Looking back on it now that this is over it really doesn't seem like such a big deal, but this incident took up five days of brain space and caused an unfair share of stress. Especially considering the -30 and -20 weather was over, we figured the worst of our problems caused by the cold would be over, right? Wrong! At -15, after much colder previous weeks, this was not something we were expecting to have to deal with. I think it's safe to say this has been our biggest hurdle so far living in the RV.
I wrote the following as it was happening in the first week of February. Just haven't got it posted until now.
Will discovered on a Saturday evening that our sani tote had frozen. During the -20s to -30s we had had the pump freeze and some other hoses but Will had always been unable to thaw them out and carry on. The whole system worked well through the worst of the cold spell so we thought we were in the clear, but with 'warmer' temperatures and that beautiful sunshine, something must have melted, shifted, and refrozen during the overnight lows. After trying many different things on Saturday night to try to get water flowing we deemed it tomorrow's problem and said goodnight at 2am.
On Sunday he ran a vent hose from the diesel heater in the mudroom to the tote to thaw it. We had water moving! And that did work, but then in the time for him to drive the 15mins to the sani station to dump it, it refroze. So back at square one.
Continuing our sani saga; On Monday Will bought a propane heater for the tank and ran it overnight and into the next day. Then on Tuesday he tried to empty the tank into the lagoon in the back to avoid the drive to the sani station and have anything refreeze. Turned out that still wasn't enough and there was still something too frozen to drain.
The tractor which pulled our sani trailer back there got stuck, so the 4 Runner was enlisted to help out. I was worried Will would be frustrated about yet another dead end in trying to solve this problem, but his laugh carries far and was the reassurance I needed to hear to know he and Jared were doing alright. He came inside and said, "That was a total waste of time, but so much fun!"
So then on Tuesday night he uninstalled the diesel heater from the mudroom, and got it set up to the tote.
With the diesel heater running all Tuesday night and Wednesday during the day Will was able to get the tank emptied on Wednesday evening!
Such a relief!
Comments
Post a Comment