Winterizing my Sightseer

[LadyFaire]

Where we live, there are no facilities for RV maintenance that are reliable or trustworthy. I had found a 'mobile' RV tech and made an appointment to take my coach to HIM, since he didn't have any jobs scheduled in our area for quite a while, and we had some COLD weather forecast. One of DH's co workers has an RV and does most of the maintenance himself. He asked why we didn't do the winterization ourselves. It got me thinking (OH NO!! Not THAT!!) and I dragged out the owner's manual and started reading up on how to do winterization. I was astounded at how EASY it appeared to be.


Took the coach down to our local wastewater treatment plant and dumped the tanks (did you know a lot of - or perhaps most wastewater treatment plants have dump stations?) and picked up 5 gallons of RV antifreeze. Yes, more than needed, but it isn't going to 'go off' by next fall. I then crawled under the bed and found the siphon hose (getting the cap off was fun - not) and proceeded to run the RV antifreeze through the lines. It really WAS easy. What took me the most time was switching the gallon jugs. Once I had the solid pink coming out of all faucets (and toilet), I shut it all down. WOW!! 30 minutes was what it took me, and with another warm body and pair of hands, I imagine it would have gone even quicker! Why pay $250 when it costs only about $20 and a half hour? I thought it was a complicated, time consuming process.



I am delighted that I can now do that chore myself, and at any time! If I need to use the coach before spring, I can de-winterize it, and redo after use. I'm tickled!!

 

[LadyFaire]

Forgot to mention, the wastewater treatment plant dump station is both free and available 24/7/365!! I asked the young man, "Does that mean I can actually dump my tanks at 3AM if I want to?" "Yep. But it won't be ME here to unlock the pit - it would be the night shift guy." HOLY COW!! Not that I can see any need to dump my tanks at 3AM, but knowing that I CAN is somehow reassuring.

 

[be happy]

Welcome to the world of RV maintenance! And its almost fun at least the winterizing stuff. Like you said saving the $ is always a good feeling.

 

[LadyFaire]

What I saved by doing the winterizing is a full tank of gas!

 

[71_340]

I hope you followed the instructions and for by-passing and draining the water heater. Also, if you have a black tank flush connection you need to purge the water out of it as well as the city water inlet. Just saying.

Anyway, you can always save a lot of money by doing things yourself. I do everything myself unless it is an expensive item, covered by warranty (still have the chassis warranty).

 

[LadyFaire]

Never switched the hot water valve back this year - it is/was still bypassed. As for the black water tank - I flushed and drained before I started. We don't get COLD here, sometimes the teens, but that is rare. Anyway, I followed the directions in the owner's manual, step by step. I honestly think that if I had access to pressurized air, simply blowing everything out would be better, to tell the truth.

 

[LadyFaire]

Oh, also, the coach is never left unheated during the winter - if that matters. We use a small, ceramic heater to keep the temp inside around 50° all winter. If that matters at all - I honestly don't know.

 

[John Mo]

I found a gotcha on mine. You said your HW tank is bypassed from the previous season, but if you winterize from a season where you've used your HW tank - on mine there's a small section of water line between the bypass valve and the tank inlet. The first year I winterized mine, that little section of line cracked. I have to pump antifreeze with the bypass valve open to the tank to get some antifreeze in that line. This isn't called out in the instructions.

 

[LadyFaire]

I have yet to use the HW heater. The only 'real' trip we had was on a military base MWR facility with a great bathhouse - so we used that. I used left-over hot water from tea (hot-pot) to wash the dishes, such as they were. The other trips we've made were to youngest son's house, and we used their bathroom/shower and their dishwasher for dirty dishes - not many of those, as he'd be offended if I didn't eat his cooking. I imagine in the spring, when we run down to the middle son's house in FL, we will use the coach fully - hot water heater, shower, etc. as he has put in full RV hookups for our convenience - 30A pole, sewer dump, water post and so forth. Nice to have a relative that understands RVs and is handy with his hands!!

 

[sullivanclan]

Maybe dump a bit of pink stuff in each drain as well.