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countrykids's avatar
countrykids
Explorer
Oct 05, 2017

Winterizing idea

Each fall I go through the winterizing process with RV antifreeze and then in the spring flush the lines and sanitize the lines. My question is, would it work to add the appropiate amount of sanitizer to the antifreeze in the fall, flush the lines in the spring and be done except adding some sanitizer to the fresh tank and then draining it?

10 Replies

  • I just start using the water, anti-freeze and all as soon as we get warm enough. BUT, we don't drink from the RV faucets any time. Just shower and stool. After the anti-freeze is mostly gone I add about half cup of bleach and use it also. So I never really flush it out until the first dump.
  • Keep in mind, bleach is hard on all the plastic/rubber parts in your water system.

    To run a little thru set for a few minutes and then flush out is one thing but to leave high concentrations of bleach in for a few months continuously will shorten the life of plastic parts.
  • If you buy the good stuff with pure propolene glycol it doesn't make your water system taste horrible. Use the cheap junk that is mostly alcohol and it tastes awful and is hard to flush out.
  • All you have to do is open the faucets.... You want to flush out the antifreeze anyway, so why not do it at the time you sanitize. You are making this way too complicated.
  • Short cuts on water supply sanitation are.....foolish IMO.
  • Ah, ok. I'm not sure how much you'd save. My manual states to sanitize, fill the FW tank with water/bleach, run each faucet until you smell the bleach then let it sit for four hours. You need to fill the tank anyway.
  • The last part of my post was not clear. I fill water tank add sanitizer,shake a bit and drain.
  • Don't you sanitize the fresh water tank along with the lines? You're not going to fill it with AF, are you?
  • Unless you have a washer in the RV simp,y blowing out the
    Lines might be sufficient.
  • Part of the benefit of the sanitize is to remove the remnants of taste of the antifreeze and you would lose that benefit. Additionally you would dilute the antifreeze and may incur some sort of unknown and unwanted chemical reaction.

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