Residential Frig Winterizing

[Rimrider23]

I have a 2015 377 flik with the residential frig. I cannot find any steps for winterizing in the frig manual or the Forest River manual. Do I pump antifreeze into the ice maker? Do I just blow the lines out with a compressor? Will the water pump in the frig freeze and bust? I've called Forest River, they won't return my calls. Maybe they don't have the foggiest idea. Does anyone have any input I can use?

[denali15]

Hey,

Here is how I winterized mine. There is a drain outside the slide near the fridge; I opened that up when I did the other low points. Take the water filter out of the fridge. Then just leave your water pump on for a few hours with the plumbing antifreeze hooked up until you get pinkish ice cube. Took mine two cycles of cubes.

It's my understanding that if you don't remove the water filter it will take a lot longer.

Here is a pic of how my cubes came out. Hehe.



Good luck!

[Kenny kustom]

So... Antifreeze will freeze


2015 RAM 3500 CCSB CUMMINS
2016 Sabre 36QBOK

[MillerTime]

Originally Posted by Kenny kustom

So... Antifreeze will freeze


2015 RAM 3500 CCSB CUMMINS
2016 Sabre 36QBOK

Yep.
I put some in my freezer at home (probably about 0 to -5°F ) to see what it would do last winter, and it froze. It wasnt rock hard, you could still kinda mush it with your finger, but it was in a much more solid state than i had anticipated.

[ependydad]

Originally Posted by Kenny kustom

So... Antifreeze will freeze

Originally Posted by MillerTime

Yep.
I put some in my freezer at home (probably about 0 to -5°F ) to see what it would do last winter, and it froze. It wasnt rock hard, you could still kinda mush it with your finger, but it was in a much more solid state than i had anticipated.

Different anti-freezes freeze at different temperatures. But, how it differs from water is that it does *not* expand when it does so. So, even if it freezes in your lines- they won't be damaged.

[AquaMan]

I was told that in our residential fridge ( French door, Georgetown), the water filter must be in place in order to allow water to flow to the ice maker and water spigot. This ruins the filter, but the dealer gave us an extra and said to keep the one as a "winterizing" filter. Some residential fridges (my home fridge has this) have a "dummy" filter that simply replaces the filter and allows the water to flow, but ours in the Georgetown doesn't have this feature.

[denali15]

Originally Posted by AquaMan

I was told that in our residential fridge ( French door, Georgetown), the water filter must be in place in order to allow water to flow to the ice maker and water spigot. This ruins the filter, but the dealer gave us an extra and said to keep the one as a "winterizing" filter. Some residential fridges (my home fridge has this) have a "dummy" filter that simply replaces the filter and allows the water to flow, but ours in the Georgetown doesn't have this feature.

I was told by our dealer to take the filter out of the residential fridge. As you can see from my results, the water just bypasses the filter. Taking the filter out makes the process a little quicker. This is on the whirlpool fridge that came with the sandpiper RV; other fridges may be different.

[denali15]

Originally Posted by Kenny kustom

So... Antifreeze will freeze


2015 RAM 3500 CCSB CUMMINS
2016 Sabre 36QBOK

It did freeze but it was more like slush and I'm sure there was still some water mixed with it.

[ktvaughan]

How did you rinse this out in the Spring? Did you taste antifreeze in the new cubes?

[denali15]

I put the fridge filter back in and make a couple full trays of ice and threw them out.

Ice cubes tasted fine.

[ktvaughan]

OK, that's great info.
We bought a used RV where the previous owners had put antifreeze into the fresh water tank.
It took forever to get that taste out of the water.

[denali15]

I got some bad water at one of the campsites this summer. I had filled my fresh water tank with it...

Ended up having the replace my filter and bleach the fresh water tank to get rid of the smell...

[ktvaughan]

I went the "Pink Ice Cubes" route as suggested.
Drained the low points and the drain on the outside of the Kitchen Appliance slide. Ran antifreeze thru all the drains to make sure they were flushed.
I let the fridge make ice cubes for 1 hour and got pink cubes.
Don't forget the hookups for the washer dryer in the back. There's a lot of water in the tubing to those.
Winterizing took 3.5 gallons of antifreeze including the P-traps.

Regarding the water heater: I bypassed that and pulled the anode to drain the tank. Are you supposed to clean the anode off or leave it a little "coated"?

In general an easy winterizing system.

[SidecarFlip]

If it's just coated, use it next season. If it's pitted badly replace it with a new one, they are cheap on Amazon. Suburban uses an anode because the tank is uncoated steel. If the anode is depleted, the tank starts corroding.

[denali15]

[ktvaughan]

Well put!

[brad2388]

on our LG ice maker when u take the bin out. there is a test button under the bottom. you can make the bin flip but it also fills up with water so you dont have to wait a cycle.

you can also do that so you wont have to wait 24 hrs for ice to freeze. just run the test a couple times until you get antifreeze.

be careful. it will dump ice out if there is any as well as water/antifreeze. i use my ice bin to catch it all.

[ktvaughan]

My unit has a new residential LG (Inverter) 20 cu.ft. refrigerator/freezer.
It's the side-by-side fridge and lower freezer.
This thing cools down and makes ice fast.
I was making pink ice cubes in 1-2 hours after winterizing.
It's brand new, so I can't comment on reliability.

[gordonsick]

KT,
There are a lot of posts about winterizing a residential fridge on this forum. I think I've said some things about it as well.

A short, sweet and to the point post that is consistent with my procedure is at
http://www.forestriverforums.com/for...tor-97761.html

–cheers, Gordon