Adapting the hot, low point drain to the air compressor...

[K3WE]

Several years ago, I got an adapter to connect my air compressor to a low point drain...(Took the plug to a Home/Hardware place for sizing and had the right thing in about 3 minutes)

When you connect the air compressor to the hot low point drain, and open the cold one, it does an outstanding job draining everything...When I pull the hot water heater plug there's "nothing left" (And maybe next year, I can get over my double-check paranoia 😉 )


Cold water enters at the bottom of the water heater...so if you blow air up the cold side, it just bubbles through the water heater and the heater stays mostly full. (And this is what happens if you blow through the normal water connection; which is why blowing up the hot side is special)

Yes, I go through and turn on faucets one by one- to get their short runs blown out, but overall I find this a good bit easier than hooking to the water inlet.

...and just for safety, I better give these disclaimers:

I still use pink stuff...

This may not work for all campers...

I'm aware that not everyone has low-point drains...

I turn the air pressure down to 40-50 PSI...

Bottom line: Just sharing a trick that's worth thinking about and that you don't hear many folks mention...

[K3WE]

DutchmenSport wrote:
...Flip your water heater to bypass and drain it from the outside plug-anode rod.

Someone's always gotta not really read the post and blab what they do as if they are the only ones who do it right.

See the word "and" there and what you say afterwards? That's sort of the point.

Go reread the initial post carefully about what goes in the top and what goes in the bottom of the hot water tank.

Go reread the first and second post by someone else that the tank is drained below the drain plug via the "cold water inlet".

[DutchmenSport]

Flip your water heater to bypass and drain it from the outside plug-anode rod. Then blow your lines out (with the water heater in by-pass). I think you are making it harder than it has to be using the low point drains. Just put the blow out plug in your city water connection and turn on the various faucets.

The water out-take is at the top of the tank, the in-take is at the bottom. all your doing is pushing air through the water. You need to drain the water heater by the plug and then by-pass it.

FYI, I "pink" then blow out the pink. When done, I just open the low-point drains and let the remaining pink out. "Pink" goes down the drain p-traps that way.

[RoyB]

I too use the BLOW OUT method winterizing my OFF-ROAD POPUP trailer.

When I drain my fresh water tank low drain point I open the cold and hot water faucets and also move the hot water heater spring loaded high pressure valve to open. This drains down my hot water heater to just below the bottom COLD WATER inlet.

There is still a small amount of water left in the bottom of the Hot water heater but given all of the open room inside the tank allows for expansion especially if I leave the top spring loaded high pressure valve open during the cold months.

After I have the fresh water tank drained then I connect my 12VDC tankless air compressor to the City Water Inlet using an adapter. This blows out all of the lines down the sink as well as the outside shower setup when those valves gets opened.. After all the lines are blowed out with air then I add a small amount pink stuff to the P-traps. Been doing this for the last four years or so and I am still on my one gallon bottle of pink stuff..

The beauty of using the blow out method for me is I can go back to using the water system again by just filling the fresh water tank. My blow out method only take under ten minutes to winterize the lines. The other beauty is I never fill my water lines with bad tasting pink stuff...

Granted where we live here in Northern Neck VA is not a real bad freezing winter experience but I do however like to winter camp up along the Blue Ridge and sometimes inside WVA where it does get pretty cold over night.

This works out great for my small footprint POPUP trailer.

Roy Ken