Hamster-HILO
Member
Thought I'd share this experience for anyone planning to be similarly situated. We own a 1993 21-ft FunLite.
We hoped to start an est. 6-mo. house remodel on July 1, but the City delayed our permit until Oct and transformed our modest remodeling hopes to a full-on tear-down and rebuild. Our plan to live in our Hi-Lo during this work therefore became more complicated.
First set of complicating factors was that the house water had to be shut off for the demo, and the trailer had to be moved way back on the lot to be out of the way. Our only choice for a water supply was a standard rubber garden hose hooked to a friendly neighbor's hose bibb a hundred feet away, exposed to winter weather.
Second complicating factor: we have no RV power on the site, yet. So for now we are plugged by an over-long extension cord into 110V 20A (the panel is in our garage which is not being rebuilt yet).
First actual problem arrived when we had to move the trailer a few feet out of the way again, but could not get the top down on 20A. I tried everything but it seems there is no fix for that except to wait for 30A power to be run.
Then come November, we had a series of freeze-thaw cycles that made our ersatz water supply intermittent. This is near Puget Sound about an hour south of Vancouver BC, where it doesn't usually freeze very hard. So, we merely drained and bypassed the water heater each time it was forecast to freeze, but left all cold taps adrip. The trailer piping would be frozen (just), but would soon thaw, each morning until we bought ten bales of straw to stack about the margins of the rear half of the trailer. The straw worked well enough to keep the trailer plumbing working on City pressure, that is, when the water supply hose was working. We never filled the on-board tank: too much to drain every time freezing weather is expected.
This morning, after a few days of dry weather with lows in the upper 20s and highs in the mid 30s, the water pressure was low in the morning and then about 7:30 am all the trailer inside lights suddenly went out and the furnace fan stopped, but the receptacles still worked. I checked and the extension cord was carrying power to the trailer, so I read some threads here and decided it was probably a grounding problem. Sure enough, I looked and the main grounding cable was loose: the clamp would slide along the pipe, and the wire came right out (presumably vibration during towing compounded by wet weather and freeze-thaw cycles, had caused this). And also the 20A inline fuse had blown. I cleaned up the pipe and clamp with a wire brush and re-tightened it, then replaced the fuse; and that restored the lights and furnace fan.
In a week or two these sorts of problems may diminish. By then we'll have a permanent water line buried in a 2-foot deep trench, with a keyed faucet below frost line, and running from that a 25-foot heated hose for a potable water connection. (Later, when construction is over, the faucet will be replaced with a sanitary yard hydrant.) The heated hose will plug into a new weatherproof sub-panel, also sporting a 30A RV socket, to stand a few feet away. I would have deployed these conveniences beforehand, and indeed I tried, but the City would not permit them as standalone items - we're zoned single-family detached and they said they could not ensure we would not live in the trailer. However, in the context of a complete tear-down and rebuild the same fixtures apparently are well camouflaged. Go figure.
Should I cross-post this to the Plumbing forum?
Jeff
We hoped to start an est. 6-mo. house remodel on July 1, but the City delayed our permit until Oct and transformed our modest remodeling hopes to a full-on tear-down and rebuild. Our plan to live in our Hi-Lo during this work therefore became more complicated.
First set of complicating factors was that the house water had to be shut off for the demo, and the trailer had to be moved way back on the lot to be out of the way. Our only choice for a water supply was a standard rubber garden hose hooked to a friendly neighbor's hose bibb a hundred feet away, exposed to winter weather.
Second complicating factor: we have no RV power on the site, yet. So for now we are plugged by an over-long extension cord into 110V 20A (the panel is in our garage which is not being rebuilt yet).
First actual problem arrived when we had to move the trailer a few feet out of the way again, but could not get the top down on 20A. I tried everything but it seems there is no fix for that except to wait for 30A power to be run.
Then come November, we had a series of freeze-thaw cycles that made our ersatz water supply intermittent. This is near Puget Sound about an hour south of Vancouver BC, where it doesn't usually freeze very hard. So, we merely drained and bypassed the water heater each time it was forecast to freeze, but left all cold taps adrip. The trailer piping would be frozen (just), but would soon thaw, each morning until we bought ten bales of straw to stack about the margins of the rear half of the trailer. The straw worked well enough to keep the trailer plumbing working on City pressure, that is, when the water supply hose was working. We never filled the on-board tank: too much to drain every time freezing weather is expected.
This morning, after a few days of dry weather with lows in the upper 20s and highs in the mid 30s, the water pressure was low in the morning and then about 7:30 am all the trailer inside lights suddenly went out and the furnace fan stopped, but the receptacles still worked. I checked and the extension cord was carrying power to the trailer, so I read some threads here and decided it was probably a grounding problem. Sure enough, I looked and the main grounding cable was loose: the clamp would slide along the pipe, and the wire came right out (presumably vibration during towing compounded by wet weather and freeze-thaw cycles, had caused this). And also the 20A inline fuse had blown. I cleaned up the pipe and clamp with a wire brush and re-tightened it, then replaced the fuse; and that restored the lights and furnace fan.
In a week or two these sorts of problems may diminish. By then we'll have a permanent water line buried in a 2-foot deep trench, with a keyed faucet below frost line, and running from that a 25-foot heated hose for a potable water connection. (Later, when construction is over, the faucet will be replaced with a sanitary yard hydrant.) The heated hose will plug into a new weatherproof sub-panel, also sporting a 30A RV socket, to stand a few feet away. I would have deployed these conveniences beforehand, and indeed I tried, but the City would not permit them as standalone items - we're zoned single-family detached and they said they could not ensure we would not live in the trailer. However, in the context of a complete tear-down and rebuild the same fixtures apparently are well camouflaged. Go figure.
Should I cross-post this to the Plumbing forum?
Jeff
