No hot water in bathroom

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an RV or an interest in RVing!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
Joined
Dec 30, 2017
Posts
9
Hi. I'm winter camping in one place and we recently had quite the cold spell while I was away for a few days: sustained temps well below freezing for multiple days.

Issue: I have hot water available in the kitchen only, and cold water available everywhere. No hot water is coming out in the shower or bathroom sink.

Background: This is a 2012ish Pinnacle RV that has the enclosed underbelly made for winter camping. I also added insulation and skirting. I only fill the tank when needed and we use the forced hot air system to heat running on propane. When I was away for a few days, I lowered the thermostat to 58 degree Fahrenheit. Outside temperatures were sustained 10 Farenheit (-13 celcius). When I returned, no water was available, so I upped the heat to 74 Fahrenheit and put an electric heater in the storage space forward that is next to the fill and dump valves. The next day, water was available with the exception of hot in the bathroom. There is plenty of hot water at the kitchen sink.

One weird thing: the bathroom sink has a single tap where when it is to the left, it provides hot water, right cold. The shower has separate hot and cold knobs. When the hot is opened in the shower, nothing comes out, but if I turn the sink tap on for cold, cold water will come out of the shower nozzle even though only the hot water tap is opened. The water coming out is quite cold.

Any help would be appreciated as I don't want to wait until warm weather to see if it is just ice in a line.

Dave
 
    Temporarily raise inside temperatures considerably, open all cabinet doors. This should help, but may not help....as manufacturer may have have run the lines where heat (basement/underbelly) can get to them. Many rv?s claim artic package, etc.....but do a p|? poor job of running lines in heated area!
 
I just solve the problem by playing with my filling valves (two selector knobs where the first one has positions 1, 2, and 3 and the second one 4,5, and 6. Just by moving them around it solved the problem.

I wish this thing came with a plumbing diagram.

While I was trouble-shooting, I opened up the panel right beside the pump and filling station and I was pleased to see it had its own heat supply from the central heating (propane, forced hot air).

I just have to make sure I leave the heat on a little higher if I'm away for any period of time. My propane supply is good as I had my home's twin 800 lb tanks hooked up the camper which I'm living in during a major renovation. One of my primary contractors was good enough to lend me his Fifth wheel; I want to stay living on-site as there is a lot of theft in the area if building supplies are left unattended....

Thanks for the advice.
 
And, it's frozen again. From what I can see, the pipes for the shower and bathroom sink are run right against the outer  wall of the camper. Not good with it being the windward side and freezing temperatures. I have a space heater blowing air in through the access port, but no luck getting hot water. Even worse now, my black water tank won't drain....
Fortunately there's some warmer weather coming in 2 days. This cold snap is unusual this early in the season.
 
The warm spell came and I sorted out my Black water tank: It was never properly cleaned out after past use.
Now that we have another cold spell, I lost water to my bathroom sink and shower again. This "Pinnacle" has a fairly poor "arctic package."
Any recommendations from the winter campers out there?
 
Sadly, it often just depends on the unit, and where the plumbing goes. We have an arctic fox with winter package, and it freezes up at -13C. Our previous Westwind holiday fifth wheel lightweight I had spray foamed with urethane on the bottom, and it was good to -25 C.  Some very dumb things were done when they assembled our arctic fox, like running plumbing through the shore power cable cavity, which is only separated from the outside with a little plastic door.  That line to the toilet I had to completely remove, and then rerun it inside the unit where it was warmer.


I ducted additional heat from our furnace through the backs of the cabinets in our Fox where the plumbing runs, and under the shower to prevent freezing there. I also peeled some of the Styrofoam insulation off the hot water tank to allow heat from that to percolate under the bathroom sink.


Honestly, there are so many differences in these units that you pretty well have to find where the weak points are in yours, and then do something to address it.


If you are going to be stationary and only need a temporary fix, you can put some skirting around the trailer and put an electric heater underneath the unit.


Frank.
 

Forum statistics

Threads
131,749
Posts
1,384,213
Members
137,520
Latest member
jeep3501
Back
Top Bottom