Winterizing

[Gary Winzenburger]

Thanks Gerald and Bill for the info. Still deciding what to do. We just don't want to give up our second home yet this year, but jobs can't allow us to head south for more than a week or two.

[Orman Claxton]

Gary
One other suggestion, Try leaving the Diesel turned on and the Electric plugged in and turned on.
Contrary to some belief, they(diesel & Electric) can be operated at the same time.
Just need a full tank of fuel, you are ready to go anytime,  

[Bill Sprague]

Gary
One other suggestion, Try leaving the Diesel turned on and the Electric plugged in and turned on.
Contrary to some belief, they(diesel & Electric) can be operated at the same time.
Just need a full tank of fuel, you are ready to go anytime,  

Orman,

Correct me if I'm wrong, but that will work on some, not all models.  Where it works are the models that have different cut in temperatures for the diesel and electric.  The electric comes on first and does the job until the demand is high.   Then it is "backed up" with the diesel.  

On mine, the diesel and electric come on together.  If I left the diesel switch on during storage I would consume a lot of fuel!

[Harvey Ziegler]

I usually end up winterizing my coach about 3 times a year. I winterized it when I got back home from 7 Feathers. Only blew out all the lines and then used a gallon of antifreeze for the Hydro Hot and hot water lines. Will be putting water back in it today
as we will be heading out for the Canadian Thanksgiving long week end. Will need to do the complete winterize when we get back home on Monday as the coach will then be sitting for the next 3 months.
When we head south I will put water back in it once we get down to Mesquite which is not on the books until early February.
Plan to return home early April at which time I will need to winterize again but usually can get by with the quick version.
I live in the Calgary Alberta area so we do get winter. The lawn is white with frost as I am writing this note as it went down to
20 to 25 F early this morning.

[Bill Sprague]

Harvey,

I like the idea of blowing out the lines and putting the pink stuff in for the Aqua/Hydro Hot.  But, what do you do for the washer dryer, ice maker Line and the pump?  

[Orman Claxton]

Bill
With both Diesel & Elect operating (unless someone has modified Tstats) will both come on same time,
Diesel is a lot cheaper than repairing/replacing AH  

[Harvey Ziegler]

I pull the lines off the solenoid for the ice make and let them drain. Remove the filter for the iced make.
As for the washer /dryer it was not used all summer long as the park that we summer at does not allow the
use of private washers and dryers so the antifreeze was still in the lines and tub of the washing machine.
I have a cheater cord to pick up the solenoid on the ice maker to blow it out or to add antifreeze.

[Joel Ashley]

I think Orman meant for Gary to leave the diesel side on only during any significant cold snap.  I would imagine such an occurence over the next couple of weeks at Nashville to be brief if at all.

My internet moniker elsewhere is "hafcanadian".  My cousins in Calgary regularly keep me apprised of the temps there, and as you might imagine it freezes early, late, and long.  Cousin Doris often pines for her old home ground near Victoria.

There are times I envy Harvey's routine;  his experience several times a year would probably expedite my relatively rare winterizing endeavors.  I probably fret too much over the icemaker solenoid;  it takes more effort to deal with that little thing, what with manually cycling it and dealing gingerly with the hard-to-get-a-wrench-on and easily stripped tube nuts or pumping through pink stuff.  The heat tape is probably adequate protection... but if the batteries/charger go down ...  

I've never worried about the icemaker filter much, since I can see through the clear lines attached to it when water has drained back.  I've never actually pumped antifreeze through it to the icemaker system as I think it might retain some after dewinterizing, and infuse subsequent ice with unwanted flavor.

Harvey, what do you mean by "cheater cord"?  A way to activate the solenoid by applying 12 volts directly to it?  That would save the hassle cycling the timer.  Just removing the tubes will drain them, but not necessarily the valve if it isn't opened.

Joel

[Roy Warren Co-Admin]

Gary,
If this were my coach, I would leave the diesel and electric on all the time and would also visit the coach prior to and after work every day.  That should help you make sure you didn't lose power and run the heater too much.  I know Gerald told you to set the temperature on your thermostats at above 40, but when I bought my 1999 coach, the factory told me to keep the temperature above 50 so there would be chance of freezing in either the basement or in the living area.
Roy

[Sean Donohue]

Just for info, we used Our RV last winter in the Portland OR area and even though we supplemented the heat with electric units, and we used the the diesel heater and from Nov to May we used under 60 gallons... at $4 is 240 for 7 months... not too bad.

[Roy Warren Co-Admin]

I still use the same advise in my 2005 and with the cost at whatever it is.  Heater has turned on here in Albuquerque for the past couple of nights when the temperatures have been in the 30's.  I think the cost of diesel to be much less than the cost of repair should anything freeze and I do know that the basement without heat gets colder than the exterior.  I think these things are reverse refrigerators.
Roy

[Gary Winzenburger]

Thanks everyone for the helpful comments. Sooner or later we have to make the decision and will probably winterize to be on the safe side.  We'll still take it out whenever we can and just do everything over again if necessary.

[Harvey Ziegler]

Hi Joel.

You asked what I meant by a cheater cord. Yes it is a cord that I plug one end onto the wire terminials on the ice maker solenoid and the other is plugged into a 110 volt outlet.
I beleive if you were to look at the info tag on the solenoid you would see that it is a 115 volt AC coil. The reason for removing the filter is to prevent contaminating it with antifreeze.

[Joel Ashley]

Thanks for the correction, Harvey.  My bad.  The heat tape is 12 volt and I guess that was stuck in my mind.  I did know the icemaker won't work without alternating current, but my brain had attached 12v to those solenoid wires thinking only the ice drop and auger mechanism were AC.

Jump starting the solenoid sounds easier than trying to activate it at the timer.  Then you know for sure it's been blown out and antifreeze is unnecessary in that line, filter or not.

Joel

[Gary Winzenburger]

In getting ready for freezing temps tonight, I discovered the water lines running along the steel frame on the drivers side are heavily insulated with heat tape that is controlled by a lablelled switch under the kitchen sink. What a pleasant surprise, and it actually works. I think I'm going to go with keeping the electric on, as well as the Aqua Hot and see how this goes. This is exciting news to me, so I'm going to "eat crow" about the engineering of these coaches. Amazing for the most part!! Now, I'm still trying to figure out, or find a thermostat for the storage bays.