Hi, I’m Jenice and this is my first year with my van. I am not a full timer yet and will need to prepare my van for winter. My van has a Bosch water heater that cannot be winterized so my water system will be subject to freezing. I can plug in and run an electric heater when the weather calls for below freezing temps. Is that a good idea though? Does anyone have any other ideas or tips for cold weather?
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Unlike how everyone treats me, I am nice and will help people.
I wouldn’t recomend leaving a heater in your vehicle while it’s unattended? Fire hazard. You can do one of two things. You can drain the water heater and the pipes or ad an anti freeZe to then but you won’t be able to use it with anti freeze in the water system. There is a third option of it’s just barely below freezing. You could put an incandescent 500-1,000 watt light in your vehicle and it will keep it warm enough to not freeze. If the temperature gets too low, the light will not keep it from freezing. That’s more of an emergency thing to do if you don’t have a way to empty the system or out anti freeze in it. I used to do this with my boats in Dallas, TX where it never froze too hard. This would not work up north in say Colorado. How the information helps.
I just installed an Espar D1 for my camp van. It’s sweet! The installation is a bit of a pain to do correctly and in a manner that conserves space, but the results are worth it.
Thanks for your responses. Not gonna lie, it made me apprehensive to leave a ceramic heater run all night while not being present. The previous owner told me I could not use antifreeze in the water heater. So would draining out all the water eliminate the freezing of pipes and damage that would cause?