Winterizing question / brothers tt

Yes you can, but it will take a lot to circulate through the entire system. Normally the fresh water tank has some water in the bottom that is never accessible. So you'll loose a gallon or more there. Then you'll have to pump at least 6 gallons to fill the water heater if you do not by-pass. If you by-pass the water heater, you'll save 6 gallons. After all that, it will probably be a gallon or 2 at the very most to flush out all the lines.

The problem is cleaning out the fresh water tank from all the pink stuff. It's almost impossible to clean it out. Your water will foam out the spigots, probably forever.

All is not lost ...

I read on another post, that someone suggested using the shower hose. Disconnect from the shower, remove the shower head, attach to the inlet side of the water pump and use the other end to stick in the gallon jug of pink stuff. The fittings are 1/2 inch threaded. I never thought of that, but yes, it will work if you have threaded connections on your pump.

Another option is to go to any Home Depot type store and pick up a 1/2 inch threaded hose used for hooking up your kitchen sink water lines. This will work also.

On the pump, you have to unscrew the inlet side and screw in the hose. When done, reattach the line from the fresh water tank.

OR purchase a water by pass kit and hook it up permanently. That what i did with our our camper because it did not have a by-pass for the Pink-Stuff already installed.

Hey, thanks..... That's what he's gonna do, get the bypass kit tomorrow.

abc40kids wrote:
Hey, thanks..... That's what he's gonna do, get the bypass kit tomorrow.

Smart move.

To by-pass these air lock problems, which I have had, I make sure my system is working with water first. Then I drain my fresh water tank and add 2 to 3 gallons of pink to the fresh water tank. By pass and drain hot water heater also and run all faucets till you have pink coming out of all of them. Your sink traps are now also taken care of.
I tried it your way once and couldn't get my pump to suck either. Air lock problems. In the spring I flush the water tank and use bleach to sanitize.

Brian

I use 6 gallons of antifreeze poured into an almost empty freshwater tanks. I do have a water heater bypass valve, so I shutout the water heater and drain it from the outside, put drain plug back in loosely. Run the water pump, start with kitchen faucet (closest to tank), run water until pink, shutoff and move to the bathroom. Run all faucets / toilet / shower / outside shower until all have pink. This also gets antifreeze into the sink traps and black and grey tanks. Go back and repeat until level in water tank is down to pump inlet. 10 winters now and this has worked fine. In Spring I fill and drain the freshwater tank multiple times to flush it and the plumbing. Flushing has worked fine for me.

I have read that it is a no-no to allow the RV antifreeze (pink stuff) in the water heater. I am not sure exactly why. So I don't know why your brother's TT would not have a bypass valve. Are your sure you have just not found it? Sometimes they are not in obvious places.

Tvov wrote:
Snip...

I have read that it is a no-no to allow the RV antifreeze (pink stuff) in the water heater. I am not sure exactly why. Snip...

The reason is that you will get foam for a LONG time when you start drawing water from the heater in the spring. Even after flushing it out the foam will continue. It does not hurt the water heater but is just a pain in the neck. Same is true of the fresh water tank.

Best is to drain and bypass the water heater, and put a winterizing kit on the pump so you don't have to put any into the fresh water tank and draw from the gallon jug intead. Bonus is that you usually only need about one or two gallons to do the whole trailer or motorhome.
Barney

They also make a winterizing hand pump - basically you thread the hose on the outlet side of the hand pump onto the city water fitting. Stick inlet end of hand pump into jug of pink stuff. Then start pumping by hand while an accomplice inside manually opens each faucet/spigot.

Yeah, not near as easy as the perm winterizing setup. But can be done without electricity if needed.

Winterizing hand pump :)
Barney

Tvov wrote:
I use 6 gallons of antifreeze poured into an almost empty freshwater tanks. I do have a water heater bypass valve, so I shutout the water heater and drain it from the outside, put drain plug back in loosely. Run the water pump, start with kitchen faucet (closest to tank), run water until pink, shutoff and move to the bathroom. Run all faucets / toilet / shower / outside shower until all have pink. This also gets antifreeze into the sink traps and black and grey tanks. Go back and repeat until level in water tank is down to pump inlet. 10 winters now and this has worked fine. In Spring I fill and drain the freshwater tank multiple times to flush it and the plumbing. Flushing has worked fine for me.

I have read that it is a no-no to allow the RV antifreeze (pink stuff) in the water heater. I am not sure exactly why. So I don't know why your brother's TT would not have a bypass valve. Are your sure you have just not found it? Sometimes they are not in obvious places.

With my previous TT I had easy access to the pump and could connect a short hose and draw directly from the RV antifreeze bottle. With the new TT, I could not easily access the water pump, so I had to resort to doing what you did, and it ended up taking 7-8 gallons in the freshwater tank before the pump could draw the fluid through the system.

I figure in the spring I can recapture much of that pink stuff for use the following year.

I have the bypass valve and pump and all that good stuff, but I have just blown the water out of the lines with an air compressor. I put some anti-freeze in the traps and pour the rest in the black and gray tanks. I drain the water heater.

This seems easier to me and as effective. Am I harming anything by not doing the whole pink stuff winterizing?