Hopefully, everyone got the chance to winterize everything before the deep freeze hit us. Still, I suspect there are some surprises just waiting to be discovered.

We turn the breaker off to the well, drain lines and pour antifreeze in the toilets before we leave the ranch in the winter.

Perfect no surprises in the spring.

I’m headed there now. Hopefully it’s nothing major but I’m expecting issues

That’s a good plan

We do the same. We forgot to drain the HW heater so I’m thinking it might be a goner. But it was on its last legs anyway....

I forgot to drain mine as well....

Hope it’s all OK. Be safe on the road.

Driving up tomorrow. Neighbors said we had rolling blackouts, but they were short outages. We should be good in the house. There is one outside faucet that I'm worried about, but it should be an easy fix if I can find parts.

JR

LO just called saying our water faucet used for the campers appears to have bursted so he turned it off at the well. May be another week before he can get to it. No biggie. I have never drained the water heater in the trailer but It might have bit me this time. Was -9 out there. Going out there next weekend to fill feeders.

Just talked to ranch forman.They have been without electricity for 7-8 days. That means our camp as well. Asked him to check on freezer and throw out
anything that looked bad. Cows and deer seem to be fine. The other ranches with sheep and goats between eldorado and sonora not so good.

Frozen / cracked galv. union in well house which had a heat lamp, split p-trap in kitchen and a frozen and cracked galv. ell in bathroom.
Water was turned off and comode empty, faucets were open.

It was cold at the lease. The good everything in trailer good. Had drained HW heater, drained fresh water tank, drained water from lines added anti freeze to grey and black tanks.

Hoping the best for our camper. I drained everything and added antifreeze to all the traps. But it was really cold for a long time so fingers crossed. Hope to go out this next weekend and check everything.

We had a busted water line on the well but everything else looked good.

we didn't have to worry about it, our water line in my travel trailer froze & burst back in Nov. and I haven't taken time away from hunting to fix it. I am dreading it because it's under the floor and I will have to crawl under the trailer and drop out all the panels and likely the tanks, going to be a royal PITB.

Could you connect a new line with the old and pull it through or is the run too far?

May have to add to our regiment for down there. In south duval county freezing is generally not a concern.

Our water heater/toilet are inside an insulated metal building and inside an insulated barndominium, so think they are ok. My concern is the well pressure tank and above ground piping, at least it is turned off i guess.

I lucked out at my place in Stonewall County. I didn't lose electricity so my heat lamp kept my pump from freezing. Praise the Lord for no frozen or busted lines.

Does everyone not cut everything off every time they leave their place? Seems risky as heck not to no matter what the weather is.

We leave the breaker to the fridge and deep freezers on, everything else is off.

same here ... BUT someone forgot to open all the faucets in the trailer back in Nov.

Sometimes the fittings they use on the trailers is weak and that is what will break. Maybe you will get lucky, the problem generally is you don't have the parts on hand to make the repair. My trailer has the shower on the side of the trailer for washing sand off or maybe pets. that has frozen twice in the past and after the repair last time I stuffed a towel inside the access door and that solved the problem.

this happened once before, appears to be the same location ...

my friend bought the trailer new and parked it on his ranch, spent maybe 3 nights in it when his wife decided that was not her cup of tea, so it just sat for a year or so. They divorced, he sold his truck and he was chasing tail. Called me out of the blue asking if I would go get his travel trailer, bring to town and check it all out as he had a date in a few weeks with some rich gal to a cowboy trail ride where he needed the trailer and she could tow it with her 1 ton.

Okay, what are friends for but to help? I get the keys from him and go to the ranch to find 4 flat tires on the trailer, all dry rotted from exposure. I call a mobile tire guy I knew who came out with 4 new tires and got that taken care of. I take the trailer to my dad's shop but it was getting pretty late and dad told me he would check out the trailer the next day. Okay, the "hard" part is done, right?

the next evening I get a call from dad who informed me there was a bad water leak underneath but not something he wanted to tackle at 85 years old by himself. I told him I would call around and find some place that worked on travel trailers (my friend could afford it). The next evening I talked to dad and he had a story for me. He opened up the trailer and was just doing general cleaning, vacuuming, countertops, etc. When he opened the refrigerator to check it out and clean. As he opened the door, something came hauling arse out, several of them, of course he thought rattlesnake and jumped backwards to get away from whatever these little devils were that would pouring out at his feet as he was swinging the broom he had in his hands like crazy. It was a nest of squirrels. Evidently, the mother squirrel chewed thru the refrigerator vent screen on top of the trailer and crawled down to make her a new nest. While she was cleaning out an area big enough for her nest, she gnawed thru the insulation and plastic liner of the refrigerator, so she had a nice size areas inside to build her new nest. There were 3-4 baby squirrels that came bailing out when dad opened the door. So after flailing like a mad man, dad got the babies out of the trailer and they lived the rest of their lives in the trees around his shop.

ok, back to the water line. I called my friend with the news, he said screw it, just sell the trailer for him, to which I offered to buy at a drastically reduced price due to the issues that had to be fixed from his neglect while out at the ranch. He said sure, I'll mail you the title & paperwork. I had found a RV shop that had an opening to fix the water issue. After them having it for a couple of weeks, they said they had to drop all the grey & black water tanks to access the plumbing between the water heater and bathroom. The actual fix is probably not bad, but getting to it will be the challenge.

oh yeah, the refrigerator worked, so I put new insulation in thru the access port from the outside and found some flat thin plastic to epoxy inside to cover up the hole where the squirrel came thru.

Over the years I have had all of the cover and insulation off from the bottom. at that time i covered all water lines with that foam insulation that you normally see on copper pipes for example. Quite a story on the trailer you now have.

yep, when I finally have time to crawl under there and start taking things apart, there will be additional insulation added on that plumbing.