
Keeping the water running during a cold spell

Even though we ordered
our skirting supplies two weeks ago,
they're not going to arrive until early next week. So we entered the
current cold spell with insulation under our trailer but no skirting in
place.
The solution? The good
old faucet drip. Unfortunately, we didn't think to drip both hot and
cold on the first night, so the hot-water line froze up when external
temperatures got down to 9 degrees. I hope when that line thaws, we
don't see a mess.

In the meantime, we're
keeping our cold water running, hoping the drip will be enough to get
us through until the weather breaks enough for us to close the
underside of the trailer in. The simplicity of our old water system ---
entering the trailer at only one point with a big tank we could resort
to hauling buckets from if all else failed --- looks pretty good at a
time like this. Of course, even that system broke down at -10. I hope we don't get to
compare similar temperatures here in the week to come....
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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It's days like these I don't miss living in a trailer. I remember that happening to my family when we lived in trailer. My mom finally invested in a heat tape and we didn't worry too much after that. Hopefully you don't have a mess when it thaws. Temps next week are supposed to be back up into the mid-thirties so maybe you will be able to get your skirting on before the next round of snow.
JenW~