First Time Winterizing - Did I Miss Anything?

[oyarsa]

We finally took possession of our Bullet 247BHSWE! I made it home without hitting anything, unhitched it successfully, and things are going great. This morning I noticed a little bit of frost on everything. The dealer had asked if I wanted them to winterize it, but we plan on going out next weekend and I didn't expect it to get cold between now and then, so I said no. Luckily, the temperature last night barely if at all got below freezing (weather history says it was 36 degrees). However, tomorrow night is supposed to get down to 27. So, I frantically worked to get everything to winterize the trailer myself. Here's what I did...

First I searched all over town for a blow out plug. I had no luck until my last stop at Ace Hardware. They didn't have a blowout plug, but they had a hose adapter for an air compressor. I bought that and some antifreeze and headed home. Turns out I didn't have the right size socket for the water heater, or all the various couplers for the air compressor, and the hose adapter was a female plug. After enough trips to Ace Hardware that they knew me by name, I finally had all the pieces.

Step by step:

- First I relieved pressure to the hot water heater, then opened the drain plug for the hot water heater. The water was coming out, but in spurts. I realized I had closed the pressure valve and opened it up and drained the water heater.

-In the meantime, I opened the black water and the grey water valves. It hasn't been used and the dealer had released water from the tanks yesterday, but I went ahead anyway.

-Under the RV are two hoses. One is blue, and the other red. The blue I assume is the fresh water tank and low point drain? Is the red a drain for the hot water heater? I opened the blue and let it drain. Then I opened the red and let it drain, though there wasn't much at all.

-With these open, I turned on the water pump as suggested on one website I had read. Water drained from the blue hose for quite a while. Being nervous about burning out the water pump, I shut it off after about a minute despite water still coming out of the blue hose.

-I closed up both hoses, the grey and black tank, and the hot water heater.

-Inside the trailer I located the hot water bypass valve and closed it. It wasn't positioned where I thought it made sense as a bypass, but there was only one valve, so I'm sure it was it.

-I opened all of the faucets.

-I connected the air compressor (a 6 gallon pancake) via a 1/4" adapter to hose to 1/4" adapter, quick connect, hose adapter, male to male hose coupler, and the city inlet.

-I turned on the air compressor with the regulator all the way open and let it go till it shut off. Once it shut off, I opened the regulator until it got to 30 PSI. It started back up fairly quickly, but eventually the pressure began to dip below 30 PSI.

-I shut off all of the faucets except one and let the compressor catch up, then went around to the faucets one by one but always opening the next faucet before closing the first. The pressure kept up better, but still seemed to be struggling.

-Next I tried lowering the regulator to about 15 PSI and shutting all of the faucets to see what would happen. When I was confident it wouldn't exceed the 15 PSI, I opened the regulator again, but this time to 40 PSI. I went around one by one to each faucet, again. This time I closed one before opening the next and gave the compressor time to catch up. I did the sink, bathroom sink, toilet, hot and cold through the faucet in tub, hot and cold through the shower head, then the outside shower. At this point I felt fairly confident.

-I unhooked the compressor and closed all the faucets and poured 1 gallon of antifreeze total into the sink, bathroom sink, tub, and toilet (leaving some in the closed toilet to keep the seal from cracking).

-I once again emptied the grey and black tanks.

So how'd I do? One question I have is about the red hose. Another is about a buzzing/humming nose that started about 5-10 seconds after opening each faucet that seemed to come from the city water inlet and/or the couplers I used. Any idea what that might have been?

I've already thought that I should probably open at least one faucet and I need to make sure I closed the pressure relief valve. Anything else I should have done? Should I have ended with draining or blowing out the low point drain?

I'm concerned about the water pump. I'm not sure if I cleared it of water since water was still coming out of the low point drain. If I were to run it a bit now, where would that water go? I assume it would go to one of the faucets and I would then need to blow out the lines again? Should I take the time to find the pump, unhook it from the lines, and run it?

I've taken it to our storage site which does not have power, so I'm hoping I did things sufficiently well.

Sorry for the long post from a newbie!

[_1nobby]

I guess there are 2 camps of thought.

Blow out

Anti-freeze.

I'm in the anti-freeze camp as the pump does most of the work.

My last camping of the year I triple flush the black tank.....dump it and then add 10 gallons of water and some laundry soap....drive around the park a bit....dump it again. Add another 10 gallons of water and drive around again....dump it....and then open up all the low points, drain valves, and tank valves, remove the hot water tank anode and drive home.
The action of driving at 60 mph will suck everything out of pretty much everywhere.

And then 5 gallons of anti-freeze flushing through the complete system....nary a problem.

[deer30084]

I really don't know if you missed anything. That was too much for me to read.

[oyarsa]

I feel pretty confident that I can clear everything out correctly now that I have the TT back at home. The water pump didn't have the bypass kit like the salesman said (go figure), so I'm crossing my fingers that the 27 degrees for a few hours wasn't sufficient to cause damage.

[Takamine]

At the suggestion of a friend, I blew out my water lines with an air compressor, located the pump and removed it for the winter. Wasn't hard to remove and I can guarantee it won't freeze over the winter.

[oyarsa]

I'll be on my own tonight, so the water pump will have to do 🙂

[temccarthy1]

oyarsa wrote:
Thanks for the suggestion. Mine does have the laundry shoot so I'll try listening over on the passenger side tonight.

I have a Bullet 285RLS with the laundry chute and mine is right in front of the chute under a panel next to the bed on the SAME SIDE.
In some bullets, if you have bunks, it is under one of the bunks in the back.
BTW, I just use 2 gal of antifreeze for my winterization and use a little CAMCO winterizing hand pump that attaches to my city water nozzle and has a hose that goes into the antifreeze jug. My wife goes into the TT and shuts off all faucets (after I have drained and by passed the water heater of course) and I pump the pink into the system as she turns on each faucet until pink and then off and on with the next one. Include every sink, shower, toilet flush valve and outside shower. Takes only 10 minutes for entire operation and uses just under 2 gallons. No compressor, no line blows. I then pour a cup into each drain and down the toilet also... Done!

[oyarsa]

Thanks for the suggestion. Mine does have the laundry shoot so I'll try listening over on the passenger side tonight.

[DutchmenSport]

oyarsa wrote:
I was debating going back with antifreeze, but I don't like the idea of having to flush it all out in less than two weeks. May be better safe than sorry...

Suggestions of where the water pump may be hiding? It's annoying that all I got was a generic Keystones manual and not a model specific manual.

I looked at your floor plan on-line. Does yours have a laundry chute on the drivers side beside the bed? If so, look on the passenger side for that same covered box. More than likely, it's under that box. You have to remove the top, under the carpet.

If you do not have the laundry chute, then it's probably under that box on the driver side. Keystone love to put the water pump there for some reason, and then make it a challenge to reach it.

Turn the water on, listen for the pump to run, and you'll find it.

Also, if it is under that boxed area, under the carpet, you'll need to raise the master bed to open it.

After you figure how it opens, take a moment to drill a hole in the lid and attach a kitchen cabinet door knob so the next time it's easier to open.

[ksg5000]

hawkeye-08 wrote:
I might have missed it, but make sure to "flush" the toilet to get water out of the line and toilet valve.

x2 - definitely one of the weak points in water system and prone to freezing issues. I double check that one every year and make sure I put pink stuff in bowl to keep it lubricated.

[oyarsa]

Oh. I haven't flushed the lines with antifreeze yet. I will tonight after work. This is when working a 13 hour day really hurts...

[Takamine]

On my unit I have caps on the end of red and blue hoses, but I don't think those are the low point drains. I assume those are drains for hot and cold water that has already gone through the pump and is pressurized. (I could be wrong on that.) My low point drain is a white capped hose further back under the trailer. If you turn on the pump and still get water, it sounds like you still have water in the fresh water tank.

[oyarsa]

That was a helpful video but sadly didn't help with the water pump...guess I'll have to use my ears.

[bobndot]

but now I have water back in the lines.

Then you need to flush antifreeze through the toilet again .

[oyarsa]

I did flush the toilet.

Thanks for the link, xteacher!