FROZEN FECES AND POOPCICLES

The RV lifestyle isn’t all fun and games. There are many things to deal with just as owning a home. The refrigerator won’t light, the battery is low, the heater won’t ignite, and here is a new one for me, the waste holding tanks and pipes are frozen! 

This winter has been a record for cold nights in Big Bend National Park, and one still night it reached the single digits. The warming sun rose, not a cloud in the sky. We decided it was time to run the rig over to the dump station, empty and water up for another few days. When we arrived we discovered the park water lines were all still frozen from the night before. The sun was hitting the pipes so I worked on getting a drip started and Gaila and I sat in the motor home and played cards until finally the water was streaming through the pipes at a decent flow. I went out and tried to open the valve on the motor home black water tank----FROZEN. I tried the gray water tank----FROZEN. We played cards for another hour while we waited for the sun to do it’s magic. When I could finally open my sewer valve nothing happened. I was still frozen into the pipe and tank. I took the sewer hose off to inspect, when Murphy’s Law kicked in and the log jam (pun intended) broke loose. Luckily the first wave of frozen feces hit the ground like a slushy snowcone and hesitated long enough for me to get the hose back on. It could have been jump or swim, but the disaster was diverted with action on the part of a master dumper like myself. The solution will be a short wrap of heat tape around my exposed pipes. I can fire it up with the generator when needed and speed the process along. It could also save a lot of misery from cracked pipes if it stayed cold for any length of time.