When Hell Freezes Over

Hey everyone, Jared here.  Over the past two days, Ming and I have decided that it will be faster to divide and conquer for certain tasks.  So while she’s becoming an expert at making holes in fiberglass look like they never existed, I’ll be updating you all on strategies to keep our precious fresh water from freezing over during our winter tour.

So first for some background.  If you know anything about RV’ing (which we don’t yet), you’ve heard of “winterizing.”  What’s winterizing, you ask? Or, what’s WINTER, my friends in SLO-cal will ask?  Winterizing involves shutting down the fresh water and grey water systems for the duration of the winter, and storing all your water in big plastic sacs where it’s still nice and warm (inside your trailer).

But we don’t have any extra room inside the trailer!  So our plan is to add copious amounts of insulation to our fresh and grey water tanks in hopes of never waking up with four 150lb ice cubes strapped to the bottom of our little chariot.

So I spent the better part of the past two days installing the tanks, then lining them with 2.5″ of R20 insulation on all 4 sides and the bottom.  To position the water tanks, I used corner brackets, normally used for framing 2×4’s, to hold each tank in place against the floor of the trailer.  This will keep them in place, even if the insulation begins to move around in the box.  Finally, I cut a large sheet of 3/8″ plywood for the bottom of the box, and attached it with thirteen 10″ carriage bolts to the floor.

corner brackets in position on the underside of the floor

carriage bolts, corner brackets, Reflectix and Great $tuff

baseboard bolted to the main floor. We still have 9″ of ground clearance!

holding tanks in place against the plywood baseboard

We used two layers of 1″ R-Max Polyisocyanurate foam core (R6.5 each), followed by a layer of Reflectix, which is basically bubble wrap with silver paint on each side.  I used Great Stuff expanding foam to fill all the cracks between foam panels, as well as the massive hole where the axle goes through the whole assembly.  Finally, I plan to close up the box with 1/4″ maple plywood to protect the foam from rocks and road debris.

2.5″ of R20 excellence. I could sleep on the ice caps with this mattress!

carriage bolts holding the sub-floor to the main floor

two layers of R-Max

Great $tuff filling the gaps between the axle and the tanks

finished undercarriage ready to be boxed up (still need to add plumbing)

Time: 14 person-hours (inc. 4 hours of SHOPPING!!)

Dollars: $230

• 3 4’x8′ panels of 1″ R-Max foam
• 1x 4’x8′ sheet of 3/8″ plywood
• 2x 2’x2′ sheets of 1/4″ maple
• 3 cans of Great Stuff expanding foam
• 16x sets of 3/8″x10″ bolts, locknuts, lock washers, and 1.5″ washers
• foil tape and Reflectix foam insulation
• 16x corner brackets