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Old 09-14-2018, 07:41 AM   #1
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Help with winterization/storage

As a newbie I am not sure of all the possibilities and hope to get ideas from folks with some experience...

Backround: I purchased my first RV in April of this year - a week after retiring. My wife and I have been enjoying some traveling this spring and summer in our new 2018 View.

Due to my wife's health diagnosis, we need to be back home for medical treatments every 3 weeks. She is beating the odds and already doing better than her original prognosis. We would like to continue to travel this winter and use the motor home as much as possible during the limited time we most likely have left together. We have friends in Florida, Georgia, Texas and Arizona.

Problem: We live in Wisconsin. Driving back home in the winter every 3 weeks for treatment could be problematic and sounds like a lot of antifreeze adding and flushing. There will be a few 3 week cycles we will not be traveling as we have children and grandchildren back in Wisconsin.

Ideas: 1. add antifreeze down south and come home with a winterized motor home. Flush the antifreeze out when arriving back down south for another 3 weeks.
2. Leave the motor home down south somewhere - storage, parking lot, somewhere - and fly home and then fly back to the RV. Allegient airlines flies directly to where we live fairly reasonably but only from Vegas, Phoenix, and several cities in Florida.
3. Leave the motor home down south somewhere, rent a car and drive to Wisconsin and back.

Any opinions on which way might be cheapest or easiest? Any ideas on what or where a good place might be to store the motor home for a few days or up to 3 or 4 weeks at a time?
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Old 09-14-2018, 08:54 AM   #2
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Quote:
Originally Posted by xphoneguy View Post
As a newbie I am not sure of all the possibilities and hope to get ideas from folks with some experience...

Backround: I purchased my first RV in April of this year - a week after retiring. My wife and I have been enjoying some traveling this spring and summer in our new 2018 View.

Due to my wife's health diagnosis, we need to be back home for medical treatments every 3 weeks. She is beating the odds and already doing better than her original prognosis. We would like to continue to travel this winter and use the motor home as much as possible during the limited time we most likely have left together. We have friends in Florida, Georgia, Texas and Arizona.

Problem: We live in Wisconsin. Driving back home in the winter every 3 weeks for treatment could be problematic and sounds like a lot of antifreeze adding and flushing. There will be a few 3 week cycles we will not be traveling as we have children and grandchildren back in Wisconsin.

Ideas: 1. add antifreeze down south and come home with a winterized motor home. Flush the antifreeze out when arriving back down south for another 3 weeks.
2. Leave the motor home down south somewhere - storage, parking lot, somewhere - and fly home and then fly back to the RV. Allegient airlines flies directly to where we live fairly reasonably but only from Vegas, Phoenix, and several cities in Florida.
3. Leave the motor home down south somewhere, rent a car and drive to Wisconsin and back.

Any opinions on which way might be cheapest or easiest? Any ideas on what or where a good place might be to store the motor home for a few days or up to 3 or 4 weeks at a time?

How you proceed is really your choice. But, I would not try to flush and winterize every 3 weeks. And for me driving back and forth to Wisconsin would not be my choice. I live in the Cleveland area and our winters can be bad, much snow and unpredictable. So, if it were me I'd fly. Storage may be a little difficult in Florida in the winter...but some RV parks have areas set aside for storage or check out a local storage place some will accommodate rv and boat storage.
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Old 09-14-2018, 02:19 PM   #3
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An alternative to using antifreeze is to blow the lines out using low pressure air. Regardless of what you do, I hope your wife’s treatments go well and you can enjoy your RV.
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Old 09-14-2018, 04:17 PM   #4
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I don't know about your motorhome as far as traveling in the winter, but I don't think I would want to drive mine in the snow, so my vote would be to leave it south and fly or rent a car (or maybe you have a car). However, they are not that tough to winterize.

So sorry to hear about your wife. Live it while you can! I haven't even go to retirement and my wife has got a heart transplant. We aren't going to give up our play.
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Old 09-17-2018, 08:05 AM   #5
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I have read some about putting air in the lines and from what I can tell, they still recommend putting antifreeze in the traps below the sinks which would still need to be flushed out and seems to defeat the purpose of the putting air in the lines. The antifreeze doesn't seem to be expensive, just the hassle of putting it in and flushing it out often so we can keep traveling in the winter.

If anyone has ideas of where to short term store it, I would definitely be interested in that. Thanks for the info, suggestions and well wishes for us!
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Old 09-30-2018, 09:08 PM   #6
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Winterizing View

I own a 2008 View and live in Colorado. Winterizing for me is a time consuming hassle, not hard but so many places to be sure not to miss with blowing out/antifreeze. The ramifications of being in a hurry or just forgetting a drain can be very costly and frustrating to fix Once a year is enough for me.

I’m so sorry to hear about your wife’s health issues but commend you for living every moment together and enjoying the gift of life. I vote for whatever solution will cause you the least amount of anxiety and stress. It seems like leaving the RV down south could be helpful. Then maybe a combination of car rentals and flights. Having lost my husband at 62, if you have the funds enjoy the time you have left together and don’t sweat the small stuff-I don’t think you will regret it.
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Old 10-01-2018, 10:14 AM   #7
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Newman,

Thanks for the input and concern. I have never winterized an RV as this is my first year owning one...seems to be a hassle to insure you have done it right. Guess we are leaning towards storing it down south somewhere short term while we fly home and get treatments and then fly back to use the RV for a another few weeks and doing it all over. The trick is the logistics of reasonable RV storage, transportation to and from the airport and then reasonable priced flights back and forth.

We can fly in and out of our home town in Wisconsin via Allegient, a pretty low cost airlines. Hard part is they only fly certain days of the week and from/to our home town only fly to Las Vegas, Phoenix, and 3 cities in Florida. Looks like the first flight home might be from Phoenix.

Thanks again for the input
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Old 10-01-2018, 11:54 AM   #8
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Xphoneguy--I'm sorry to hear about your wife's health challenges and I hope you both are able to enjoy many more years of travel.

I'm wondering if her treatments can be obtained in a different area? Maybe there's a facility near where you are camping that could provide her care? Good luck to you both.
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Old 10-01-2018, 03:14 PM   #9
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Thanks SarahW,

yep looked into that option 1st. Oncologist said he has some snowbirds that have a summer doctor and a winter doctor but if we are traveling around as we plan, no one will treat her by just showing up with her records. We can't just get chemo this week in AZ and the next treatment in LA and the following treatment in FL. Every oncologist will want to spend time going through all the records and making their own diagnoses and of course will charge for these services and insurance will not pay for that.

We had hoped it wouldn't be so hard but it makes sense that it is when you are dealing with a deadly disease and a toxic substance like chemo. She needs to get treatment every 3 weeks. I am looking into flights and storage units now. We will also spend some time at home here in Wisconsin, Thanksgiving, Christmas, we have a wedding to go to in December, etc.

Thanks for the idea though!
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Old 10-01-2018, 05:08 PM   #10
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My best wishes to you both.
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Old 10-07-2018, 08:40 AM   #11
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Devil's advocate here...

Once you learn how to winterize with the antifreeze method, the process is easy and takes 20 minutes. It would be convenient to have the RV on return trips, flying is no fun. No storage hassles.

I am planning to head south for Nov Dec from MN and come back for tax season, so I will winterize in Kansas City. I am confident that I can do it at any stop in 20 minutes.

Antifreeze is cheap and nontoxic. Process should cost about $10-$20 for antifreeze.

In a nutshell, the process involves draining the fresh water tank and hot water heater. Turn bypass switch on hot water heater (so no antifreeze goes in it). Fill fresh water system with antifreeze. Method will vary by model. I hand pump it into City fill, turn on each water fixture until pink. (My 31D doesn't have an intake tube permanently installed). The I put 1 gallon into fresh water tank. Turn on pump to fill it and shut off.

It's intimidating at first but easy once you master it.

Good luck

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Old 10-07-2018, 08:47 AM   #12
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Also plan to use toilet after I winterize with gallon jugs of water to flush and dump when I get home. Weather is usually moderate in Dec. My holding tanks have heaters.
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