The Great Water Dump - Frozen rinse/waste tanks

Image from strivetosimplify.com

Our winter Rving adventure continues.  Previously, we posted How to Thaw and Drain Waste Tanks.  So far, that method has been working good.  However, today dumping was quite an ordeal.  We had two electric heaters in the compartment where the waste tanks are and a propane camp stove for heat.  It took about 4 hours before the valves would even move.  But, it was also 0 degrees.  Right now, it is 18 degrees and feels like 2 with the windchill.  It is going to be really cold this week as well with lows below zero and we are supposed to get lots more snow Sunday night into Monday.  No relief in sight.

So....back to the Great Water Dump - once we finally got the valves to move, we were able to dump.  But, then, we noticed another problem.  In spite of putting salt in the tanks, there were clumps of ice in the tanks.  We could see it when we looked down the toilet into the tank.  So, we filled up 5 gallon buckets of hot water and flushed out the tanks....still parts were frozen solid.  Next, we filled up buckets of hot water again and let it sit in the tanks to hopefully melt the ice.  It melted some of it.  But, not all.  So, we went through the whole process again - this time we included salt to try to melt more of the ice.  That finally melted almost all of it.  Poor Chad is all tuckered out now from carrying so many 5 gallon buckets back and forth.  (It ended up being about 15 buckets of water.)  We didn't know this was going to take up most of the day.  But, just another "joy" of Rving in winter.  We will be using our water in very limited amounts this week.  We would like to go as long as possible without needing to dump again.  However, we usually can't make it more than a week.  But, we will see.

A friend suggested using heated pads on the tanks.  We are going to look into that.  The only electrical outlet close by is the one we have our fridge plugged into.  So, we will have to figure something out. 

And, now, I'm going to do laundry.....

Related Posts
How to live in an RV during Winter
How to Thaw & Drain Waste Tanks 
Our Water Pipes Froze