Winterizing our RV for the first time
As mentioned in the video this is not exactly a how-to blog or video, but more of a how we attempted to winterize our RV. I am fairly confident in our methods due to the research I did beforehand, but if you all spot anything incorrect please let us know!
Preparing/What We Needed
1) RV Grade Antifreeze (We just got 2 containers from Walmart)
2) RV Hose/Tube adapter (got this from previous owner)
3) A method of emptying your black/grey tanks
4) We use RV Tire Covers to prevent UV damage
5) RV filter opener wrench…deal thing
STARTING THE PROCESS
With that said, one of the first things we did to prepare ourselves was to buy a couple of containers of RV grade anti-freeze. You can purchase these from any RV store, Walmart, or on Amazon.
We just bought some generic brand they had at Walmart, but please just make sure you get the RV grade so you don’t kill yourself the next year when you attempt to drink from the same water lines. Our previous owner already had a clear tube with a hose connector at the end that we used to pump the antifreeze into the RV.
Our black tank was already empty, so we didn’t worry about emptying that guy out…however we still needed to empty out our grey tank. We just used a bucket rather than dumping the grey water onto the ground. We also needed our water filter open thingy mabobber (basically a plastic wrench to take off the cover of our RV filter casing). Last but not least, we also put our RV Tire Covers on to protect them from UV rays.
Our step by step process for Winterizing
Now that we’ve shown the tools/prepping we did to winterize our RV, we will go into the detailed step by step process.
DRAIN FRESH WATER TANK
The first real step was to make sure the water from our fresh water tank would completely drain out. After taking a look under our travel trailer we figured out where the drain was and made sure that was the lowest point in the water system by raising the opposite side of the RV slightly (not a lot).
We just did this by using our 4 ton jack between the two axles on one side as well as lowering the front tongue jack.
UNSCREW BOTTOM DRAIN PLUG
The second step in our process was to go unscrew the bottom drain plug on the fresh water tank to let any remaining water out of it. I had thought that it was fairly empty but was surprised how much water actually was located inside of it. Definitely be sure not to miss this step to prevent blocks of ice from forming within it during the winter!
TURN ON PUMP IN RV
After draining the water from the fresh water tank we turned the water pump on inside the RV and started going around to each sink and making sure the water was completely flushed out. Be prepared for your faucet to sound like it is about to explode once the water starts running out. This is due to the pockets of air in between the water and will take a little while to completely flush out.
REPEAT DRAINING STEPS
We repeated these steps for our bathroom sink, the shower, and the outside shower as well. As I mentioned in the video, we aren’t 100% sure where the water from the shower drains to, so I just went ahead and put that water into a bucket to avoid added any extra water to our black tank. (Yes I know the outdoor shower could use a rinsing. 🙂 )
EMPTY HOT WATER TANK
We then walked over to the hot water tank to make sure all the water was emptied out of it. Before unscrewing the anode rod we released the pressure on the tank by using the pressure release (refer to image above). I’m not sure if these are all located in the same spots on all RVs but I’m sure its a fairly similar design.
ANALYZE ANODE ROD
After making sure that there was no more built up pressure inside the water tank, I went ahead and loosened the anode rod and removed it carefully to drain the water inside the tank. I read that after draining the water you can just add some teflon tape around the threads and reattach the rod so nothing more will need to be done when de-winterizing the RV. I didn’t do that in this go around, but probably will in the coming weeks.
EMPTY OUT TANKS
I didn’t take a picture of our beautiful black/grey water tanks, but we did go ahead and empty out the grey tank as our next step. We just emptied the grey water into a bucket and disposed of it properly 1 bucket at a time rather than just spilling it all over the ground. I’m sure any nearby ants appreciated our thoughtfulness.
CLOSE OFF HOT WATER TANK
A fairly important step in the winterizing process is making sure you won’t get any antifreeze pumping into your hot water tank. In order to prevent this I simply turned the hot and cold valves off to make sure water would not go in or out of the hot water tank. From what I read online it does sound like in some RV models these switches can be hard to reach, but luckily with our Rockwood Mini Lite 2104s it was fairly simple.
USE BYPASS VALVE
This next step took me a little while because it requires you to actually know which valve/hose goes to what around you water pump. After figuring out the layout and which valve bypasses the fresh water tank, I simply shut the valve off to avoid any antifreeze from entering the previously drained fresh water tank. This way you don’t waste a few gallons on accident. 🙂
REMOVE WATER FILTER
On our particular model of RV, the water filter is actually located inside the pass through storage. Since we only took our RV out a few times this year, we figure the water filter is still good. In order to save the filter we decided to take it out before that area gets filled with antifreeze when pumping it throughout our water lines.
As I mentioned in the video, from prior experience there is still a bit of water pressure built up in the lines that can make this a messy ordeal. So we prepared a small tub and some towels just in case it decided to spray everywhere.
USE ANTIFREEZE OUTLET IF EQUIPPED
Again, this step might be related only to our particular RV travel trailer model or similar models. I don’t think all RVs have the antifreeze outlet, some actually have a bypass valve inside the RV or require a different siphon pump. Ours just needed a hose adapter hooked to a tube in order to pump the antifreeze right into our water lines.
START PUMPING
Once we started seeing the pink antifreeze getting pumped up through the tube we knew we had set up things correctly. However just to make sure, while Deanna was turning on faucets inside the flush the antifreeze through, I inspected the pass through storage and other areas that may have issues (mainly wanted to make sure our water filter was tightened up properly).
RUN EACH FAUCET
As before with the fresh water, we ran each faucet, shower head, outdoor shower, and this time the toilet to make sure antifreeze was being flushed through properly. We saved the toilet to the end to make sure most of the water was drained out through the grey tanks rather than possibly having to re-empty the black tank. Once the pink liquid was coming out we knew we were set.
TIRE COVERS FOR THE WINTER
One last little step in our RV winterizing process was to put tire covers over our tires to prevent any harmful UV rays damaging them over time. Since we don’t plan on taking this out during the winter time, we probably won’t be moving the travel trailer too much.
If we didn’t plan on keeping the batteries charged up via our solar panels all winter, we would probably take those to a warmer climate (aka indoors) to prevent the liquid in the batteries themselves from freezing. I didn’t have any issues with this method last year and it got REALLY cold. I may just go ahead and make sure to top them off with distilled water before calling this project complete. Just haven’t gotten quite to that step yet, but on my to-do list.
If you have any steps we may have missed or have any questions/comments on the post feel free to leave them below! Thanks so much for stopping by and checking out our take on winterizing the RV!
NOTE FROM WRITER
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Adventure On!
