So, we are in the same boat.
Here we sit, in the mountains of Colorado, in mid-October. It will go into the 20's tonight. We had snow overnight for several days running. Today there was a 20-car pileup just 15 miles from us because of winter driving conditions.
But we fully intend to camp again this season, and last year we rolled out in mid-March over an uncharacteristically warm weekend...with plenty of winter left. I developed this technique (as have many others) simply because I want to be ready to roll on a moment's notice.
Because I have a pop-up, I have two stages of winterization:
1) Partial
2) Full
Both rely on a good air compressor.
Partial:
I use a ceramic heater to heat the interior of the camper...connected to shore power. My closed PUP is small, so the heater barely runs and keeps the interior about 80 degrees.
Other steps:
- Open the low-point drains;
- Drain the water heater;
- Drain the fresh tank;
- Turn on the water pump and use the outside sink to purge the water in the pump--this won't hurt the pump if you limit it to about 30 to 60 seconds;
- Open the faucet to my outside kitchen sink to allow air to enhance draining thru the low point drains;
- Then close the faucet, re-plug the water heater, and move to air;
- Set the air compressor to about 40 PSI and connect it to the city water input;
- Open the outdoor shower valves and blow that out;
- Open the outside sink faucet (again) and blow that dry;
- Meanwhile the air is continuously blowing the lines clear thru the low point drains;
- finally, add RV antifreeze to the drain (outside trap under the rig) from the outside sink;
- Done...everything "outside" is protected, and the heater protects everything inside;
- But that heater can get expensive if you run it weeks on end.
Full
Since my issue is that I have a PopUp camper (PUP), the real pain point in winterization is setting up the camper to allow me to get inside the camper to winterize the interior. And, as anyone with "canvas" knows (and you'll soon find out), cold canvas is a bitch to fold and put away, so setup and teardown is at least a couple hours of work.
But once open, the remaining steps are minimal. I must also:
- Blow out the kitchen sink;
- Blow out the fresh water supply to the toilet (and bathroom sink if I had one);
- Empty the water filter housing.
What's the key to all of this? Using air to blow out the water system in the camper. I do not contaminate my fresh water system, at ANY point, with RV antifreeze or anything else. In fact, I chlorine-sanitized my system ONCE, in 2014, when I bought it. I blow it dry and keep it clean.
Being confident in this method requires examining your fresh water plumbing to ensure that there are no low points in the lines that can't be blown dry, AND a damned good air compressor.
I have a
30 gallon semi-stationary compressor rated at 175 PSI. Anything of this caliber will do. Again, I 'blow' at 40 PSI so I don't blow up my plumbing, but that big tank and high pressure reserve enables me to deliver essentially unlimited air to the RV. This compressor delivers 6+ SCFM at 40 PSI....that's a LOT of air.
One other tip is, with the low incoming air pressure, it's OK to shut off ALL the valves/faucets while moving from one to the next several times to blow them out until all run dry...including the low-point drains. The other key is to remember to "run the pump dry" (it actually gurgles a bit, but it's dry enough that ice can't fracture it) and empty the filter housing (it holds about 2 or 3 cups of water, and air does not blow it dry).
The principle is a lot like blowing out a sprinkler system. And a big air compressor eliminates the need to reconfigure the intake valves on the hot water heater. My 30 gallon air compressor can fill and pressurize a 6 gallon hot water heater with no effort whatsoever. This means no fiddle-farting around with bypass valves and so on. Leave the hot-water heater intake valves in summer mode.
I bought several brass adapter bits to assemble a male garden hose to male 1/4" NPT air hose quick connect fitting. You may be able to buy such a thing ready to go, but my hardware store had the male hose to 3/8" female thread adapter, and I have a box of the 1/4" air connectors. I attach the air hose to the city water input and leave it there until I'm done.
When finished, I close all valves, including the low point drains.
The only place I use RV antifreeze is in the traps and a bit in the toilet bowl to keep the seal moist.
This means, all I have to do to roll out is fill the fresh tank (I always boondock), turn on the pump and use the outside sink to purge air as I fill the hot water heater and purge the cold-water lines and fill the water filter housing...so I have max water capacity when I hit the road. The little residual air in the lines is dealt with when I open the camper at the site...kitchen sink, toilet, etc. In other words, "de-winterizing" is little different than rolling out in the summer...fill the water and go.
You could use my "full" winter prep method all the time in a Roo, because you can get inside easily. Just be sure there aren't any vulnerable low points in the fresh-water plumbing the might resist being blown out. If you find one, consider installing another "low-point-drain" at that spot.
It took me about 30 minutes to do the "partial" winterize last night...leaving me time to winterize the pump on my pressure washer, winterize my garden hoses, and so on. The air compressor makes it easy, but you can't do it properly with a pancake compressor.
These tactics enable me to sleep at night, because I'm not worrying about the camper freezing, and knowing I can be ready to roll almost as quickly I can on any summer weekend.
Hope this helps.
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