To get back to the original post...

My Triton takes water from an external aqua roll. After supplying the sink, the water pipework drops out from the bathroom through the floor and crosses from one side to the other under the 'van, then back up through the floor to the kitchen sink. I have two inline drain valves coming off tee joins at either side and I open them after my final stay on site and gravity does the trick. This installation came with the 'van, however it works well - though not at all winter proof...

Thanks for that. My triton has two water systems. An on board tank and an external pump to bring water from aquaroll which is what I use. I’m just disappointed that having a new Eriba, then draining the water, that this should happen. Never had this experience with Campervan, so clearly water remains in taps despite draining system and cold weather has more of an impact with an Eriba, or I’m just unlucky. Oh well I’ll try and get it sorted but unlikely as my next trip is on the 13th. Wet wipes on the shopping list! Thanks for all the info and ideas though.

Generally a caravan doesn't get moved after draining down, so any water left in nooks and crannies etc. stays where it is. Campervans tend to be driven about and that shakes the water out of the system. Whether things freeze and break or not is very much in the lap of the gods. One winter it can go down to Arctic conditions for weeks and there's no damage and another can have one night below zero and taps and boiler are wrecked. A variant of Sod's Law.

I always open the drain off and vent from the water heater and open the taps before we leave site. I make sure the taps are in the center position. By the time we get home, the system is emptied. I leave the taps in that position over winter.
We have never suffered from frozen pipes or taps in nearly 30 years of caravanning

Me too John.

I think Andy has a point in this sods law....... the year our taps went was the fourth over winter of our Troll. From what I can remember we did everything the same as the previous three winters and I don't recall that this fourth one was any more severe.

It has had a psychological effect on me in two ways. The first is that it brassed me off so much that I have become OCD about getting all the water out and putting temporary insulation of bubble wrap and old towels all over the inside of the van. The second is that I still feel a slight trepidation every spring when I remove all the insulation and fire up the system for the first time.............................sad part of getting older and losing the devil may care attitude of my youth.

Next thing is the annual AutoGlym shampoo and polish..................OCD rules OK

MikeT

I think what you say about getting older is true for many "maturing" people Mike,myself included.

Now, now Colin you know that my body is a temple........................as an ancient monument the National Trust or English Heritage would have some kind of regulation against me using AutoGlym on my crumbling edifice

Mike

It’s a bit of a faff but do-able you can change the internal part of the tap forgets the name now cheap enough screw fix used to sell them. I did the school boy error couple years ago with our new troll. Two drain taps I forgot but changed out the internal part of the tap like a little cassette affair job done lesson learnt. Morphy