Another Winterizing question

I am sure you guys are getting tired of these questions. but.. .

I just bought a 2004 Wildcat over the Summer. I now have a Sunnybrook and the Wildcat. I tried to winterize the Wildcat for the first time. I can't find any of the things I expect to find.

Of course no owners manual, (if anyone has one, i will buy a copy)

1. Where are the low point drains?
2. Only one valve on the hot water heater. How does anti-freeze not go back in the hot side?
3. I have seen the posts regarding winterize kit and the bypass kit.. I will definately get one to install, but in the meantime, I have poured 2 gallons in my fresh water tank, flipped on the pump, and no pressure at all. I hear the pump running, and have antifreeze dripping out of the fresh water tank when I open the drain. (and yea it is level)

I guess my Sunnybrook had more options that I thought. It has valves everywhere.

Thanks in advance

This is what I do:
First open your water heater cover (on the outside) and take out the anoid rod and let the water drain. Then close your one and only bypass valve under the sink for the water heater. If equipped with outside shower, pull that out and open valves. Open all the inside shower, sink valves (hot and cold) to release any vaccume pressure. On my camper towards the back underneath there is two hoses sticking out, take the only one with a cap off (this is potable water tank drain). Next get about 3 to 4 jugs of RV anti freeze and go to were your water pump is, take the hose off leading from the potable water tank. You should have a hose going from the pump to all the main lines ( you might want to unscrew the water filter if equiped and dump the old water out, replace the water filter), next stick the hose leading from the pump into the jug. I had to take a pair of sissors and cut the top of the plastic jug a little so the hose would fit in. If you have two people it works better because you can have one person monitor/replace the anti freeze jugs as you open and close valves. Before turning the pump on, close all the valves. Then turn pump on, should run for a few seconds to charge the lines then stop. Next start in the kitchen and turn the valves on, one at a time until pink comes out. Next do the shower, sink, don't forget the toilet, then the outside shower if equiped. If you have any left over, I usually throw a little extra in the P-traps of the sinks and shower. Obviously before you started this you dumped and flushed your holding tanks, and if you wanted to throw a little extra anti-freeze in those holding tanks, including the potable water tank, you can. Now if you wanted to run an air compressor before this and blow the lines out, you can, I did it once before, but in the end I achieved the same results as just pushing the water out with anti freeze, just becareful and keep the PSI below 30 so you don't damage anything.

I hope this helps a little and isn't as clear as mud. I'm sure if I missed anything someone will chime in :)

1 Don't know what model your cat is, but your low point drains are probably on curb side between the side wall and chassis, and located between the hot water heater and the basement storage door. You may have to get down and look up to see them. They may be very close to the floor, or they may extend a bit. They should have screw caps on them.

2 The single valve shuts off the cold water going into the hot water heater and diverts it into the by-pass. There is a check valve in the hot water line leaving the tank so antifreeze will not get into the tank.

There are several posts regarding winterizing in the general camping area and a stick in the maintenance area on procedure. Some of these posts may help you and give a little more information.

I have never tried pumping antifreeze from the fresh water tank. I have yet to winterize my new Cat, but know it is a tough job to pull water from the water tank to the pump. A long distance and with the tank nearly empty, and also the line, that is a lot of air to get rid of. Once you get a by pass on the pump you won't have to worry about it.

Good luck and I know it will work out ok.

The only thing I would add is, be sure to open the low point drains a little to let the pink anti-freeze come out them too.

I would not replace the filter till next year after you un-winterize.

Here is a link to a bypass hose for the water filter housing, and a link to a winterizing kit. Just makes life a little easier.

Filter bypass:
http://www.campingworld.com/shopping/item/quick-turn-by-pass-kit/15717

Winterizing kit:
http://www.campingworld.com/shopping/item/pump-converter-winterizer-kit/6279

Good luck and dont hesitate to ask anything else.

Putting anti-freeze in the fresh water tank was not good. You are going to have a real hard time getting the taste out. The water heater only needs one valve because it has a check valve on the output. If you don't have a winterizing kit for the pump intake, you could just remove the hose coming from the water tank and put on a temporary hose for the anti freeze bottle.

Winterizing Instructions

I can't find the low point drains on our 2009 28RKBS. If there are any they must be covered.
The only low point drain I can see is the fresh water tank drain.

I think they are usually located somewhere close to the hot water heater location.

Best thing to do is, crawl under the passenger side of the camper, and look along the the edge where the fender and the floor boards meet up. There should be 2 hoses sticking out with a valve on each.

Let us know if you find them....

Freedom1955 wrote:I can't find the low point drains on our 2009 28RKBS. If there are any they must be covered.
The only low point drain I can see is the fresh water tank drain.

I have a 2008 RKBS and the low point drains are located on the door side of the fifth wheel. They are between the steps and the wheels between the skirting and the frame. You'll have to get down on your knees and reach up under the trailer to find them.

just curious, How many gals of anti freeze should it take to properly winterize a Wildcat. I had pink coming out of each faucet, toilet, showers and poured some down each trap. I only used 2.5 gals 32QBBS with one bathroom. I didn't put any in the potable water tank. Everthing had been drained prior to winterizing.

That's how much I used last week. Pink coming out of the drains, a little down each p-trap and a little in the grey and black tank.

Some one on the forum had posted a picture of the Water Filter Bypass. If they could repost that Pic? Please

Down here in Southeastern Virginia I only blow out the fresh water lines with air compressor. Drain hot water heater and drain fresh water, and gray water and black tanks. Dump fresh water filter housing. Pump just a very little pink anti-freeze into the fresh water pump. Pour pink anti-freeze into all the sink traps.

I use 2 gallons.

Water filter bypass:

Scottz for the Pictures.

Another thing that I do is when leaving out the drain plug out of the hot water heater. I take of piece of Window Screen material cut larger than the Hot water heater hatch cover frame and put it across the opening then install the Hatch cover. That way nothing can crawl into the hot water heater tank and build a nest! Then you should not get when you de-winterize.

I installed a water heater bypass on our waterfilter housing as well. I remove the filter/housing, blow out the lines and fill with the pink stuff (use about 2-1/2 gal. as well). I just screw in the water heater plug a couple of turns.

Now this is probably a very stupid question but how do you get the antifreeze into your pump? I'm guessing you don't put it into your fresh water tank and pump it in that way. Is there an attachment that you can plug to your pump that will draw right from the antifreeze container? So far I have blown out the lines, drained the filter, and added antifreeze to all the traps but there still seems to be a little water in the pump.

volfirefighter wrote:Now this is probably a very stupid question but how do you get the antifreeze into your pump? I'm guessing you don't put it into your fresh water tank and pump it in that way. Is there an attachment that you can plug to your pump that will draw right from the antifreeze container? So far I have blown out the lines, drained the filter, and added antifreeze to all the traps but there still seems to be a little water in the pump.

DO NOT put anti-freeze in your tank; it will take forever to get the taste out. You have two options, the easy one, and the not-so-easy one.

The easy one is to install a permanent winterizing kit on your pump. Check here

The not-so-easy one is to take the inlet line off your pump, attach a flexible hose to the pump inlet and put the other end of the hose in the bottle of anti-freeze.

Thanks Scott for this info. I did some searching but came up empty so appreciate the link. I had no intention of putting antifreeze in the tank so I was really hoping no one was going to suggest it. My pump has quick connect couplings on it. I'm curious if there is a product that would just snap into the intake side of the pump to draw in from the container vice the tank??

If you pump is like ours, there is a clip one removes to disconnect the intake hose from the pump. If you can get an extra connector that fits into the pump (again one compatible with the clip - basically a fitting with a special O-Ring on one side and a nipple on the other for connecting a hose with a hose clamp) then you can easily swap out hoses as necessary with having to remove hose clamps, etc.

Thats exactly how my pump connection is. I'm guessing I would have to go right to SHURflo for the connection. I have never seen any thing in the RV shops I've looked in. Any suggestions??

Thanks!

Corey,

There is a kit that most RV Dealers carry in their parts department. It is a "T" fitting with a valve built into it and it comes with a length of Tygon hose with a connector on it. The "T" fitting is attached to the inlet side of the pump. One setting of the valve allows flow from the fresh water tank as usual. The other setting allows flow from the Tygon hose. Once connected to the "T" fitting, you place the other end of the hose into a gallon jug of anti-freeze, draw a suction and pump the anti-freeze through the various outlets in the trailer.

I think mine cost $12.99 at Camping World.

Thanks Mike, I'll take a closer look at the parts places here. Wish we had Camping Worlds here in Canada. I went to a few a couple weeks back while on my trip through Oregon but never even thought about getting something like this until I went to winterize. Would be nice though to find a simple hose with the same quick connect fittings that the inlet/outlet hoses have.

Corey

Is it critical to pump antifreeze through the lines even after blowing them out with a compressor? I will of course add antifreeze to the ptraps and some in the holding tanks.

Treekiller wrote:Is it critical to pump antifreeze through the lines even after blowing them out with a compressor? I will of course add antifreeze to the ptraps and some in the holding tanks.

I think so. Where we live in NH it can get down to -20*F and I'd sure hate to have any residual water expand in one of the valves or taps and crack it. I had that happen on my last 5'er. The toilet valve cracked during the winter cause all the H2O hadn't been blown clear of the valve. Of course it was behind the toilet, so when I turned the water on the bathroom got kinda wet before I realized what was going on.

If you live in Zone 5, I wouldn't take the chance.

Luck,

If I lived in MI I would pump antifreeze through it. Very little cost and trouble for the prevention that it provides. I'd worry more about the water lines and pump than the traps and holding tanks.

What about the water filter? I know blowing out the lines also took care of emptying the filter canister but the fact that the filter is still wet, is there a chance of it freezing and breaking the filter even when empty? On my previous 5ver last winter, I hadn't winterized yet and everything froze (had the furnace on a low temp just to keep it above freezing but didn't realize I ran out of propane). The filter housing cracked and the filter pretty much blew apart.

Take the filter out and store it indoors or replace it with a new one next season.

I installed a water filter bypass (just like the water heater, see photos above) so I don't put antifreeze in the filter canister. I take the element out and put a new one in every spring.