Chicago!

So in our last post we told you that we were heading back to Chicago (in winter) to spend time with our daughter. Did I say in winter? Anyway spending time with Tori has been awesome. Patti and I obtained great jobs very quickly which also provided us with awesome medical insurance, so double bonus. We also bought a better car to ultimately take with us on the road so all in all, it has been a great continuation of our RV adventure! Tori is doing awesome and we are loving spending time with her!!!! And it has been great reconnecting in person with friends and family!

Except for the Polar Vortex!

We did the typical things to prepare our RV for a stay in winter:

• Connected our heated hose for water. Same hose we used with no problem. Note – we did buy a new hose because the heating element on the older one wasn’t working. The new hose was rated at -45 degrees so should be in good shape…. right?
• Insulated the sewer hose so we didn’t have a frozen sewer line. Should be in good shape…. right?
• Insulated the long slide where it is ventilated. If this isn’t done, cold air comes in whenever the fans are on.
• Put in 6 foot PVC pipes on top of the long slide underneath the slide cover (3 on each end). This keeps the slide cover from icing up and slamming on the roof of the long slide out.

So we should be ready for winter right? Sure, just not for a Polar Vortex!!!!!

January 30 – temp -25, windchill -45

Woke up at 5:00 AM and it was cold, not freezing but immediately I knew we had problems. Inside temperature was 55 degrees (not bad I thought for what was happening outside). I am going to break this down in 3 areas: Heat, Power, Water.

Heat

The Oasis heating system in the coach is awesome! It uses diesel fuel for the burner that provides 50,000 BTU’s to heat the coach and provide hot water. It also has 2 1500 Watt electric immersion elements for secondary heating. We also have heated floors that provide ambient heat as well.

Since diesel fuel freezes at about 10 degrees, I was getting the “Heater Module Fault” error which means the fuel burner was down. Fortunately I can reset it from inside the coach. It would run for about a minute and then fail with the fault. I knew what was happening, the diesel fuel was freezing or waxing up which caused the burner to “flame out”.

I turned off the diesel burner and turned on the electric. That started the system and getting some heat but I knew the system would not be able to keep up. So Patti went to a local Farm & Fleet store and got 4 space heaters. 2 large and 2 small heaters. In no time the RV was toasty, as long as we had power…… Did I say as long as we had power? Read on, the adventure gets interesting….

Power

I knew I was pushing the amps for the coach by:

• Using the electric heat vs the diesel
• Heated floors
• 4 space heaters

But I wasn’t thinking about it when we turned on the convection oven – breakers started popping and we had no power. Yes – panic ensued. I felt if we didn’t have power, we had to abandon the RV and head to a hotel which meant things in the RV would freeze and I would definitely have long term damage. I would be climbing the walls in a hotel room anyway so I had to figure this out!

I went outside (yep in -45 wind chill) and made sure we had power from the post, which we did. So obviously the fault was inside. I came back in and we did have some power (lights, refrigerator) but the convection oven, space heaters and the RV heat was not working. I discovered the inverter breaker had tripped. The inverter takes 12 VDC (coach batteries) and inverts the signal to 120 VAC. I turned everything off, reset the breaker and slowly turned things on. That worked! So if we were going to use an appliance – we simply needed to turn off one of the big space heaters to free up the amps. Disaster averted!

Water

While I was working on the Heat and Power, I checked the Water. I did have a couple of faucets trickling water before we went to bed, now nothing was happening. We have no water. I wasn’t too worried because we have a 110 gallon fresh water tank which I always keep full. Turned on the water pump and bingo, we have water.

I went outside again to check on the water situation and sure enough, our brand new heated water hose is frozen. So I wrestled with disconnecting one end in the RV and the other end from the ground connection that was heated and covered. Water was coming out of the ground connection and only 6 feet of hose was exposed, but still frozen. I was able to bring the hose inside and put it in our shower to thaw out.

Fortunately we had the water pump…. one hour later, the water pump stopped working. Now we have no water at all. At this point, I just started laughing. Patti went to the grocery store and bought 8 gallons of bottled water so we were good. However we agreed, no showers, no dishwasher and no washing clothes. We would use the water-tank water for washing up and water jugs for flushing the toilet. We also agreed to use just the toilet in the half bath, not the one in the master bath (something I forgot… stay tuned) since it backs directly to the escape door. In addition, the water to the refrigerator is not working which means it is not making ice. That was the least of our problems, we can just go outside for ice!

I took one of the small space heaters outside (again -25 degrees) and stuck it in the water bay near the water pump. Hopefully this will defrost the pump.

Two hours later, the water pump was working and I decided to just leave the space heater running in the water bay.

It is now noon on January 30 and we are both exhausted.

January 31 – temp -10, windchill -25

Everything is status quo as compared to yesterday.

• Space heaters working great and keeping us warm!
• Did not connect the water hose but we are doing well with the water pump and rationing the water jugs.
• Managing the power and have had no issues.
• I checked the level of our diesel tank (150 gallons) and it was just above 1/4 full. We had a full tank when we arrived so we used a lot of fuel for heat in the last 4 weeks. I was able to find a company that would deliver diesel fuel to our location and they will be here tomorrow. Very happy about this.

However we did have 2 more issues surface.

• One of the master bath faucets stopped working. I put the small space heater that we had in this room in the cabinet under the sink. An hour later, the faucet started working.
• Toilet in the master bath…. uh had a problem. Someone last night used the toilet and now it wouldn’t flush. So after I apologized to Patti, I tried to flush it again and still would not flush but now there is more water in the bowl. In addition, there is a certain smell wafting in the RV. I blamed the smell on Patti not showering, she didn’t buy it. I can flush it without water because it uses an electric motor. The water in the bowl would churn but not go down. So Patti made an emergency air freshener / grocery store run! 2 hours later, the RV smells like a florist shop. I set the space heater as close to the toilet as possible. We shall see if this works.

February 1 – temp 20, windchill 5

Heat wave and slowly the systems start to work.

• Heat – kept this going with the space heaters, I felt it was still too cold to use the diesel burner.
• Water – I reconnected the heated water hose and yippee, we have water! Water rationing has been suspended!
• Fuel – fuel truck came and put in 95 gallons of treated diesel fuel that also has anti gelling agents. They only charged us $50 for delivery on top of the cost of fuel. Very happy!!
• Toilet – not working but the RV is still smelling like a flower shop.

February 2 – temp 40, windchill 30

Heat wave and boy does it feel good.

• Heat – turned off all space heaters and started the diesel fuel burner for the Oasis heating system. No problems, everything working fine!
• Generator and Main engine – fired up the generator and main engine to have the treated fuel run thru the systems. No problems!
• Toilet – in the middle of the day, it started working. The frozen sewage pipe cleared and we can now flush the toilet. All air fresheners were closed and put away!
• Water – everything working and I retrieved the space heater from the water bay.
• Refrigerator – water is working and making ice!
• New problem – Sewer hose! So we were on our way out to eat a celebration breakfast and I checked the tanks. The grey tank is a third full. This isn’t right since I keep the grey tank open so water could flow right to the sewer line. Patti confirmed nothing that uses water is running. So this means the sewer hose is frozen. ARRRGGG. Fortunately I emptied the black tank before the cold arrived so all of the water in the hose is grey water. We went out to breakfast and when we came back I confirmed that 20 feet of sewer hose is frozen. Fortunately there is an RV dealership 30 minutes away and Patti went to get new sewer hose. I put a space heater next to the 90 degree elbow that goes to the sewer connection in the ground. After 30 minutes, the elbow was ice free but the hose was frozen solid along with the insulation around it. I connected the new hose with no problem and later we put on a new layer of insulation.

Aftermath

So all in all the Polar Vortex pushed our limits but did not beat us! Everything is working perfectly now with no damage! Praise God! Newmar builds a strong and insulated coach and we are thankful for having it!