We think we're in trouble!!!

[flyfishrra]

It has been colder than dog snot for a few days here in Denver, and we've both been sick, so we got a little "lazy" on our nightly duties. Drained everything last night before bed, pump working fine. And this morning, not so fine.

The pump sounds like it is trying to work, there is suction into the pump, but there is no water. There may be a frozen 4' section that we cannot get to, behind, under closets and such.

Furnace is on and running so is the blowdryer, but so far we got nothing.
We are at a loss as far as what steps we should take next. Any advice?

[masseyfarm]

Turn the pump off. Turn the heat up. Go back to bed.

Dave

[CanoeStream]

You've got all lower compartment doors open to allow circulation access to under the cabinets? Set a thermometer at floor level. Is it even as much as 50°? This could take a while. Leave the pump off for now.

Seems to me that the mass of the pump is going to take a while to warm up. Think of this more like thawing a couple pounds of something rather than just one hot dog.

When you drained, you opened the low point and then all your spigots? And the HW heater of course. Good... Did you do anything to treat the water in your traps? Copper plumbing? Keep an eye on sweated joints in the immediate vicinity after you've thawed out.

[TBRich]

Not much you can do until the pipes thaw...as advised above, turn the pump off till then ... After the thaw you can investigate to see if you have any problem areas. Hopefully it just froze and didn't break anything. Fingers crossed!

We are having very cold weather here in Tucson (relatively speaking...nothing compared to what you are experiencing)...been down to about 23 degrees the last 2 nights and 2 more nights of it before the cold front passes on.

We don't winterize because of our relatively mild winters, so when it does get to around freezing we keep the funace on at 55 degrees, crank up the water heater...then before bed we run hot water through the system, turn the pump off and leave faucets open so there's room for anything that gets too cold to expand a little. So far so good.

[Wazbro]

Did you make sure the valves are closed after you tried the pump?

[Mike Leary]

We've been in plenty of cold spots and what we did was to buy a couple of little dweeb heaters, open up the rear tambour doors and place them. If it gets that cold (we've been in -9 temps) we'll run the the liquid radiators, bow and stern. The main furnace will cycle all night when it's really cold and keeps us awake so it's a coin flip in the morning to see who gets up and fires the furnace and the roof air heat strip. I've never drained the the coach because of cold.

[flyfishrra]

Thanks Everyone. We got it.. Was just a small spot between the water tank and the pump that had gotten frozen.. First time that had happened so far this winter. I actually have two light bulbs in the rear compartment of the plumbing during this cold to keep the lines from freezing.. Works great. This part froze about 5 feet from the water tank where it is exposed to the outside a little more. The rest of the line runs inside the trailer except this section for some reason. It actually was frozen again this morning but I am not worried about it. It was below zero last night and will only get to 14 today. We have extra water in the trailer and are at work all day today anyways. Will be 40 tomorrow and almost 50 the rest of the week. Will just wait till tomorrow for it to thaw back out! No biggie!