De-Winterize

[chuckretnav]

Good Morining everyone, the wife and I bought our cougar 327res in Jul 2010 did a couple of short trips then we took off for Texas ion Nov 2010. Read and watched everything we could find on winterize the trailer and had the trip all planed out. Tex for Thanksgiving the over to St Augustine Fl. Everything working great and we stopped in Jacksonville Fl to vist old Navy friend. Left their and its 27 deg. WOW. Headed back to Ft Wayne In with two stops and planned on winterize at Horse Cave Ky. But old man winter snuck in real early this year. I drained all the fresh water and holding tanks. Turned on the water heater by-pass. Took out the anoid rod drained the water heater. Put 8 gal of antifreeze in the fresh water tank turned on the pump and went from valve to valve, put some more in the P traps and pushed the valve on the city water hook up to get antfreeze to come out thier. Flesh the toliet several times addeed antifreeze through the toliet to the black tank. Now we plan to leave late March to go to Washington DC for the cherry blosom festivel. Does anyone see anything wrong with us just waiting to our first stop (Bedford PA) to De-Winterize everything?
I plan to take some bleach along to add to the fresh water tank after the antifreeze is all gone out of it. Is thier any concerns that I should be looking for. Thanks for any help and sorry this is so long and windy :)

[Jim W]

The only thing I suggest in De-winterizing the camper from what you are planning on doing. Is to fully flush your fresh water tank, I know that the bleach can leave a taste behind and if strong enough could cause you to become sick. You may need to fill the tank two or three times to insure that all of the bleach is removed from the tank.

When I DE-winterize, I also check the wheel bearing grease and re-pact the wheel bearings and adjust the brakes. I also make sure all of my systems are function correctly before we proceed to start camping for the season. This is usually a two to three day process for me.
Jim

[chuckretnav]

Jim thanks for the info on the wheel bearing and brakes. And your right about the bleach I was planning on doing two or three flushes on the fresh water tank since Ill be at a camp ground.

[Festus2]

Perhaps you have already done so but did you check any exterior taps (shower, outside sink, etc) to make sure that you have pink flowing through them when you open the tap? Seems like you checked all of the interior ones okay.

Do you have a winterizing valve or connection on your water pump that you can hook up to a container full of RV antifreeze? If you do, you can use this system to winterize - it will use far less antifreeze - and avoid having to put 8 gals in your fresh water tank. Depending upon the length of your pipe runs, you should get by with half this amount and save yourself some $$$$.

(I just disconnect the fresh water intake on the pump and connect a short hose to it. The "free" end goes into the container of RV antifreeze). Turn the pump on and bingo!)

[chuckretnav]

Festus, thanks for the info Ive read about doing that with the pump but didnt have a chance to do that before we went to Texas but this summer we will do that and like you said less antifreeze used. Thanks for the help happy trails