Winterize Water System

W

William E. Herb

Member
Joined
May 13, 2009
RO Number
31253
Messages
10
Every year I winterize water system by running tank dry,draining water htr and dumping 8 gal RV antifreeze into FW tank. Open each faucet til I see the pink. There must be a better way using less antifreeze. Looking for suggestions.
 
Do you bypass your hot water tank? If not, you should, it would save a lot of pink.
 
I drain my FW tank/tanks, drain and by-pass the water heater, unhook the pump hose to the tanks and put the hose in a bottom of pink and flush the dockside water input,sinks, and shower faucets. Get it all done with one gallon.
 
I'm a dummy! I look at the plumbing PVC w/ quick connects...not familiar) and wonder how to do this. There is a valve which appears to be a mixer which might do job (marked increase-decrease) which might accomplish this. RV people sell a bypass kit which appears to be nothing more than a valve. Will the mixer valve accomplish the bypass? Please suggest a method I could use.
 
You have to take a peak at what you have or post a pic. Mine are Whale quick connectors. They snap off of the water tank and snap together. You can also buy and intall a bypass put on mine it's so easy that It wasn't worth the money for the bypass. Perhaps someone with your boat can give more specific instructions.
 
I really want to do the air compressor this year.
Please provide instructions on how to do it with the air.
You use no pink?
What about the little bit left in tank?
 
A little water in the tank won't cause any problems, plenty of room to freeze and expand.
 
So whats the process, hook compressor up to water inlet on back of boat and blow air through?

I am game to try it this year.
New boat and I prefer not to get pink into ice maker.
 
I guess I'm a nervous nelly, but I do the air compressor and still run the pink through. However, I don't run the pink through the ice maker. I actually pull the ice maker, disconnect the water feed, turn it on and let it try to make ice so the solenoid opens, and then blow air through it while the solenoid is open. If you don't let the solenoid open I don't know how you get the water out of the lines.

To answer your original question, yes, just make up some fittings and hose and hook it to your dockside water and blow it through with LOW pressure - it doesn't take much.
 
Drain hot water heater first, then blow out the hot and cold lines, no need to bypass water heater, leave the compressor on the system with pressure and the ice maker will cycle a few times and blow out all the water that's left. No pink standing in the lines over the winter to avoid that pink taste and smell.

Flush the toilets ie: Vacuflush (if you have fresh water head) and it will blow out air, pour/flush pink down the toilet to winterize downstream, and holding tank.

You just have to go to Lowes or HD and spend 10 minutes getting all the adapters to go from the compressor air hose fitting to garden hose fitting. I put a little brass inline shut off valve right before all of the adapters, makes it easier to work with.

Then go to MarineEast . com and get the "hose to garden hose adapters" and you can use that to blow out most of the other systems like the A/C, salt water washdowns, thru hulls if you stay in for winter.
 
Jeff,

If you leave the air on the system it will blow out all the water, putting pink is just a waste of time and money to me, you wouldn't have to bother disconnecting the ice maker too.

The pressure doesn't have to be that low, municipal water systems go 50-100psi.
My water pump keeps my system at 55psi.

I run about 30-40 psi to blow out everything. Too low and I would be worried about some water not getting pushed out.
 
Air Pressure will work on some boats but on some it will not. Depends on the design of the systems (routing of the plumbing). There is only one way to find out and if it fails it will be costly next spring.
 
How does air not flow like water Jim???

If you don't have a dockside water connection you would have to rig it so you can connect to a faucet in either the head or galley, or add in a dockside water connection.

On the eight boats I've owned, all of them would work with air.

If you have one cold circuit that feeds the hot water heater and all of the cold water fixtures and the hot water heater that feeds the hot side fixtures, I do not see how air cannot replace pink in every case.

The only thing air will not do is the connection from the fresh water tank to the house water pump. That will have to be drained manually after the water tank is pumped out tills it pumps no more.
 
To each their own. I perfer to bypass the hot water heater and put in the pink antifreeze. I open the faucets one at a time while the pump is running and get as much water out as possible. I add a gallon of antifreeze and pump that thru. When all I am getting is air, I then add another gallon of antifreeze. By this point in time I am getting pure antifreeze thru the faucets. I then run the system until all I get is air. Cost is under $8 and I feel safe. Spending the money on a couple of gallons of antifreeze in my opinion is money well spent.
 
Its not the money, its the pink crap in the water tank and the system.
I may use air to get it out everywhere then put pink only in the lines and not in the tank.
I will just bypass the tank so it has no pink in it!
 
quote:
Originally posted by CurrentSea

Its not the money, its the pink crap in the water tank and the system.
I may use air to get it out everywhere then put pink only in the lines and not in the tank.
I will just bypass the tank so it has no pink in it!

Click to expand...

When you say 'tank', are you refering to the fresh water tank?
It's probably safe to say that it's difficult to remove every last ounce of water from the fresh water tank. This leaves two options. Option one is to have the pink in there. Option two is to leave water in there.
Six months of having water in there, in my opinion, will lead to have more bacterial than it would have if pink antifreeze was used.
 
If you are worried about bacteria, you can add a small amount of bleach in the tank in the spring fill it with some water, pump it out and it will be taken care of.

I've never had a problem with the remaining water in the tank going bad.
 
Blow the lines out... use pink for the heads.
As stated above, just be cognizant of the AIR PSI so you don't literally BLOW your lines. I find 40-50 PSI works fine for me, and I always leave one faucet open at all times the air is connected (idiot proofing tactic in case I forget to adjust the air psi valve before attaching my compressor).
 
Once you put pink stuff in the tanks you can't flush all of it out without draining the tank, there will always be some. I guess if you flushed 100's of gallons of fresh water through a 10 gallon water heating tank there would be very little left mixed in. All the hot water tanks I've seen in 30 + years of boating can't be drained using the on board water pump cold water goes in the bottom and the hot is pushed out the top, once you stop pumping cold water in nothing will come out but the tank is still full. If you blow air through the line the air will just bubble up through the water in the tank not push the watwr out.
 
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