Drained tanks and tried to blow out water lines

[MyronL]

Bypassing the water heater to run the pink stuff...

[Carol H]

Originally Posted by hwdornbush

So far, everyone who heats uses an electric heater. Why not run a propane heater? If propane is priced like gas, then propane should be less expensive than electric to heat. I know it might be more convenient to have the fuel flow through a wire rather than from a tank you have to refill, but are there any other advantages I am not seeing?

I suspect most folks including myself would be very reluctant to leave any gas appliance burning in an unattended trailer...... not to mention the need to do a number of trips to have the tanks refilled over the course of a winter and also need to have the trailer plugged in to maintain the battery - propane furnaces are power eaters.

[Borrego Dave]

MMMM, running a LP heater for the winter while stored? If something should happen with an electric cube heater the fused line will shut it down. LP heater.....first guess would be a pile of molten FG. Would you walk away from your kitchen stove while you're cooking dinner on it for a few months?

[stude]

Originally Posted by HAPPYSCAMPER76

It snowed a bit here at our house here in California, so I figured I better winterize the new to us Scamp trailer. I would have done it sooner, but had to fix a leaky bathroom faucet before being able to blow out the lines or put antifreeze through the water system.

So I drained the fresh water tank, bought a 1 and 1/16 long socket and pulled the anode plug. I also bought a little doohickey to help flush out all the deposits, which there were lots. I ran the water pump until there was not any more water coming out of the pump. I installed a new anode plug. I also bought a brass fitting with a presto valve to put into the outside water source fitting. I then turned my compressor down to 30 psi on the outlet side, had the wife go in the trailer and turn on the faucets one at time while I compressed air into the special fitting doohickey. She said some water came out of each faucet, but there is still a bit of water in the lines. I could here gurgling over by the outside of the hot water heater. She could also here gurgling coming out of the faucet (I could also see the water and the air bubbles in the hoses below the bathroom sink). I tried for several minutes to get the water out of the hoses, but nothing more came through the faucets. I turned the compressor to 60 even just to see, but it did not help, and I know 60 is probably too much pressure anyway. I also turned the water pump on again and it pumped more water out. I then tried to compress air into the system one more time just to see but nothing happened. I finally pulled the hot water heater plug again, but no more water came out of it either.

My question is how can I get all the water out of the lines? I would just run antifreeze through the system at this point, but the aftermarket Suburban hot water heater does not have a bypass valve (I did buy one today, but have not installed it and deep down don't really want to put antifreeze in the system anyway, especially because we are camping for a week in about 9 days). A few things I noticed were, that the brass fitting with the presto valve seemed a bit funky. I had to press inward really hard on it to hear the gurgling or to see air bubbles coming out of the brass fitting. It appears that you would have to get the one way valve in the fresh water inlet lined up just perfect for the air device to push in on it and allow air into the trailer water hoses, etc. I messed around with the hotwater pressure valve to make sure that was not leaking air, but nothing happened after that either.

Does anyone have any thoughts on the matter? Do I have to get all the water out of the hoses? I would think it would give me more security to do so. Do you think I have a new leak somewhere? There was a bit of air coming out the brass fitting and the fitting to hook in the water? I had the fresh water tank drain plug closed. What am I doing wrong?

: we had a situation where we had just filled the water tank and low and behold the pump quit with about 55 gallons of water on board. it takes forever to drain the tank so when we got to the RV place we waited nother 2 hours for it to drain then we installed shut offs on either side either side of the Pump so next time we can isolate it and not have to drain good drinking water off, as the water we got in Maine was not all the good for drinking so had to buy bottled water.
Stude

[margvv]

What type of electric heater do you folks that leave it running all winter use?

[stude]

Originally Posted by margvv

What type of electric heater do you folks that leave it running all winter use?

Marg, we use a heater that can run 500W, 750W, or 1500W, we leave it on the 500W and if it gets real cold like -10 or lower we turn it up to 750W as it just keeps the damp weather out of the interior of the MH we lift up the bed which opens up the water tank area which is 98% empty, lots of room for expansion, we open up all the cupboards, fridge/freezer doors, leave the table benches closed as they are vented and heat can get into those areas. Just keeps it warm in case we need to use it for a few days.
Were both pensioners but look at it this way cheaper to keep the heat in than do major repairs in the spring.
Stude.

[David and Nancy]

Blowing out the lines AND running pink anti-freeze is a waste of time and effort. Once you add anti-freeze into the water system, you simply run each tap until clear water is replaced by anti-freeze. Having a by-pass on the water heater is essential or the drained water heater will want to fill up with the anti-freeze - usually about 6 gallons. The 12V water pump on my trailer has a winterizing hose attachment that will go directly into a bottle of anti-freeze. It takes less than 2 gallons to do all the water lines, then I manually add some to the P-traps in the sinks and shower drain. It is so cheap and easy that I don't mind de-winterizing and re-winterizing as necessary late in the season. If your trailer does not have the anti-freeze attachment on the pump, you can pour anti-freeze into the fresh water tank and pump from there. Still easy, but will require flushing that tank to de-winterize.


Using compressed air alone is a riskier way of doing it. There is no way to know what pockets of water may be missed and do damage during the next polar vortex. Where we live we can depend on it reaching 20 below occasionally every winter.

[lawkmlaw]