Frozen caravan water problems

Yes in very cold weather both fresh and waste can freeze. Usually with fresh it is the pipe that goes into the aqua roll. They do sell jackets to put round your Aqua roll but we use an old high vis jacket and put the pipe up the sleeve. Although if very cold it is best to bring it in last thing at night. The pipe/ pump and filter that is, not the aquaroll. With the waste it is usually the pipes under the van with shallow falls. These normally thaw out without incident, although can occasionally push joints apart, but these easily push together. The hardest part is lying on the cold ground to do it,

A good tip if you are on a service pitch and freezing weather is expected on your last night, is to de tackle the day before and go back onto the normal set up. Trying to get frozen hoses off taps and then get them to coil is not funny.

Although the aquaroll can freeze and you can buy insulation or use bubble wrap or an old coat the main problem in my experience is the pipe freezing.  If it going to freeze then I would suggest you have water in a kettle jug or whatever and at last thing at night bring the pipe from the aquaroll in.  The other thing to consider is the waste tank you are better using a bucket in freezing conditions. 

 

And cooking and breathing in it in the cold presumably creates more condesnsation, so do you need to give it a good ventilate when you get home?

Thanks for any help,

Richard.

Ours is in storage, so we cannot leave roof  vent or windows open. However, even without this vans are fairly well ventilated anyway. In the winter months to minimise problems, we try to avoid cooking anything that would involve making a lot of steam on the last night. Use site facilities on the last morning instead of onboard shower. Plus defrost the fridge overnight, putting residual food in a cold box in the car. All this minimises the amount of water vapour left in the van and to date we have had no,problems.

<...> if very cold it is best to bring it in last thing at night. The pipe/ pump and filter that is, not the aquaroll. <...>

I'm glad you made that qualification! My first thought on glancing at it was that we're only planning on a very small caravan, and an aquaroll would take up quite a lot of space overnight!!
Does this mean that the loo wouldn't flush during the night, with water cut off?
I like the idea of a sleeve on the tube. I imagine one of those split-sided lagging tubes they sell at builders' merchants might do the job well too - or is the pipe usually too bent to cope with this?
(Off topic aside - such tubes are seriously useful when posting wooden instruments like recorders or bagpipe bits, but that's nothing to do with caravans, just thought you'd like to know. And fear not, I don't play Scots pipes, so I won't be playing them in a caravan near you )

Is your van one that does not have a separate flush tank for the toilet?

"Fine, extending the season is part of the planned move away from tents, but we hadn't necessarily intended our first trip to be in the depths of winter! If we  had a CDP at home it would be tempting to try it on the front drive, but would feel like cheating!"

HH, certainly not cheating and a great way to become fully familiar with your van. also, you dont need a CDP just to empty (effectively) fresh water that you've run through the system, but if you're thinking about the cassette toilet, you could always pop back inside the house for the loo, or empty it in the house loo after the experiment...

how long were you thinking of staying on the drive?...

Thanks all very much.
KjellNN, the honest answer is: I don't know yet! We've had a first inspection of the  'van we hope to own, we're going for a fuller inspection this week, and as I said, we're new to caravans. So I still have to find out how these things work - I assumed that while the toilet would have one flush available, it would then need to take up more from the Aquaroll. Without getting into sordid details I realise that one flush could well suffice two people for a night, but it's nice to know these things before you find it's not working!

BB, that's encouraging! We obviously need to practise towing it to a site and doing the things you people by now take for granted, but a night on the drive first may well be a good start. As we've realised when watching, (and just occasionally rescuing), people new to tents sturggling to work them out, there are bound to be more things than we now realise, no matter how much reading we do first!

No, it will either have a flush tank or not, and if not I doubt there would be enough residual water in the pipes, without the Aquaroll connected, to give a flush, especially if you had used a water tap before.

There is also hand washing to consider.  You can get sanitising gel you can use instead of soap and water.

If no flush tank, we find a bottle of water kept in the bathroom to  be a good substitute, or you could use a spray bottle of "pink", or your chosen substitute.

If there is a flush tank it will be visible behind the toilet, and there will be a filling point outside.

For emptying the cassette at home, either carefully in the house toilet, or do you have a manhole outside the house that gives access to your drains?

Rainwater goes separately, but your bathwater and toilet flushing will both go to the same drain.

If we  had a CDP at home it would be tempting to try it on the front drive, but would feel like cheating!

 

That should not be an issue stopping you using it at home to sort out any issues. If you empty it each morning into your home WC there is really no need to use any loo chemicals at all. They ought if sold in the EU be suitable for homes on the main sewage system or cess pits, the only issue is with septic tanks. Anyway, no chemicals, or bio laundry washing pods or fluid can be used.

Buying 2nd hand with a short warranty I would be into the trail at home.