Help with Winterzing

[photonanax3]

It's time to put the camper away for the season, so we bought the pink stuff and got ready to winterize. Hubby has done this without issue the last 3 seasons and this time it didn't go so well.

We have a Northtrail 24RBS with a Shurflo classic pump. All lines were drained (hubby chose not to blow out the lines this year), set the hose from the pump into the pink stuff jug, turned on the pump, flipped the switches on the pump itself, then turned on the closest faucet cold side. Sputter, spittle and finally pink stuff started coming through, closed the cold valve, opened the hot and same thing for all faucets. By the time he got to the outside shower, nothing was happening. The pump appears to be running, but not sucking up pink stuff.

He's checked his process, took apart a couple of fittings on the water pump and didn't find anything blocking or plugging filters/lines. We had the camper out the weekend before and everything worked well.

He is absolutely perplexed and wondering if it's time to replace the pump. If this is the next step - which pump do we go with now? Any advice is appreciated. I've been doing my part in researching what may be the issue and haven't come across anything concrete yet.

[Bigbird65]

I realize this is not what the OP asked about. I found a very good article on winterizing and I decided to share it. It seems to be pretty generic for a lot of trailers.

Winterizing

[photonanax3]

FOLLOW UP - hubby went back out, checked all the lines, faucets, valves. In the end, he ended up replacing the water pump with a compatible Flo-Jet and it works like a charm. Thank you everyone for your suggestions.

[BZ_MAN]

downtheroad wrote:

newman fulltimer wrote:
is the shower head by chance turned off

That's what I was thinking too....check the little button on the actual spray heat itself.

This is my thought too. You can turn the hot and cold on, but if the head itself it turned off, nothing will come out. My current outside shower has a button on the handle as previously mentioned, but the one on my old ROO had sort of a dial on top of the head that you turn.

[photonanax3]

Dakota98 wrote:
Is the pick-up line plugged or the in line valve not open completely ?

Also, you will need to let the pump run for awhile prior to opening any valves whatsoever. It will take 6-8 gallons of pink stuff to winterize, unless you have closed off the water heater & used the by-pass, if it has one.

I'm not sure if it's possible, but the pump may have lost it's prime. try pouring the antifreeze into the pick-up line, holding the line above the pump, while the pump is running, just to get things started.

Thank you! I'll print this out for hubby to try as well. We knew about letting the pump run first and the water heater and by-pass are off as well. Ours takes just shy of 2 gallons of pink stuff though.

[downtheroad]

newman fulltimer wrote:
is the shower head by chance turned off

That's what I was thinking too....check the little button on the actual spray heat itself.

[Dakota98]

Is the pick-up line plugged or the in line valve not open completely ?

Also, you will need to let the pump run for awhile prior to opening any valves whatsoever. It will take 6-8 gallons of pink stuff to winterize, unless you have closed off the water heater & used the by-pass, if it has one.

I'm not sure if it's possible, but the pump may have lost it's prime. try pouring the antifreeze into the pick-up line, holding the line above the pump, while the pump is running, just to get things started.

[photonanax3]

newman fulltimer wrote:
is the shower head by chance turned off

Yup - hubby went through to make sure all the faucets were off and then had me do a double check when he saw how slow it was taking.

[newman_fulltime]

is the shower head by chance turned off