12 volt power to the outside without drilling holes.
I'm also going to get heating pads for the holding tanks so they can still be emptied in January without pouring 5 gallons of RV antifreeze into them. Might still need some RV antifreeze for the tanks even with the heating pads but not as much.
My requirement is not matter what I do, I still want to be able to take the travel trailer to a campground and hook up to normal camper stuff, so I'm not going to hardwire the power or remove the holding tanks.