The Walden Effect: Farming, simple living, permaculture, and invention.

Towing tongue temperature check

Towing tongue temperature check.

There might be some level of heat sinking going on with our trailer towing tongue.

The far end is a little bit colder than 2 feet over.

The outside temperature was 24 degrees while it was 54 inside.

I'm curiouis now if the temperature difference would be the same this Summer?

Maybe expelling heat in the Summer will balance the loss of heat during the Winter?



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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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Reflectix may be a quick and easy way to insulate the tongue even if you only choose to do it in the winter.
Comment by Brian Wed Feb 7 08:50:08 2018
You could always coat the tongue with foam insulation to neutralize it's heat/exchange properties.
Comment by Kris Wed Feb 7 09:02:22 2018
Sadly your winter heat sink will be a heat conductor in the summer, bringing the hot into your home.
Comment by Anonymous Wed Feb 7 12:24:17 2018

Mark,

I'm a bit dubious that the tongue will help you out in the summer unless your interior temperature is higher then the exterior temperature.

If that tongue is sitting in the sun during the day it will be absorbing heat and transferring part of it into the rest of your house.

Perhaps if you sand it down and paint it white you can avoid having it be too much of an issue when things heat up.

Comment by Anonymous Wed Feb 7 12:29:05 2018
Maybe you could cover it with straw and dirt? Make a mound there, which could be excavated. Or actually use it as the ridgepole for a sort of very low storage area, even if the top is only like a bulkhead for a storm cellar. Or you might build cinderblock walls as high as the tongue on either side, and put a deck on top of the whole thing.
Comment by adrianne Thu Feb 8 18:33:53 2018

Well, if there is a temperature difference along a conductive material like steel, there is definitely heat flow.

And since heat always flows from high to low temperature, you probably won't get a break in summer.

To be fair though, this is probably not the the place of biggest heat loss. That will most probably be the windows, or general leakage. (You'd have to look at your house with a thermal camera or thermal phone attachment to identify where the largest heat losses occur.)

Comment by Roland_Smith Fri Feb 9 12:33:23 2018
Can it be detached?
Comment by Jim Sat Feb 10 22:34:25 2018





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