We came to Guffey for a few days over the holidays, and are sitting here on the love seat we brought from home. (It’s awful nice to have this comfortable reclining sofa–the one that came with the RV was a rather uncomfy sofabed.)
This trip has been an adventure for sure. First, we came down for a day trip last week, to bring the loveseat. It had snowed the day before, Kenosha Pass was reported closed, so we took a different route, through Canon City. It was nice to know we have that option, and easier traveling to avoid icy roads.
It snowed again, Christmas Day and the day after, so we waited until Sunday the 28th to come stay for a few days. We were expecting the propane company to bring our tank on Tuesday and needed to be here for that. We also wanted to be here to relax a bit, read, enjoy some time away. Monday was cold and snowy; we spent the day indoors working on various projects. We got our new roll-up window shade installed as well as some for the smaller windows that attach with velcro.
Since then, it’s been COLD! Frigid, I would say. Monday topped out at around 15, with a low of -9. Tuesday morning was around -15, and we woke to discover that the freshwater tank must have frozen–we had no running water. In expectation of receiving the propane tank around noon, we ran the furnace a lot, hoping to thaw the tank. We followed the water lines, trying to find where the freeze might be, we pointed an electric space heater toward the pump and water lines in attempt to thaw. There is really no way to access the freshwater tank without cutting a hole in the underbelly or removing a large portion of it. This RV is supposed to be the “arctic package”, but I guess there’s only so much cold it can handle. When we bought it, the former owner had built insulated skirting around it which we took apart and brought here, but haven’t had time to put it up yet.
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| Tim is dunking a bottle into the tank to bring up water. |
Tim managed to thaw the frozen water in the water tank we use to haul the water here with a submersible water heater (another story) and draw water out with a bottle tied to some twine, which I heated on the stove. We dumped hot water into the fresh water tank to try to thaw it, but that didn’t help either.
Eventually, the propane delivery came, we managed to get the tank set up and the propane flowing, Tim helped the driver get his truck out of the snowy driveway, and we were back to working on the water situation. We actually reached a high of +13 at one point, but most of the time when the guys were out installing the propane, it was around 0. Later, with a 200 gallon tank of propane to use, we turned up the thermostat on the furnace, and Tim redirected one of the ducts to blow hot air down toward the freshwater tank. We’ve got heat, electricity, a stove, oven and microwave to cook with, plenty of food, jugs of water, and we’re fine.
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| Resourcefulness! |
Around 6 pm, the temp dropped to a whopping -23! Yes, that was a minus in front of the 23. We’ve got plenty of propane, so left the furnace on, with the duct pointed toward the fresh tank. It was on all night. This morning, we still have no running water. At this point, Tim brought in a cooler full of water, which he managed to draw through the pump. At least we now have running water! (All the way to the potty 🙂 The water heater is full and hot, so with the pump functioning, we even have hot water. (Time for a shower??)
With a little snow predicted for tomorrow, we think it’s best to pack up and go home. The exit tube for the black & grey tanks are frozen, too, so we can’t dump them. They are minimally full, we can’t completely winterize the RV, but we’ll do what we can. We will put antifreeze though the water lines, and leave the tanks as-is. There should be plenty of space in them for frozen water to expand, so hopefully they won’t crack or cause problems. Tim hopes to get back here on a warmer weekend to put up the skirting, and hopefully get those tanks emptied. Now that we have plenty of propane, we’ll leave the thermostat on to around 50-55, and hope for the best.
It’s surely an adventure!