Winterizing Question

[PatLee]

Hi all,
I broke camp yesterday and decided to winterize my 2019 AS FBT before heading home. I opened all the drain point valves (3) and emptied the hot water heater. When water stopped draining, I closed the 3 valves and screwed a new plastic plug into the water heater. I then hooked my winterizing hose to the input port on the water pump (very awkward/difficult to do in my model), stuck the other end of the hose into a gallon of RV antifreeze and then turned the pump on. I always open the hot water side of the faucets first but nothing came out of the hot side at the kitchen sink; so then tried the cold valve and pink stuff came out with a lot of sputtering. The same thing happened at the bathroom sink and with both shower hoses (inside and outside) - nothing coming out with hot water on, pink stuff sputtering out on cold side. Toilet flowed pink immediately.
I still had fluid left so did the circuit again, same thing happened, then I did it one more time and that time the cold side was flowing pink well and hot side was sputtering pink. I have not had this problem before with hot side not flowing pink immediately.
If your eyes haven't glazed over yet, here's my question:
Is my AS winterized?
Thanks.

[chickenrx]

Dumb question, but did you set the bypass valve on the hot water heater so as to not fill it with anti-freeze? You may want to pull the plug on the heater again and see if anti-freeze pours out.

[thewarden]

Yup, this was very likely the problem. Unless you bypassed the HW tank, it was filling with the pink stuff whenever you turned on a hot water faucet. Until the tank is full of liquid,(6gal), nothing will come out of the HW taps.

To answer your question regarding whether your AS is winterized, NO. The cold water lines maybe, but not the hot.

Remember to do the toilet, outside shower and blow out the black tank rinse valve as well.

[OTRA15]

Have you read your owner's manual about winterizing, and using the Bypass Valve to keep antifreeze out of the water heater?



FYI there is a Winterizing forum:

http://www.airforums.com/forums/f458/

. . . and a sticky topic therein:

http://www.airforums.com/forums/f458...rize-7222.html

"Bypass valve antifreeze" AF search results:

https://www.google.com/search?q=Bypa...=airforums.com

Good luck.

[PatLee]

To all who asked the question regarding whether or not I closed the bypass valve - yes, I did. Forgot to mention that, sorry.

[Rich W]

I would still open the hot water tank, see if there's any pink stuff in there. I would also get another gallon of pink and put that into the line again for just the hot water line at all taps.

If I do mine and don't forget to shut the outside water tap, it takes right at 1 gallon. Sometimes I forget and leave a tap open so I need about 1.5 gallons.

It's got to be going somewhere or you haven't put enough into the lines. You should consider getting a compressor and blowing out the lines first.

[Al and Missy]

Originally Posted by PatLee

To all who asked the question regarding whether or not I closed the bypass valve - yes, I did. Forgot to mention that, sorry.

I don't know how a 2019 is plumbed, but there are at least three configurations of winterizing valves:

1. The original, as in my trailer, has shutoff valves on the cold water into and hot water out of the heater and a bypass valve between the cold and hot lines before the shutoff valves. To winterize drain the water heater and the low point drains, open the bypass valve, and close the cold and hot water valves. Pink stuff flows from the cold line into the hot line and thence to all the outlets. For these trailers the bypass valve is opened for winterizing.

2. Some trailers have only a shutoff valve on the cold water line to the water heater. The manual confuses me by calling it a bypass valve and saying it should be closed to winterize. The recommended process does not include pink stuff. One is to close the valve to the heater, drain the heater, open the low point drain valves, and use compressed air to clear water from the lines. I'm not sure how this gets water out of the hot water lines.

3. Newer trailers appear to have some kind of a true bypass valve. I haven't studied the plumbing plan or winterizing process for them.

You need to know how your trailer is plumbed to figure out how to winterize it.

Al