Winterizing Whirlpool clothes washer, 2007 Beaver Contessa Bayshore

[Frederick Thornton]

Hi folks,
I'm sure everyone knows by now that I am a novice at RV maintenance! I need to winterize my coach soon, so I'm working through the various items. I took care of the refrigerator ice maker this afternoon per it's instructions and then attempted to figure out the clothes washer. The Whirlpool manual says to turn off the water faucets, disconnect the inlet hoses from the faucets, and drain the rest of water from the lint filter. Although I didn't realize at first, these instructions must be for a home installation. So I got into my Owners Manual, and it says essentially the same thing... Shut off both water faucets, drain water hose, then put one quart of RV antifreeze in the basket and run drain/spin for 30 seconds...

Well, how does one access the water faucets and hoses? The stacked washer/dryer are just aft of the curb side Kitchen area slide. There is an access panel down low under the narrow cabinet. I see the hot/cold water supply hoses for washer, but they are Pex (I think that is what it is called) tubes. I didn't see a faucet, but did see garden style connecters.

It just occurred to me that the faucets/valves to turn off the water to washer could be somewhere under the gas range cabinet... I didn't look there!!! I'll go back to storage tomorrow to look again!

Can someone who has winterized a Bayshore tell me how you winterize the clothes washer?
Thank you!
Reed

[Fred Brooks]

    Fred,
 Monaco was pretty good at giving you access to the hot and cold faucets so you could remove them for various reasons. Some w/d's have an access panel between the upper and lower unit that has 2 screws securing it.
  On my unit, I put a 1/2 gallon of 50/50 cheepo anti-freeze in the tub and run the last rinse cycle and rely on the washer to push it thru the system including the p-trap. Hope this helps, Fred

[Steve Huber Co-Admin]

Reed,
My Coach owners manual specifies using air to blow out the lines and then adding antifreeze fluid to the tank and running it on spin. The 07 Contessa Manual is not on Coach Assist but the 07 Patriot Thunder Owners Manual contains the same procedure. See page 104.
The procedure you are referring to is in the 2008 Manual.
Steve

[Frederick Thornton]

Steve, thanks for the response. I appreciate your feedback on my many questions! I have the Beaver 2007 Contessa Owners Manual.

The owners manual has a section on how to use air, but also has a section on using RV antifreeze. The section on using air recommends that the Hydro Hot heater should have RV antifreeze run through the water side of it. I need to read the Hydro Hot manual to make sure I understand this. The air winterization instructions just say "see clothes washer winterization process" for clothes washer. That procedure says nothing about using air.

I have the Prevent-a-freeze system that makes it slightly easier to use RV antifreeze.

What is not clear to me is how to get RV antifreeze into the washer. If I can find valves in front of the washer feed, I'll turn them off and drain the hoses as it states. If I don't find valves, I think I will just run a washer cycle while I'm doing all the faucets. This should/will put rv antifreeze through the pipes.

I definitely want to follow the Hydro Hot system winterization step, which I haven't read yet...

Thoughts?

[Frederick Thornton]

Thanks Fred. I just responded to Steve above (didn't see your post initially) with what I am thinking!

My washer winterization process has a step where I do exactly as you are doing. The washer is on the bottom of the stack in my coach and I don't see how to access the back of it. There is a drawer under it, but I only see a portion of the pipes that feed the washer.

I will report back on what I finally do in case anyone else could use the info.
Thanks!
Reed

[Keith Moffett]

Reed
If I may jump in here.   Turn off the faucet and drain the hose?  Ok but seems to me that leaves the supply line full unless you drain the low point for that.  I must have mised that part. 
The prevent a freeze was an option ours didnt have but seems to me this is what its for.  I believe you can use the low point drain and with the PaF loaded just run a light cycle until there is antifreeze present in the tub.  Same for hot and cold lines.
If you can put antifreeze in the washer on the hot cycle then the HH has to be full too. 
This makes sense to me but I have never done this in ours.  We are in Western Wa.

[Frederick Thornton]

Thanks for input Keith. I believe you are right about washer and Hydro Hot. I'm going out today to actually winterize it and will report back. The owner of the RV Park/Storage where I keep it has experience so I will likely get his help for my first time.
Reed

[Steve Huber Co-Admin]

Reed, Keith,
The 2 procedures listed in both the 07 Contessa manual (ppg 105 & 107) and the 07 Pat Thunder manual (ppg 104 & 106).
Steve

[Stan Simpson]

Frederick,

We live in Northern Illinois and have the coach next to the house when home. We've had the coach almost 9 years, and have winterized it the same way every year (except when traveling to Florida), and have never had any issues. Here is an easy and inexpensive way to do it.

1. Go to any big box store and buy a 48 inch washing machine connection hose. They are usually silver and braided.
2. You need to have 4 gallons of the pink RV anti-freeze on hand. You can get it at Walmart pretty cheap, like $2.50 a gallon or so.
3. Find where your water pump is located, and unscrew the inlet hose to the water pump. Now thread the one end of the 48 inch washing machine connection hose that has threads on one end that is an exact match to the water pump inlet, on to the water pump.
4. Have someone inside the coach..develop a signaling process. (we use hand held walkie talkies).
5. Line up your 4 bottles of anti freeze, with the caps off, where you can do a quick exchange.
6. Stick the open end of the washing machine connection hose in to the first jug, and on your signal your partner, starting with the kitchen sink (because its usually the farthest away from the pump, and will take the longest to get the fluid there) will turn on, first the hot water, and then the cold water, until the pink stuff comes out.
7. The pump will suck the pink stuff quickly, depleting the jug. You need a STOP signal to your partner for when you need to change jugs in the middle of a particular faucet.
8. Do the same for the bathroom sink or sinks, and the shower. Then step on the toilet flush until it runs pink.
9. For my coach, I've used about 3-1/2 gallons at this point. You are finished outside. Re-attach the water pump inlet hose.
10. Take the half gallon of remaining pink stuff and dump in to the drum of the washing machine. Start the generator if you are not on shore power. Run the washing machine for 3 minutes on spin.
11. You're done. We can do this in about 20 minutes and it costs less than $15.

Been down to -20F at the house, and nothing has ever frozen. (Edit..the RV anti-freeze WILL freeze. It is mis-named. What it doesn't do is..expand..which is what frozen water does.)

[David T. Richelderfer]

Stan - what about the cold and hot water lines between the water bay manifold and the clothes washer?

[John Bagwell]

I do the steps Stan does and it works well. I pour the pink stuff in a 5gal bucket and do not have to change junks..in fact i have done it by myself , turn on pump and going inside and opening faucets.   You can run washer on wash cycle until you get pink stuff in drum, and then do spin cycle to get in p traps.

[David T. Richelderfer]

Yes, John, that's how I did it.  Just run the pink stuff directly from the water pump through the lines to every water-emitting point.  Then turn the wash on its drain cycle to push the pink stuff through the exit valves and down into the p-trap.  The other water lines that concerned me are from the incoming shore-water hose through and to the red-hat valve, water pump, and freshwater tank.  And what about the line between the freshwater tank coming to the water pump?  I assume, but do not know if there are two lines accessing the freshwater tank - one to fill it coming from the shore water fill hose and one to empty it going to the water pump.

[Frederick Thornton]

Thanks for all the replies. My coach has an option called Prevent-a-Freeze, which essentially is a two way, electrically operated valve and a tank of about 2 1/2 gallon capacity, located close to the water pump. One input to the valve comes from fresh water supply, and other comes from the tank. The output goes to the water pump. A switch on outside of service bay has two positions, Normal and Winterize. When the switch is on Winterize, it moves the two way valve to pull from the tank. All one does to Winterize is fill the tank, set the switch to Winterize, and go through the processes discussed above to put pink antifreeze through all the water lines. The only problem, 2 1/2 gallons is not enough, and getting pink antifreeze into the tank is a pain! But I did it multiple times (I won't describe where the pink antifreeze goes if you forget to close the low water drains, but I can say the ground in front of my storage building shouldn't freeze for a few days!). I used a drill operated pump to move antifreeze from gallon bottles to the tank. I think the hose idea, or a hose that bypasses the tank and goes to outside where I could use 5 gallon bucket, would be simpler...

Now, for others, here is what I did for washer and frig ice maker. For washer, I wanted to make sure antifreeze was in the hoses and valves in washer. So with pump on, I turned washer on normal cycle until I had about 1/2 gallon of antifreeze in the tub. Then I stopped washer, set it to spin, and ran until the antifreeze was out of the tub. I think that covers the washer. For the ice maker, the manual said to disconnect the line from water supply and the line that goes up to ice maker at the solenoid. Before removing water supply line (I didn't think the ground needed more antifreeze!), I turned off a valve close to water pump that feeds the ice maker. Then with help, I turned on the water pump, opened the frig water supply valve, then turned the valve off when my friend said pink antifreeze was coming out water supply at frig. I blew water out of water line to ice maker. This process should protect ice maker supply lines and solenoid.

I should have antifreeze in all the lines, traps, etc. now!

Also, I saw a post about Aqua Hot that said it could be used with pink antifreeze in the water lines. This was good to hear, since I may want to heat the coach before I de-winterize it.

THANKS again for all the posts!