Mobile home question

roadless · #1 10/28/13, 05:33 AM

I am new to mobile home life. I will be moving to another state till spring, but I will be going back and forth ( a couple of times a month) to my mobile home in PA. For this reason I can't fully winterize it but I don't want to throw away good money either. I don't want to turn off the water because it could be tricky to turn it back on with snow but off course I have to be careful about pipes freezing. What temp. should I set the heat? Any suggestions will be appreciated.

Dixie Bee Acres · #2 10/28/13, 06:34 AM

Kinda depends on how new and how well built the mobile is.
An older one, I would say wrap all of your water lines with heat tape and insulation, set thermostat inside at about 58 or so, and keep undersink cabinet doors open.

Gianni · #3 10/28/13, 01:26 PM

Plastic lines do not do well with heat tape. Older mobiles ran the lines next to the heat ducts, Ones built in the last 25 years are all over the map. I would open every cabinet door and keep it @ 55-60 inside.
I would stake down an empty, upside down garbage can over the shut off valve and drain it if it were me. $500 fuel use would not be unknown here to keep an empty house warm in the winter. You have no body, heat, no lights, no one managing solar from draperies, big time problems if you have a power outage. I would pay to have it drained, IIWM.

roadless · #4 10/28/13, 03:04 PM

Thank you for your replies. It is older with plastic pipes.

Jolly · #5 10/28/13, 04:35 PM

We always turned the water off, drained all the pipes and put a dollop of antifreeze in any drain with a P-trap.

Worked for us...

luvrulz · #6 10/28/13, 04:39 PM

And then there are cases like my mom's.....she took every precaution and had her pipes wrapped and everything was professionally winterized by an independent contractor..... Then she lost her electricity when a storm blew through and her pipes froze even though she went through all that. You can't cover every eventuality but if you aren't there, keep tabs on the weather from where you are and if the power goes out - get there fast!

roadless · #7 10/28/13, 06:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jolly

We always turned the water off, drained all the pipes and put a dollop of antifreeze in any drain with a P-trap.

Worked for us...

The problem is that I will be going back and forth so I don't want to winterize it totally . I do have someone close by who can check on it.

fordy · #8 10/28/13, 09:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roadless

The problem is that I will be going back and forth so I don't want to winterize it totally . I do have someone close by who can check on it.

..............Go to W.mt. and purchase a couple of gallons of the "RED" RV antifreeze..........pour a quart or so in the commode tank or maybe a half gallon , flush , once , and you should have some increased protection from freezing ! , fordy

wharton · #9 10/30/13, 04:13 AM

I have built many vacation homes, and one of the things that I really try to get burned into my customers heads is........ If you are not here, the water stays off. Like others have said, the best of plans fail, and it can be hard to imagine how much damage can be done when water flows for a few hours. When you are talking a leak that doesn't get noticed for weeks, it can pretty much destroy a place.

I would shut the water off, run all the faucets and toilets to drain as much water from the system as possible, and keep all the cabinet doors open to circulate heat to the pipes.

BigHenTinyBrain · #10 10/30/13, 06:36 AM

Im with Wharton- I've seen so many homes where the power went out nd the whole place was flooded. It can be especially upsetting if it was an isolated incident- your power is out, or a breaker is flipped, while the rest of the neighborhood is fine, so no one knows to contact you or check on your house. If you re not there to keep it warm then you should probably deal with the hassle.
Also- what do you have around the base of the mobile home to insulate from outside temps? Keeping it 55+ inside may not be enough if there are semi-exposed pipes underneath. Around here many people use bales of hay for winter foundations.

roadless · #11 10/30/13, 10:53 AM

BigHenTinyBrain that is a concern for me. There is a skirting on the mobile home but since it is in a mobile home park I will not be allowed to use hay around the base.

Common Tator · #12 10/30/13, 02:15 PM

I no expert, and not smart in the ways of proper plumbing. It seems that the park supplied water should have a shutoff valve at each space. Since it is in an area that freezes, shouldn't that be an anti frost valve? Couldn't you shut the water off at that valve before you leave? Then the question would be about water still in the lines. I believe one of the first things my handy hubby would be doing is putting in a hose bib outside, lower than the rest of the water lines. This could be used to drain all of the water from the trailer. Would this work?

roadless · #13 10/30/13, 02:19 PM

The shutoff valve is under the trailer....it can be quite tricky to get at depending on the amount of snow but it seems that is the smart thing to do.

o&itw · #14 10/30/13, 02:36 PM

A couple of things to consider;

Many of the old heat tapes, especially if they get loose and end up crossed will short and start a fire, and yes, fiberglass will burn.

In many of the older mobile homes, the bimetal thermostats are designed to work effectively between a range of 60 and 80 F. If you would turn them down to 50 F, they would never come on.

Pipes in many mobile homes are "wavy", ie. they are not pefectly straight horizontaly or sloped at a straight angle. The low spots will hold water and freeze even if the pipes are drained. Some people get around this by blowing them out with compressed air, but this doesn't always work if the remaining droplets throughout the pipe drain back to a central low spot.

In any case, whether you set a bale of hay in front of the skirting or portect access in some other way, turn the water off when you leave. Idealy the turn off valve should be in the ground with a handle coming up out of the ground (outside the homes footprint)

You have what you have, and will have to deal with it, but please take the advice of those above and turn off the water when you are gone for any extended period.

roadless · #15 10/30/13, 02:44 PM

I did just install a new furnace and thermostat. What is a bimetal thermostat?
Would the antifreeze take care of the low spots?
Can I just turn on the water when I visit and add more antifreeze when I leave ?
Thanks all for the info......see ya can teach an ol dog new tricks!

o&itw · #16 10/31/13, 10:46 AM

Antifreeze is fine for the toliet and the sink traps. However, most antifreeze is poisonous and should not be used in water lines.

They do make "temporary" antifreeze that is alcohol, but I think it would be a real pain to try to get it into your water lines.

All the older thermostats had a curled piece of metalic strip inside them with a mercury switch. Since the strip was made of a layer or two differnt metals which expended at different rates with a temperature, it would curl one way or the other withe the temperature. Those thermostats were usually round or sometimes rectangular, but came out from the wall about 1 1/2". If you have a new thermostat that only comes out from the wall a half an inch or so, it may be electronic and would probably work fine.

Mobile home question - Homesteading Questions

roadless · #17 10/31/13, 11:16 AM

Thanks for the info !

Bellyman · #18 10/31/13, 11:45 AM

Winterizing seems like a real pain. BUT... it gives you a lot of peace of mind. You just don't have to worry about it. Plus, you don't have to heat a house that no one's living in.

If you wanted to get a little creative, you could probably plumb in an aux feed to your water line where you could use a cheap rv water pump to pump in rv water line antifreeze. It's cheap and it's not poison. It might give you the back door trots if you ingest it (by not flushing out the pipes when dewinterizing) but it won't really hurt you like an automotive antifreeze would if you drank it.

I can winterize our rv in about 15 minutes and it takes me about 2.5 gallons. I drain and bypass the water heater (which in our case is only 6 gallons) and we have no dishwasher or ice maker. I typically do it once or twice a year when traveling away from it. Sure saves on worry over whether the gas ran out, whether the electric went off, etc., etc. And propane ain't cheap even with the thermostat turned down.

Give it some thought. It might not be as difficult as you might have imagined. You just have to think things through to make sure it's all covered.

wharton · #19 11/02/13, 06:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by o&itw

Antifreeze is fine for the toliet and the sink traps. However, most antifreeze is poisonous and should not be used in water lines.

They do make "temporary" antifreeze that is alcohol, but I think it would be a real pain to try to get it into your water lines.

RV antifreeze is food safe, non-toxic, readily available, good for negative 50* and commonly used in this application. I pump this stuff into all the water lines in my camper, every fall, and flush it out in spring. It's red in color, and available for less that $3/gallon at Wal-Mart.

As for getting it into the water lines, it really wouldn't be hard to rig something up to do the job. I have a 12 volt pump in the RV and just adjust a few valves, then the system sucks antifreeze right out of the jug, until the lines are pressurized. The toilets and sink traps are also filled with the stuff.

JoePa · #20 11/03/13, 09:55 AM

I agree with Wharton - do the same thing that I do with my camper - drain all lines at the low spot - making sure you open all sink valves - then fill the lines with RV antifreeze - pour some into the traps and toilet - in your case you have to shut off the water first - when you return turn on the water - when you use the faucets the water will flush out the antifreeze - the antifreeze is cheap -