Winterizing Tank Rinser

blow it out

My Spree had a tank rinser so I removed the outside shower head, replaced it with a 1/2" to 3/4" adapter, connected the outside shower hose to the tank rinser input, and used the shower controls to force antifreeze through the the tank rinser.

Tank flush lines.....
Inlet line up to the anti-siphon vacuum breaker drains back out when you remove hose to connection

Outlet line from anti-siphon VACUUM breaker to tank nozzle drains into tank when water supply is shut off

No trapped water UNLESS tank nozzle is plugged up

There is no telling if the lines will drain completely, so I pump antifreeze thru the flush system with this: Pump

Do you think that blowing it out with air will be good enough?

Remove the vacuum breaker while you're at it, which is typically buried in the rear of a cabinet behind a baffle, and make it a direct connection. Then it will be self draining as long as you do not create a trap in the line.

Not only does that eliminate the chance of the cheap vac breaker sticking and flooding your rig, but they are always mounted higher than the inlet port and create a trap in the line that will hold water.

That said if youre a germophobe or have a code fetish, you can use a seperate vac break on the hose or site connection when using the flush.

Shultzy wrote:
Do you think that blowing it out with air will be good enough?

That's what I do.

Jerry

Ralph Cramden wrote:
Remove the vacuum breaker while you're at it, which is typically buried in the rear of a cabinet behind a baffle, and make it a direct connection. Then it will be self draining as long as you do not create a trap in the line.

Not only does that eliminate the chance of the cheap vac breaker sticking and flooding your rig, but they are always mounted higher than the inlet port and create a trap in the line that will hold water.

That said if youre a germophobe or have a code fetish, you can use a seperate vac break on the hose or site connection when using the flush.

This is exactly what I did with my last travel trailer. I removed the vacuum breaker check valve and let the water self drain. This may sound gross, but I then just blew into the hose and any remaining water would spew out. The other side of the line, that goes to the outside inlet connection self drains as it was all down-hill. Simple, worked well, and never had a problem.

I just move the blow out plug from the city water connection to the in tank rinse connection. You just need to get any remaining water out of the line. No need for anti-freeze.

-Michael

I also use the outside shower hose to pump antifreeze thru the black tank flush (rinser) lines. And I also removed my antisiphon/backflow preventer valve after it started leaking and simply connected the lines together. I use an external antisiphon valve now.

But the lines do not self drain. You can see in the picture below that the lines contain the pink stuff after winterizing. The other two lines are my shower faucet lines.