stopping water barrels from freezing!!!!

[c_374367680]

going away in the new year in caravan, and wanted to know how i can stop the water in the barrel from freezing if its very cold when we go?

has anyone had a problem with freezing water before or does anyone know how to prevent this from happening!!!

 

[SirRogerFFS]

c

There has been several thoughts on this one from wrapping the aquaroll with a warm coat to even using a fish tank heater(good idea I thought )or maybe even cut an old quilt down to wrap it in .Im sure you will get more replies to this .

Regards Sir Roger

 

[SirRogerFFS]

Also check further down this page for more ideas , about 10 or 11 postings down now

Sir Roger

 

[RayS]

Hopefully our new and improved website will have a good "search" facility for this sort of question. in the meantime I can only give the (not serious) suggestion i gave some years ago -i.e. add sufficient gin / whisky / rum (to taste) as an antifreeze.

 

[Hamer_5041128]

c,

A few years ago at Chatsworth C.C.site over Christmas and New Year we had temps down to -8C for 3 noghts and a max of 1C during the day plus snow. On the second morning of these temps at least 15 aqaurolls had frozen solid. The warden allowed all the frozen ones to be put in the laundry which was heated to 70F.

It was quite amuseing seeing all these frozen ones with their water pipes sticking out of their tops.

From this i learnt a lesson. If the temp is going to drop below freezing, fiill the kettle before going to bed and put some water in another say 1 gallon container, and then disconnect the aquaroll and put it in the awning or if no awning empty it and place it outside the caravan door to fill in the morning.

Bring the pump inside the caravan.

If you have an inboard tank, as we do, then make sure the tank is full at night and just empty the aquaroll.

If you fully insulate the aquaroll you may get away with it but do not forget to insulate the pipe from the aquaroll to the caravan.

Hamer

 

[ProfJohnL]

Whilst a frozen water barrel will make life difficult, there are other items which are more likely to freeze first.

The pump hose is much more exposed, and having less thermal mass will succumb more rapidly than the barrel.

equally the waste pipes are more vulnerable, so some though must be given here too.

 

[vauxhall2]

you can buy padded bags for around

 

[Reg]

What proportions of the rum, whiskey etc do you need to add and do you use them all at the same time?

 

[Del_374232870]

For the last van we bought a lagging jacket from Wickes. Wrapped it around the aquaroll, then put the aqua roll inside an extra large bin bag. The pump was insulated using pipe lagging and the top of the bin bag tied so that the whole lot was insulated. As added precaution I used to get an old cardboard box which I flattened and sat the aqua roll on to insulate from the grouns, never had a problem in 12 years with frozed water.

 

[Stephen_374341239]

Hi there

The water jackets from Wicks seem,s to work well. If you purchase the small jacket for header tanks for house heating this fits Aqaroll 40 liters well. Make sure you purchase with plastic covering as there are two types one will keep the rain out and one will not. Also at the same time purchase a leghth of pipe lagging this you can cut to go round the water pump pipe from Aquaroll to caravan this stops this from freezing.

Hope this helps regards Steve

 

[ChrisH]

It might be a bit late if you've already departed, but we had experience a few winters ago of caravanning in temperatures which were well below freezing for over a week - down to minus 7 on some nights. We were staying at a site near Munich for the Christmas Fairs.

The trick was to remove the pump and pipe from the barrel when we went to bed and keep it warm inside the van (the heating was running continuously). Ditto when we went out during the day.

Then we turned the barrel on it's side so when the ice froze on the top surface of the water, it didn't block the access hole for the pump. When we ran out of water I filled the barrel from the HOT tap in the loo block and that melted the ice that had formed inside.

Seemed to work fine for us although we did wrap the car blanket around the barrel which might have helped.