insulating the holding tanks January 19, 2015, 07:27:41 pm Yahoo Message Number: 150412Greetings all... I am a 'never before RV owner' about to order my first RV. Hubby and I have done A LOT of research on RV's and have decided on a Lazy Daze. :-) We are about ready to order, but have a question about the tank insulation. Our plan is to go fulltime for a couple of years so we will definitely encounter some cold weather at some point. I visited the Lazy Daze factory a few months ago and spoke with Steve at great lengths. The one thing that he stated that went against what my hubby and I were planning was to NOT get the insulation of the outside holding tanks. Steve said (if I understood him correctly) that the tanks would end up freezing anyway, and it would be best to go into the situation with empty tanks. (This somewhat makes sense to me, as our washer and dryer at our house are in the detached garage, and that is pretty much what we do with the pipes, when we know freezing weather is expected).I would appreciate any opinions and experiences that you have had with this. ...and apologies ahead of time if this has been discussed at great lengths, I did a search, but did not find the info I am looking for.Thanks in advance.Rebecca
Re: insulating the holding tanks Reply #1 – January 19, 2015, 07:44:47 pm Yahoo Message Number: 150414Rebecca,We made the mistake of getting the insulated holding tanks on our mid bath. Yes, they will still freeze, it just takes longer. Once they do freeze, all that insulation makes the tanks act like big coolers and it takes a long time for them to thaw.Monti
Re: insulating the holding tanks Reply #2 – January 19, 2015, 09:27:54 pm Yahoo Message Number: 150416Monti, Thank you for the response. I never thought about the reverse...making them into coolers. :-pI guess we go with NO insulation.-Rebecca Winters "the possibility of unconditional love"
Re: insulating the holding tanks Reply #3 – January 19, 2015, 11:55:28 pm Yahoo Message Number: 150420Rebecca, Steve gave you good advice. The optional sprayed-on tank insulation has few benefits and many drawbacks. It's discussed in this Eureka article on tank-gauge upgrades. You may also want to check out this article on cold-weather camping.Andy BairdTravels with Andy
Re: insulating the holding tanks Reply #4 – January 20, 2015, 12:35:44 am Yahoo Message Number: 150422Awesome! Thanks for the links Andy. SOOO much information there...-Rebecca Winters "the possibility of unconditional love"
Re: insulating the holding tanks Reply #5 – January 20, 2015, 01:25:11 am Yahoo Message Number: 150423Insulation can also work in reverse. I had an Alaskan camper that had a very simple water system. Only cold water to the kitchen sink with a hand pump. At 0 the water line was freezing so I insulated it and could get by with even a lower temp. I was able to get down to -10 and lower but then it still froze. Now I had another problem the water line would not thaugh later in the day when the camper got warm. I had to remove the insulation so that the heat could once again get to the pipe. I had to find a new way to keep the water line from freezing. I did finally did win and got down to -40.Yes we snowmobiled in this kind of temp.GeorgeRetired plumber
Re: insulating the holding tanks Reply #6 – January 20, 2015, 09:15:11 pm Yahoo Message Number: 150449Thank you to everyone who responded, via yahoo and via personal message. We are definitely not going to get the insulation on the holding tanks. We are about ready to order our Lazy Daze (YAY!) and will have a lot of time to read through past messages and files etc... to learn quite a bit more before we actually get our LD.-Rebecca Winters "the possibility of unconditional love"