Winterizing for the first time
We normally "winterize" by heading to Florida, but since we just bought a house, I had to do the coach the traditional way. But I ran into a small bug.
We have a 2005 Holiday Rambler Ambassador with a Norcold 1200LRIM refrigerator.
All went well for most everything. Drained all fresh water, emptied the hot water tank, closed the bypass valve for the hot water tank, put the "pink" into the fresh water inlet, ran the pump and got pink out of all the taps.
The "problem", if it really is one, is the refrigerator. The manual says to run the pink through the ice maker to purge any water that may be there. I started the fridge and turned on the ice maker. The water pump ran, I thought to fill up the ice maker, but it kept running, I felt, too long. I noticed that there was some pink dripping out of the hot water drain plug opening, even though I had closed the bypass valve (and double checked it). So I couldn't leave the water pump running to get pink into the ice maker, knowing that it would just all run out the water tank drain.
So, three questions:
1. Why would pink get into the water heater tank with the bypass valve closed?
2. do I even need to worry about whatever residual water may be in the ice maker?
3. If so, how should I proceed? I did disconnect the water feed line to the fridge in the access panel on the side of the coach, but that does nothing to remove any water which may be in the fridge system itself.
We're in North Carolina. If the coach doesn't sell (it's on Rvtrader.com) in the next few weeks I'll probably take it to PPL (consignment) in Houston, so it should miss the worst of North Carolina's winter in late December and January. But, I'd like some advice on if/how to proceed on winterizing the refrigerator.
Thanks much!
dave
We have a 2005 Holiday Rambler Ambassador with a Norcold 1200LRIM refrigerator.
All went well for most everything. Drained all fresh water, emptied the hot water tank, closed the bypass valve for the hot water tank, put the "pink" into the fresh water inlet, ran the pump and got pink out of all the taps.
The "problem", if it really is one, is the refrigerator. The manual says to run the pink through the ice maker to purge any water that may be there. I started the fridge and turned on the ice maker. The water pump ran, I thought to fill up the ice maker, but it kept running, I felt, too long. I noticed that there was some pink dripping out of the hot water drain plug opening, even though I had closed the bypass valve (and double checked it). So I couldn't leave the water pump running to get pink into the ice maker, knowing that it would just all run out the water tank drain.
So, three questions:
1. Why would pink get into the water heater tank with the bypass valve closed?
2. do I even need to worry about whatever residual water may be in the ice maker?
3. If so, how should I proceed? I did disconnect the water feed line to the fridge in the access panel on the side of the coach, but that does nothing to remove any water which may be in the fridge system itself.
We're in North Carolina. If the coach doesn't sell (it's on Rvtrader.com) in the next few weeks I'll probably take it to PPL (consignment) in Houston, so it should miss the worst of North Carolina's winter in late December and January. But, I'd like some advice on if/how to proceed on winterizing the refrigerator.
Thanks much!
dave
