Winterizing

Truly not a big deal to do it yourself next year. The checklist is long, but most steps go quickly. It might take you an hour next year but the year after it will take 20 minutes. And only cost you the amount of two gallons of RV antifreeze.

Originally posted by techntrek Truly not a big deal to do it yourself next year. The checklist is long, but most steps go quickly. It might take you an hour next year but the year after it will take 20 minutes. And only cost you the amount of two gallons of RV antifreeze.

Yeah.. I read people paying as much as $200 to winterize at the dealer.. makes my head hurt. That's like $600 an hour to do something that needs no special tools or has any real hazards.

There are 3 drains.  The one further back with all the water is the drain for your fresh water tank.  If the dealership didn't drain that when they winterized your pod, they screwed up.  It needs to be drained or you could end up with a 30 gallon block of ice that might crack the whole tank. That would be an expensive mess.  The drain for the fresh water tank is just a drain.  I guess you can call it a low-point drain, but low-point drains are really something else.

I imagine in Minnesota low-point drains are more common in houses than they are down here.  But even in Tennessee, in rental houses, or especially in resort houses that aren't used much, if at all, in the winter, the houses have to have the water turned off and all of the water drained from the pipes in the house (and the faucets left open) or when the water is turned on in the spring pipes will be broken and  water will be all over the place.  Resort homes usually have low-point drains.  Same with your pod.  The function of the low-point drains just behind the wheel is to drain all of the water out of the pipes in the pod.  One drains the water from all of the cold water pipes and the other drains the water from the hot water pipes.  Neither drains the 30 gallon fresh water tank or the water heater. 

Putting antifreeze in the water system during winterizing pushes the water out of the hot and cold water pipes (if it's done right) and replaces it with antifreeze.  With antifreeze in the pipes, of course that's what's going to come out of them when you open the low-point drains.  You probably don't need to replace what came out, as there is either still some antifreeze in the pipes or there is nothing but air, neither of which will freeze and break anything.

It's really bad that there was still water in the fresh water tank though.  If you turned on the water pump and pumped any water into the kitchen or bathroom, you do need to re-winterize the pod, and if it's not too much trouble to take it back to the dealer, you have a real good case for making them do it again at no charge.  With what you've learned from this thread though, it would probably be less trouble for you to do it yourself than hook up and haul the pod any distance.

The idea of winterizing the pod may seem intimidating, but as others have said, it's really very easy, and if you think about what's going on with the process, the concept is pretty simple too.

TT

Then the RV guy didn't do the job right. I watched him carefully and he never touched any of the low point drains. Yes, gallons came out of the fresh water tank.
Since I never turned the pump back on after he was done putting the pink stuff in, I think I'm okay. I'll just put more pink stuff down the drains and the toilet. Thanks to all of you!!!