Winterizing (blowing out lines) and a few random questions

[WhittleBurner]

Asked the Atwood rep about the water left in the WH after pulling the plug. His comment was not to worry about it. Their's enough room for expansion in there so the little bit that's left wouldn't hurt anything. My belief is that the same thing would hold true for the tank's. The little bit in the bottom wouldn't hurt anything if all you do is blow out your lines with air.

[DaveMatthewsBand]

Hypothetically, say you dump your fresh onto the ground, and drain the water heater, but for whatever reason
you have to leave the RV for an emergency and a week long freeze is incoming. Your black and grey tanks are
1/4 full, couldn't you just blow the lines out with air and pour a few gallons of antifreeze down the toilet and the shower?

[Luv2Ski]

Hypothetically, say you dump your fresh onto the ground, and drain the water heater, but for whatever reason
you have to leave the RV for an emergency and a week long freeze is incoming. Your black and grey tanks are
1/4 full, couldn't you just blow the lines out with air and pour a few gallons of antifreeze down the toilet and the shower?

Yes but remember the propylene glycol mixture sold as non-toxic “premium” RV antifreeze is already premixed with water to yield the minimum freeze point. For example, a water based solution of 60% PG by wt. freezes at -65°F. This stuff is designed to replace water in pipes and traps, not dilute it.

When you add it to a quarter tank of water already in a gray or black tank, you’re diluting the antifreeze and significantly raising its freezing point. For example, starting with a quarter tank of mostly water, you could add enough premium 60% PG RV antifreeze to fill a gray tank to half full and then you’d be at a 30% PG concentration by wt. which will freeze at 20°F. Yes, that’s plus 20°F! It gets awful spendy to add enough RV antifreeze to lower the freeze point into negative Fahrenheit territory on a big tank containing gallons of gray or black water.

The good news about PG concentrations above 40% is that they tend not to be a burst hazard. That’s because as the temps drop, the water will begin to form ice crystals thereby concentrating the PG and the remaining unfrozen water into a liquid solution which now has a lower freeze point. You end up with a gross slushee of whatever was in the tank.

[cb0895]

Hey guys and thanks in advance for the advice. We just picked up our Imagine 2800bh on February 1st. We took our first trip this past weekend as a shakedown run to make sure everything worked and to make sure we had what we needed. I did learn one thing, the queen size bed is hard as a rock, not one of those soft rocks, one of those really hard ones.
Ok, to my question...Where we store our camper there is no electricity. Due to the way our house sits in the neighborhood it is a pain to pull the thing in the yard beside the house because we live on a hill. I am trying to re-winterize the camper but i don't have any compressed air available. I got creative and tried to run my compressor of an inverter hooked to my truck battery with the truck running, but that didn't work because the inverter cant generate enough amps to run the compressor. Here's what I decided to do, I drained the water heater and left the cap off the tank. I drained all the water out of the system that I could by opening the low point drains. Once the water had completely stopped I put the plugs back in. Since it is almost spring in Charlotte NC I am trying to avoid putting anti-freeze back into the lines. I turned on the water pump and opened the faucets one at a time. Some water came out and then some spitting and finally just air. I did this with the kitchen sink, then the bathroom sink and finally the shower.
Have I done enough "winterizing" to be ok unless we have a hard freeze? I call a hard freeze below 25 degrees.
Or, should i just go ahead and use the pump to fill the lines with rv antifreeze until the threat of freezing is gone?
Thanks again guys for all suggestions and advice throughout the forum.
Curtis

[bry1956]

Why risk it ,use the anti - freeze , it doesn’t take that long , very little effort.


Bryan

[Superduty]

Antifreeze is cheap insurance vs frozen/broken water line.

[cb0895]

You're right, why am I being such a miser....I will go tomorrow and pump in the anti-freeze.
Thanks

[Lizardqing]

Few bucks worth of antifreeze is cheaper and easier than a busted toilet valve. First surprise freeze this winter for our other camper while it was sitting at the dealership in Asheville.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk