Winterizing/de-winterizing water heater

[04fxsts]

I am finally going to winterize the motorhome today before the deep freeze hits home later this week. MH is 2015 ACE 30.1 and the WH bypass valves are where you must remove a drawer and panel in the bedroom, then stand on your head with a flashlight to find them, pain in butt. I would like to reduce this pain to only having to do it once if my plan will work.
I will switch the valves to bypass WH, drain the WH, pump pink stuff through all the lines. What if I now put the drain plug back in the WH and switch the bypass valves back now instead of doing that in the spring? This way I can put the panel and drawer back and not have to do this again in the spring. To clarify, we always run off the fresh water tank in case that would matter. Thanks, Jim.

[Okie1]

Your water lines are now full of pink antifreeze so when you flush system in the spring, you will be introducing anti freeze into the water heater. Not a big problem but lots of flushing are ahead of you.

[MFL]

wa8yxm wrote:
That works if you use the dry method (Blow the lines out with air, Use PINK only in drains and tolets, no Pink in the fresh system.

Which by the way is how I suggest you do it.

If you do it the way you suggest you may end up with pink stuff in the heater, this wont' damage anything, but you will have fun come spring getting rid of it, Multiple flushes.

Yup, foaming showers are coming next Spring, maybe into Summer! All good though, won't hurt you, just the EWWW feeling. :W

Jerry

[wa8yxm]

That works if you use the dry method (Blow the lines out with air, Use PINK only in drains and tolets, no Pink in the fresh system.

Which by the way is how I suggest you do it.

If you do it the way you suggest you may end up with pink stuff in the heater, this wont' damage anything, but you will have fun come spring getting rid of it, Multiple flushes.

[westend]

04fxsts wrote:
Well it is done! Drained, winterized and valves back to "use" position so all I have to do is flush everything, probably in Jan. because the DW is talking about a trip to FL then.
The operation did not go all that well. After running the slide out so the drawer will open with just enough room to remove the two drawers, things went downhill. Taking out the top drawer it pulled out of the RH track first, my grip slipped and it fell twisting the LH track apart and fell on floor spilling everything. By now I have the sticky grease from the tracks on my hands so I don't want to touch any of the clothes so remove the bottom drawer and turn up side down on bed. This way I won't get any grease on anything else.
Wash hands, tell DW it's time for her to come out and open and close faucets while I mess with the bottles of pink stuff. Before that happens I have to explaign why I dumped the clothes out on the bed. The rest actually went fine except the half hour it took to figure how to pop the center track with two ball bearing strips back between the inner and outer track. Jim.

Jim,
If there's any way to reconstruct the access to the bypass valves, it would be high on my modification list. Most folks can't do a good job with cabinetry and drawers and such but a good cabinet man can do amazing stuff.

Good on 'ya for getting the Winterization done. If anything, getting grease on your hands tells the Missus you've been hard at work, lol. :B

[04fxsts]

Well it is done! Drained, winterized and valves back to "use" position so all I have to do is flush everything, probably in Jan. because the DW is talking about a trip to FL then.
The operation did not go all that well. After running the slide out so the drawer will open with just enough room to remove the two drawers, things went downhill. Taking out the top drawer it pulled out of the RH track first, my grip slipped and it fell twisting the LH track apart and fell on floor spilling everything. By now I have the sticky grease from the tracks on my hands so I don't want to touch any of the clothes so remove the bottom drawer and turn up side down on bed. This way I won't get any grease on anything else.
Wash hands, tell DW it's time for her to come out and open and close faucets while I mess with the bottles of pink stuff. Before that happens I have to explaign why I dumped the clothes out on the bed. The rest actually went fine except the half hour it took to figure how to pop the center track with two ball bearing strips back between the inner and outer track. Jim.

[coolmom42]

Dr Quick wrote:
Why not just leave the drawer and panel out till spring, since you are not using RV. As you have to stand on your head twice, once to bypass and once to return to use. What is the difference if you stand on your head the second time in the sprig?
That way I will be easier to flush system in spring.

This.

[rhagfo]

04fxsts wrote:

MFL wrote:
You may get a little pink in the WH by reopening the valves. The bigger issue is flushing the pink out in the Spring, without having the WH bypassed.

Jerry

I thought about this and it would still be easier than messing with the valves twice. Jim.

I would get to the valves twice! I also hate the pink stuff, I blow the lines, and Pink stuff in the "P" Traps.

[CarnationSailor]

westend wrote:
If you can drain all the water and then can blow the lines with air to remove any residual water in low slung areas, you can put your WH drain plug back in and set the valves for normal use.
...
...

I would say leave the valves set for normal use because there is no need to do anything with the bypass valves if you are just going to blow out the system.

[CarnationSailor]

04fxsts wrote:

MFL wrote:
You may get a little pink in the WH by reopening the valves. The bigger issue is flushing the pink out in the Spring, without having the WH bypassed.

Jerry

I thought about this and it would still be easier than messing with the valves twice. Jim.

Jim, I don't think flushing would be much of an issue.

[westend]

If you can drain all the water and then can blow the lines with air to remove any residual water in low slung areas, you can put your WH drain plug back in and set the valves for normal use.

Caution and a modicum of skill are needed to get every bit of water out of the plumbing. Otherwise, you may have a repair bill when you put the MH water system back in service. Most RV's have valves and fittings that may be difficult to remove all the water from.

[Dr_Quick]

Why not just leave the drawer and panel out till spring, since you are not using RV. As you have to stand on your head twice, once to bypass and once to return to use. What is the difference if you stand on your head the second time in the sprig?
That way I will be easier to flush system in spring.

[04fxsts]

MFL wrote:
You may get a little pink in the WH by reopening the valves. The bigger issue is flushing the pink out in the Spring, without having the WH bypassed.

Jerry

I thought about this and it would still be easier than messing with the valves twice. Jim.

[MFL]

You may get a little pink in the WH by reopening the valves. The bigger issue is flushing the pink out in the Spring, without having the WH bypassed.

Jerry

[rr2254545]

Exactly what I do but only switch the bypass valve back AFTER you have run the pink stuff through all the fixtures, or you will fill the hot water tank up with pink stuff, I have done this trust me takes a lot of pink stuff to fill a water heater