Author Topic: Can Hydrohot run without water in the water system  (Read 3301 times)

Tim Manninen

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Can Hydrohot run without water in the water system
« on: October 17, 2018, 03:02:19 PM »
Hi All,
I'm stuck in Michigan and cold weather is upon us. I don't want to hook up to shore water because of the cold. I might have some water in the system but the tank is dry. My question is can the hydrohot run to supply heat to the basement and coach without water in the system?
Thanks for any help.
Tim

Stan Simpson

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Re: Can Hydrohot run without water in the water system
« Reply #1 on: October 17, 2018, 03:29:23 PM »
Yes, just don't make any demand for heat from any faucet while you have the hose disconnected. I run my HH in the cold while it's sitting next to the house, just to keep the basement warm until I winterize it. Not using any water. Tank is empty and not hooked to a hose.

In case you don't know, you can't get all of the water out of the lines and the copper coils in the HH. That's why it's a good idea to NOT just blow out the lines as a winterizing effort. HH and AH owner's pump the pink stuff into the water lines instead. That way, the liquid at the bottom of the coils will not expand under freezing temps and cause a rupture.

The best way to do that is to get a 48 in washing machine hose (the silver braided kind available in a any hardware or big box store). The fitting is an exact fit on to the inlet of your water pump. Screw the braided hose on to the water pump and stick the other end in the gallon jug of the pink stuff. Have someone inside the coach turn on each faucet (with the water pump on) and let it run until the pink stuff comes out. It critical that your helper inside run both the hot and cold at each faucet. That will make sure the pinks stuff is in the coils of the HH. You have to plan ahead for what your procedure will be as the gallon jug empties (quite rapidly). Becky and I use walkie talkies and I just yell "stop" (meaning stop the water pump) when I need to change to a new jug. For me, with the four faucets, the toilet, and the washing machine (a separate procedure...read the owner's manual), it runs to 3 gallons +. $2.58 a gallon yesterday at Wally World and you are safe.
« Last Edit: October 17, 2018, 03:43:10 PM by Stan Simpson »
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Fred Cook

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Re: Can Hydrohot run without water in the water system
« Reply #2 on: October 18, 2018, 12:45:59 PM »
If the AH is off and the basement and main living areas are both heated by infrared heaters..... would that be enough to keep the coils from freezing and bursting?
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Gerald Farris

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Re: Can Hydrohot run without water in the water system
« Reply #3 on: October 18, 2018, 03:57:53 PM »
Fred,
there is no simple answer to your question. On some coaches the AH is somewhat separated from the holding tank area, and just heating the holding tank area will not give adequate protection for the AH unit if it gets really cold. Also the AH unit is mounted on the floor of the basement without much air circulation around it, so you can have freeze damage in severe cold even with a basement heater. Therefore, I always recommend that any stored coach with a hydronic heating/water heater system should be properly winterized with RV antifreeze (pink stuff). This includes Hurricane units even though the Hurricane can not be damaged by freezing temperatures, the external heat exchanger can be without carefully draining it and the electric water if equipped. Of course there are exceptions like if the coach is where it never freezes, but if you are north of I-10 and not living in the coach with all systems running, winterize it.

Gerald
« Last Edit: October 18, 2018, 04:22:35 PM by Gerald Farris »
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Bill Sprague

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Re: Can Hydrohot run without water in the water system
« Reply #4 on: October 19, 2018, 04:09:15 AM »
Every year about this time someone will post somewhere on the internet's forums that they can't believe that it costs $8,000 to fix the Hydro/AquaHot they didn't winterize with RV antifreeze. 
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