So I'm in a Poopy Situation.... Literally... UPDATE: It got messy.....

[Albertadiver]

So I’m in a Poopy situation…. Literally

I took my Cougar24SAWBE travel trailer out for our hunting trip last week, and temps got down to about -23C a few nights. I didn’t use the water system or the grey tanks, which are all winterized.

The cougar brand advertises a ‘0F degree tested’ winter package, which I put to the test for the first time. It’s the standard enclosed underbelly with ducts that run furnace air around the tanks to keep them warm. Well, I can confirm it’s not as good of quality as my 22H arctic Fox trailer that I used to own, but sold because it was a little too small for two people and a big black lab.

Long story short, I can’t get the gate valve on my black tank to open, it’s frozen solid. I store my trailer about 20 minutes from home, and they are only open during short hours in the winter. I showed up today with a generator, heat gun, big buddy heater, and two big turd totes. Of course the place was closed for the stat holiday, which they failed to mention when I called on Wednesday to confirm hours of operation.

When I put the trailer into storage last Monday, I nearly lost my truck and trailer as it slid backwards down the road about 35 feet until I could get it back under control. Then I spun out again on the top of the hill with the trailer still on the slope. After some charged adrenaline, I found some gravel to throw under my tires and got myself unstuck. (BTW stock Hankook Dynapro tires on an F150 are absolute garbage on slick snow, I’ve already called fountain tire for a set of Duratracs)

I put 20 litres of -50C RV antifreeze down my black tank and I’m about 2/3 full. When I looked down the toilet today after five days in the storage unit I’m seeing a bit of ice crystals on the top of the tank but doesn’t look frozen solid. Because the RV lot was closed, I had to walk in about a half km, so drug the turd totes in but couldn’t get a heat gun or the heater underneath the trailer.

The black tank is spec’d at 144litres (38 gallons), and I’ve put down 20 litres of RV antifreeze and estimate there’s about 70 litres of ‘black’ stuff in there from 6 days of use. Really hoping that I don’t freeze the thing solid.

My intent is to go back on Monday with temps of +6C in the late afternoon, throw an electric heat gun on with the generator and direct heat up the sewer pipe to warm up the gate valves, and then use the big buddy heater under the trailer and I’ll build a little shroud. I’ll also run the furnace to warm up the underbelly. I can’t think of any other ideas to deal with this poopsicle. I don’t trust my truck hauling it back out of storage to a heated shop, so going to have to try to do this in situ.

Anyone else had similar crappy experiences? Any suggestions??