Cheap DIY RV Heated Water Hose

Recently we were staying in Camp Verde, Arizona. While it was nice during the day with 60f-70f temps, just about every night it would go below freezing including a few nights where it dipped into the teens!

In the past we didn’t do much cold weather RVing, so I would just fill our water tanks and disconnect the rv water hose at night…reconnecting it during the day when temps went back above freezing. But this year after Arizona, we had a month booked in Durango, Colorado and I didn’t want to deal with the water tank filling every few days.

We already had a 25ft and 50f rv water hose and the idea of spending $170 for a heavy & bulky 50ft Camco Heated Hose that we would only use for a few months(and have to store somewhere) wasn’t appealing.

I had remembered seeing a post on FB about using Heat Tape wrapped around the hose so off to Home Depot and Ace Hardware I went!

At Home Depot I purchased eight 6-foot sections of 3/4 pipe insulation at about $1.86 each. These look like pool noodles but smaller in diameter (Heating Cable Electrical Tape Pool Noodles). My water hose is 1/2″ and I wanted to have room for the heat tape. This insulation was pre-slit and it was easy to insert the hose inside of it. I think this insulation alone might help if you are RVing somewhere where it barely goes below freezing.

A few days after insulating the hose, I drove over to Ace Hardware and purchased a 40ft roll of heat tape for about $45, also available on Amazon here: https://amzn.to/3CyFPBg. This heat tape has a built-in thermostat and turns on when the temp goes below 38f. I wrapped the insulation with black electrical tape.

We’ve had the heated hose setup running for about a month now in temps as low as 6f and it has worked great! No need to go spend all that money on the heated water hose.

 

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