Hurray! Camping Season has begun

[sunlineclub]

Hurray! Camping Season has begun!

This weekend marked the first camping trip of the season for our 1993 T-1550 Sunline. We towed the camper home from the storage facility on Friday afternoon and spent several hours de-winterizing, cleaning, and preparing it for our first outing. This was the first winter we had the camper and last fall decided to winterize it ourselves. We bought 7 gallons of the pink antifreeze and pumped it all through the pipes, filled the water heater, etc. Worked great, and I was even able to save almost 5 gallons for use this fall when I emptied it on Friday evening. (I think our neighbors had a good laugh when we pulled the drain on the water heater and my husband was literally showered in antifreeze. And then had to plug it with his finger until I could find the correct hose we needed.)

Much to my surprise, everything worked perfectly on the trip. I expected a few problems with a 14 year old trailer, but we had not one. Water heater worked great, all faucets were fine, awning good, toilet was fine, fridge cold, etc. It still amazes me the quality of these trailers. We're so happy to be the proud owners of a Sunline. If we could only figure out our mice problem... But that's a story for another day.

Sarah

[tinybluetj]

Glad to hear it all went well! We had our campout this weekend as well Great feeling, isn't it?

[emam]

I laughed out loud when I read the comment on the "Removing the Hot Water Heater Plug"

One night when the temps were going to get real cold, I thought by running the hot water till it came out cold would empty 90% of the water out of it. I just planned on blowing out the rest with an air hose hooked up to the water lines.

When I unscrewed the Hot Water Heater Plug, I too was showered in scalding hot water that was still in there. I should mention that Cindy and I were ready to go out for the evening when I thought of this and said "Hold on, let me go drain the water lines real quick"

The temperature was hovering right above freezeing and here I am soaked from the waist down standing in the snow. Great to know that I'm not the only clutz in this Forum...LOL

[Mark]

Sarah,
Maybe it was a "first-timers" mistake, but you know you should have bypassed the hot water heater so that no antifreeze go in there right?

Then when un-winterizing, you could have, pumped in the fresh water to evacuate all the pink?

[kanyonkitty]

And also have saved about 4 gallons of pink anti-freeze.

Kitty

[sunlineclub]

I am definitely a "first-timer" and make lots of mistakes, but I thought since our water heater has NO BYPASS, our only option was to fill the water heater with the pink stuff when winterizing. Am I wrong?

Sarah

[PTHutch]

Hi Sarah,

With no hot water tank bypass, the only other option I can think of is to blow out all water lines and HW tank, using an air compressor through the city water intake, until all the water is out of the lines and the HW tank.

I’ve known people to do this and not add any anti-freeze. Though I’m not recommending this.

If I was in your situation, I would be doing the same thing your doing. I figure the cost of a few gallons of anti-freeze is well worth it to protect the trailer.

Hutch

[Sunline Fan]

Sarah,

Maybe you should try installing a WH bypass? I can't imagine it would be too hard.

Jon