Winterizing questions?

Well I use to just blow out lines until a low spot that still had water and broke my water line which I did not fine out until next season with water running out floor.
Antifreeze in all lines now just not going to take any more chances with this.

ShapeShifter wrote:

Grit dog wrote:
AK probably qualifies for extreme cold, may just pull them and throw tham on a maintainer in the garage.

Probably not necessary unless you're above the Arctic Circle, but it can't hurt. Compared to you, my winters are mild (although DW would disagree) and I've got 6 batteries, so I just leave them in place. But if you've got a reasonable enough number of batteries (and can be sure you reconnect them properly when putting them back) then go for it. You've got to do what's right for you!

Well, I'll be up there the next 2 winters, not with the TC!
I think the -20 to -25 that you see around Anchorage qualifies though when it comes to batteries.

No batteries in the TC, so I drain tanks, blow out lines, open low point drains, then pour a gallon of RV antifreeze in, turn on the pump, and let it suck up what it can.

The experiment Go further down into the body of this post to see photos of the experiment.

Water freezes at the same temperature even if you live on Mars and only expands by 8% so a little moisture in the lines will not do a thing. I previously posted

We have blown the lines and filters out, the valve in the commode blows air, all the valves are cracked, made sure the water pump sucks air, all the tanks and HW heater are drained. We have only put pink stuff is in the drain traps and commode bowl during the winter months and have NEVER had a problem.

Grit dog wrote:
AK probably qualifies for extreme cold, may just pull them and throw tham on a maintainer in the garage.

Probably not necessary unless you're above the Arctic Circle, but it can't hurt. Compared to you, my winters are mild (although DW would disagree) and I've got 6 batteries, so I just leave them in place. But if you've got a reasonable enough number of batteries (and can be sure you reconnect them properly when putting them back) then go for it. You've got to do what's right for you!

I do know extreme cold takes it's toll on batteries just like extreme heat, but heat's worse. Never went through batteries anywhere like I did in AZ!
AK probably qualifies for extreme cold, may just pull them and throw tham on a maintainer in the garage.
Running the pump dry does not remove enough or all of the water? My only experience with this is on my boat, the washdown/shower pump is the same type of jet pump and I've run that one dry and drain the inlet and outlet lines for years before winter layup without issue. What do those that do not antifreeze the fresh water system do about the pump?

Grit dog wrote:
Debating whether to pull batteries and maint them inside or let the on board charger keep them charged up. I will keep ac power to the camper.

Lots of discussion on the other issues, but not much on this. If your on-board charger is a good multi-stage unit that has a proper float mode, then go ahead and use it and be done with it. But if you have a single stage converter without a float charge mode, it may tend to over charge the batteries and "boil" the water out of them, causing permanent damage. In that case, use an external battery maintainer and either remove the batteries, or leave them in place but disconnect the converter.

I've heard of people putting a timer on the converter so it only charges the batteries an hour or two a day. This is better than nothing, but can be hard to determine the best timing to use: get it wrong and you could still be over-charging the batteries, or under-charging them which would be just about as bad.

With a good float charger and reliable power, there really isn't a need to remove the batteries and take them inside unless you live in a severe climate where it's common for temperatures to get really cold for extended periods of time. A fully charged battery won't freeze until it gets below -90 F, and I doubt it gets that cold around you. ;) As the battery discharges, its freezing point rises to the point where freezing may be a valid concern (at 40% charged, it'll freeze at 16 F.) But for the life of the battery, keeping it charged is better protection than keeping it warm.

Over the winter, I keep my batteries on-board and connected, my rig plugged in, and my three-stage on-board charger turned on. My seven year old batteries are still going strong, and only need the water to be lightly topped off once a year. Works for me.

I guess I'm surprised at the folks just blowing out the lines. For the $10 a couple of gallons of RV antifreeze costs, I'm going whole hog.

It's not that much work to flush and disinfect the lines in the spring.

JMMV.

Be carefull not running antifreeze through the lines as just blowing the lines out via the city water connection will still leave water in the pump, just when you thought you covered everything you don't want to get that uh oh thing going on.

Here in South Dakota I blow out the lines and then antifreeze, it might be overkill but I don't want to bust a line and I want to ensure the water pump has no water. I leave the batteries in the camper but plug it in every 2 weeks and refresh the batteries. I don't cover our Northern Lite, I inspected and marine waxed it a month ago. I used a non-grommet tarp on a popup camper we had and it still damaged the exterior rubbing on the side.