Southern winterizing question.

Almot wrote:

sgfrye wrote:

1. open low point hot and cold water line drains and water heater
2. blow out water lines 1 faucet at a time, including shower and toilet with 40 psi
3. add rv anti freeze to drain traps and some to black tank

After you've used your water heater for a while, you'll want to prepare it for storage too. Heater manual will explain, but usually it's opening the drain ON THE HEATER, not low points, letting the water out, and then running it with pump for a minute or two, to wash the lower part of this little tank.

Nothing important, but otherwise you could get smell of rotten eggs in spring - again, nothing important (no matter what DW says), and often can be remedied by running all the faucets for a minute.

On my heater this drain is a very inconvenient plug, hard to turn with bare fingers and near impossible to get there with a wrench.

This is not essential for "winterizing", but rather a part of regular maintenance. There is a more convenient valve on the heater, located higher, to let "most" of water out, so it won't freeze with the remains of the water.

Where we live in nc we usually only get freezing temps for a few days off and on. We plan on camping thru the winter so I went ahead yesterday and did all the above. I wanted to inspect the anode rod in hot water heater anyway so I drain by removing the large drain bolt/anode rod. Yes it's a pain to get hand started on threads. Any advice or tip on reinserting? Easy to remove with socket wrench.