question about spring maintanence...

[jockoem]

Hi,

I have a question about getting the rig ready for the season. Last fall I got he camper winterized and they put in rv antifreeze in the lines. there is a hot water heater bypass valve that was adjusted to winterize the unit. Can anyone tell me if I should open that valve back up before I flush the system with cleasn water?

thanks in advance for any help!

Jocko Em

[DF5.4]

I flush the lines out before I switch the bypass to the water heater.

[JohnB]

When I use the pink antifreeze, I air blow out the camper first to purge the antifreeze and the bypass is set to bypass the HW heater. There are about 3 types of HW bypass kits out there. In the recent years, at least in 2004, Sunline used a check valve and a 3 way valve to create the by pass. That check valve sometimes leaks until enough flow going thru it. And then antifreeze ends up in the HW heater regardless.

So once I blow out the camper, I then use a long tipped water hose tool and I flush the inside of the HW heater from pushing it up the drain plug hole. This does 2 things.

1. It gets the majority of the antifreeze out if any was left
2. It flushes out left over sediment.

Once it runs clean then I put the put the plug/shut off valve back in. If you let the antifreeze push thru into he HW heater or never drain it all out, it can take a long time of flushing and flushing to get rid of it all. It is not a major issue or a health issue that I know of if you accidentally left it in or let it go in, but it takes a real long time to ever get rid of it. You will see suds in a glass of water at the faucets from left over antifreeze.

An Atwood HW heater can hold a quart of liquid in the bottom of it with the drain plug pulled out. The only way to get rid of most of the last quart is compressed air blow out. If I have used the pick stuff to winterize, I then blow out the HW heater before the flushing tool part.

Then I pump from the fresh tank the chlorine shock treatment solution thru out the camper and the HW heater. I switch the bypass to force high chlorine thur the by pass, then back to normal into the Hw heater.

The check valve type bypass set up looks like this. 3 way valve on bottom and the check valves are screwed in the tank on the top and bottom tank ports.



Hope this helps and good luck

John

[PTHutch]

jockoem

Check out this dewinterizing post.

This is what I do to santize the water system.

Hope this helps.
Hutch

[jockoem]

thanks to everyone that responded to my question about getting the water system ready for spring. I appreciate it . Our rig's at the campsite and I will be getting it ready this weekend! Jocko