Winterizing Suggestion Update

The 2001 Coachman is set up with a gravity water tank fill & pressurized city water hook up. All went well, got the system filled using the water tank & pump to circulate throughout. HOWever, just to be sure the system was full I went to the pressurized city water hookup an removed the screen to get to the valve. This was suggested somewhere to make sure the antifreeze would come out the valve. Then, you would know the system was full. BIG mistake as when I pressed the valve the RVA gushed out an would not shut off until I shut down the pump. I presume that I will have to remove the water hookup on this unit to fix. The Forums thoughts an suggestions on how to go about to repair this. I feel pretty sure that the system will make it through the coming cold IF I remember not to turn on the pump in the meantime. Thank you. KC

I agree with Dick_B to keep the prime in the pump, and have done both ways. I like draining everything first, otherwise unless you have a place to dump, flushing water out with antifreeze will leave a good bit of water in your black and grey tanks. Of course, you need to pour enough antifreeze into the drains to fill the traps, and doing that will usually put enough into the tanks to prevent trouble. With mone drained, I did have a bit more trouble getting the pump to pick it up. Solved problem by using a funnel into the antifreeze pickup tube, holding it above pump and pouring in enough to prime the pump. Either way works, so its is your preference.

After opening the drains, be sure and open all Faucets so the water can drain out of the lines. Pull the plug on your water heater, and if you raise up on the pop-off valve, the tank will drain a lot faster. Then set valves to bypass water heater. Be sure to stand to one side, or you will have wet socks! There should be a drain for your fresh water tank, and probably one or more low-point drains, at least one for the hot lines and one for the cold lines. If you are going to use antifreeze. let everything drain good, then be sure to close the valve back. Depending on your vavle setup, you may be able to leave the drain for the fresh water tank open. I close mine back anyway, to make sure not critters crawl in.

On my rig those valves are just to drain the water lines. There is another valve underneath the rig to drain the FW tank. It is usually called a petcock and the lever is rotated 180 degrees to drain. BUT the pink stuff should be pumped thru the system B4 opening those valves to keep pressure on the pump.

Thanks very much for the quick reply. I'm just getting into the initial phase of winterizing. First attempt! If I can get the fresh water cleared out I'll be able to concentrate on adding the RV antifreeze. I'm glad you pointed out that clip is just a spring, and they pull up! I'll get back to them tomorrow and hopefully get the fresh water, grey & black taken care of. It appears that we're going to get some sub-freezing temperatures in a couple of days. KC

They pull up. The clip is just a spring. Push back down to close. The tend to leak, so may need to pull up and back down, and/or twist a bit to get them to seal back good.