Travel trailers are great for people who love long road trips and living an adventurous lifestyle throughout the year! They come with a lot of built-in features that help them stand up to harsh weather conditions including the scorching summers and the wildest winters. There are some items that trailer owners will need to buy (or replace) themselves. One of these cold-weather items would be a heated water hose.
Heated water hoses in travel trailers have long heat strips that run along their length. These prevent water from freezing when it travels through the tube. These hoses need to be plugged into electrical outlets to function, and they have a variety of sizes and energy requirements.
Heated water hoses are an essential piece of gear for anyone who plans to use their travel trailer in cold areas. You always need to be sure that your sinks, showers, and toilets are working when you’re living in a trailer.
Important Things to Know About Heated Water Hoses
When you’re looking at buying or replacing a heated hose for your trailer, there are a few things you should know. Overall these are pretty simple pieces of equipment, but there are a couple little quirks and tips you should know before you look into getting one for yourself.
Before we get to anything else, it’s important for you to recognize that these hoses aren’t an unnecessary product or something that only luxury trailers need. Frozen hoses and pipes can cause serious damage to trailers that can affect them in the long and short term.
Sure, it’s not going to be fun if your water supply freezes. You won’t be able to use water for the kitchen or bathroom and you can forget about getting a hot shower. But much worse damage can happen if you don’t have the right equipment and properly maintain it.
If the pipes, holding tanks, or hoses in your trailer freeze with water inside them, the ice can expand and cause permanent damage to the infrastructure of your trailer. Burst pipes, flooding, and leaking are nothing to sneeze at and they aren’t always easy to fix.
But if you’re careful and choose a good set of heated hoses, you can prevent these problems before they start! Let’s look at some of the requirements for heated hoses and what you can do to keep them in good shape.
Make Outlets Available
First of all, you’re going to need to have electrical outlets available if you want to run a heated water hose. They run on electricity after all, so they won’t be able to do their jobs if they’re not connected to a power source.
There is a range of different heated water hoses, but most of them require access to a standard-issue 110-volt electrical connection.
Choose the Appropriate Hose Length
I also mentioned earlier that heater hoses come in lots of different sizes and lengths. This range of options can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on the areas you visit. A hose that’s too long can be awkward to set up and maneuver. They’re also more likely to get tangled in knots or get in the way of your campsite.
On the other hand, hoses that are too short are a dangerous thing to mess with. If you have to stretch your hose out to reach the water outlet, you’ll be putting a strain on it that can damage it’s material and heat strips. Leaks are much more likely to pop up if you’re using a hose that’s too short.
To resolve this, it’s sometimes best to buy more than one length of heated hose. They’re generally pretty cheap, so the expense isn’t much of an issue. Having a couple of options will help you choose the best one for your situation, plus you’ll have a backup if one of them breaks or gets lost.
Treat the Other Parts of Your Plumbing System to Prevent Freezing
Just because you have a heated hose, that doesn’t mean that the rest of your water is going to be safe from subzero temperatures! To make sure that the whole system works, take some precautions to prevent freezing and damage in the other parts of your water system.
The metal connections on both ends of the hose are often vulnerable, as are the holding tanks for your freshwater and wastewater. If your trailer has a closed underbelly with a heating system, that should prevent freezing in most cases. You can also apply heat tape to the vulnerable areas to keep them protected and warm.
Your entire water system has to stay in a liquid form to do its job! Heated hoses are great, but they still can’t do everything. Help them out by adding protection to all the pieces of your winter waterworks.
Store Your Hose When it’s Not in Use
Heated hoses are vital parts of the winter kit in your travel trailer. As such, you need to keep them in good condition and maintain them throughout the year. So when the weather starts to warm up, don’t just pitch the hose in a corner of the garage!
Most heated hoses come with packaging and storage cases for when they’re not in use. Carefully coil up the hose when you’re done with it and pack it away in its case. It’s a good idea to keep it indoors if you can because it will be less exposed to changes in temperature.
If all goes well, you’ll be able to enjoy using a heated hose for years to come!
If you’re not willing or able to follow these tips, you may want to consider putting your entire travel trailer in storage for the winter. It’s always better to be safe than sorry when you’re dealing with freezing temperatures and new equipment!
Best Heated Water Hoses for Travel Trailers
Now that you know what to expect from heated water hoses, let’s look at some good products that you might want to look into. Hoses for travel trailers have a variety of titles such as “drinking water hose”, “heated water hose” or “potable water hose”. These are all designed to transport water throughout your trailer, but you need to be careful when you’re shopping.
A hose that’s labeled as a potable water hose will do a good job at carrying safe drinking water to your trailer, but it might not come with the heating technology you’re looking for. Look closely through the product specifications to make sure it can prevent the water inside from freezing!
To help you out a bit on your search, I’ve compiled a little list of some of the best-heated water hoses for travel trailers. Most of these brands offer a range of similar products, as well as different hose lengths. But I’ve selected three of the highest rates hoses to explore. Let’s get into it!
Valterra W01-5325 Heated Fresh Water Hose
- Price: $125-$145
- Rating: 4.2/5
- Length(s): 15 feet, 25 feet, 50 feet
This heated hose is a great option for people who want a simple and easy way to keep their water flowing throughout the winter. The Valterra heated hose is designed to function in subzero temperatures without issue.
One of the best features of this hose is its self-regulating heat source! The heating mechanism in this hose responds to outside temperatures and adjusts accordingly. So this hose can sense when the temperature is dropping and heat up to prevent the water from freezing. You don’t have to adjust anything!
There are also fabric cuffs around each end of this hose, which protect the vulnerable connection points from cold weather. These can zip shut once they’re connected to the water source to provide an extra layer of protection against outside forces.
The Valterra is also certified to safely come in contact with water. You don’t have to worry about contamination or metal deposits with this product. It will provide you with safe drinking water for a nice long time.
For more information on this heated hose, as well as access to online ordering options and customer reviews, visit this link.
Camco TASTEPure Heated Drinking Water Hose 22911
- Price: $80-$90
- Rating: 3.7/5
- Length(s): 12 feet, 25 feet, 50 feet
Camco is one of the leading brands when it comes to heated hoses for RVs and trailers. You can find their products filling the market and all of them have been used to great effect by customers! This is a well-established brand and one that you can feel good putting your faith in.
This particular Camco product is one of the top picks for heated water hoses on Amazon and has scored high marks for presentation and good value for your money. This makes sense since it’s also the cheapest option on this list! But it has more than a good price going for it.
The Camco TASTEPure heated drinking hose has freeze protection technology built into it. This layer of insulation and heating can help it function at temperatures reaching 20 degrees below zero! I know I wouldn’t want to go outside and fix a frozen hose in that kind of weather. An upgraded version of this product is also available, which can withstand temperatures of 40 degrees below zero.
It also has a tough and flexible outer coating that protects it from exposure and harsh conditions but doesn’t restrict its movement. Of course, it’s also been certified as a safe product for delivering potable water.
This product comes with two shipping delivery options. There is a standard packaging option, which includes the hose in a compact box, or a hassle-free packaging option, which has the hose simply coiled up and ready to use immediately upon arrival. (The latter option is only available for the 12-foot option, however).
For more information on this heated hose, as well as access to online ordering options and customer reviews, visit this link.
Pirit PWL-03-100 100-Feet Heated Hose
- Price: $200-$220
- Rating: 3.6/5
- Length(s): 100 feet
The Pirit heated hose is the longest hose on this list and is worth every inch! With 100 feet of heated and insulated tubing, this one can reach across wide distances and provide your trailer with a steady supply of water, no matter where it is.
The heating mechanism within this hose is woven into the fiber itself. This helps create a uniform heating system that applies to every piece equally. There won’t be any extra cold or hot patches with this hose!
It’s also thermostatically controlled, which takes some of the stress off of the user. The Pirit heated hose is designed to activate automatically when temperatures drop below 45 degrees and turn off again when temperatures are above 50 degrees. This helps it to keep water at a uniform temperature and not use up extra power when it’s not needed.
It can also stand up to extremely low temperatures! This product has performed well in conditions as low as 42 degrees below zero. The Pirit 100-feet Heated Hose is a product that is built to survive the harshest conditions with ease.
For more information on this heated hose, as well as access to online ordering options and customer reviews, visit this link.
Conditioning a Water Hose for Cold Weather
Hopefully, by now you’ve been convinced that heated water hoses are a necessity for those who want to spend the winter in a travel trailer. The products listed above are some of the best in the industry and will do a good job of keeping the water thawed and flowing.
But if you’re more interested in a home-based, DIY solution, there are ways to create your own heated hoses and condition them for cold weather. This can be much cheaper than buying a hose from the store or online and there are people who are very happy with their homemade heated hoses.
I’ll provide a few tips for how to do this, but just know that specially made products are generally more reliable and are safer to use. These DIY hoses usually need to be replaced every winter too. But they’re still worth looking into, so here you go!
To start off, you’re going to need a standard water hose for a travel trailer,. You should already have one handy if your trailer has any sort of plumbing capabilities. Turn off the water system and disconnect the hose.
Next up, gather several long sheets of tin foil, duct tape, heat tape, and lengths of hose insulation padding.
Wrap the hose in a layer of tin foil. Make sure that it’s thoroughly covered and do this along the entire length of the hose. This layer protects the interior hose from being softened or melted by the heat.
Next, take the lengths of heat tape and place them along an edge of the hose. Make sure everything is straight and lines up smoothly, then secure it in place with a liberal amount of duct tape!
Next, slit the sides of the foam hose padding and place the wrapped hose inside the opening. Use as much padding as you need to cover the whole length of the hose. Duct tape the slits closed once everything is inside and do the same thing at the connections.
After that, you should be good to hook up your hose and enjoy a supply of heated water! There are other methods of conditioning hoses for cold weather and this is just one example. If you’d like a visual representation of how to use this method, check out the video below. It gives you a good walk-through of the process.
