can't wait.

[rsbamafan]

Thinking of dewinterizing and cleaning up my surveyor 291.Hope its not to early here in N.alabama,I just can't wait to camp.Any thoughts?

[cat1956]

Originally Posted by rsbamafan

Thinking of dewinterizing and cleaning up my surveyor 291.Hope its not to early here in N.alabama,I just can't wait to camp.Any thoughts?

I live in Central Alabama and I always wait until the end of March. We are still going to have some more freezing weather. Thats just my 2 cents.

[flyrotor]

I followed NWJeepers advice and blew out the lines, cfoistman also has made an adapter for quickconnect to the aircompressor and fit it to the city water line, obviously low pressure, (40psi max).

Two weeks ago I went camping for the weekend, came home and re-winterized in less than 10 minutes. Less than 1/2 gallon antifreeze into toilet and traps,

I will never again hesitate to "Filler up and go". Thanks guys...

Get out there and enjoy the spring weather and blow the lines out when you get done.

[NWJeeper]

Flyrotor, I just noticed in your signature line that you have your chocolate labs grounded. That's good because the leading cause of electrical problems in chocolate labs is faulty grounds....LOL

"sometimes I just think funny things" -Arthur.

Rsbamafan: If the weather report is good enough to go, get out there and go. We don't mind a little cold and wet (or we would never get out of the house here in the Northwest). As Flyrotor said, use compressed air to blow the lines when you get home if you are worried about freezing and when you are ready to go again, just fill er' up with H2O and go again.

We have already been out to the coast once a few weeks ago and will be going again in a few weeks, (I hope).

[doctort44]

Any weekend that's not going to get below 30 degrees is good for us. We don't mind de-winterizing then re-winterizing. My DW and I don't call it camping, we call it decompressing

[BENTE]

well with my first winter with my tt, i listened to friends instead of listning to research i did on the internet.. i had seen no one say anything of "blowing the lines" (but i did not look to hard either).. well i blew my lines... and decided to keep quiet about it here.. see it does not get really cold here (normally)... so if i messed up where will i see it first? i know when i will know it (our first trip next weekend).. but i am not sure where to look first..


also will i have to open a faucet so the hot water heater will fill up?

thanks i just kept quiet because i am still feeling my way around some of you

[Hokiehall]

Originally Posted by BENTE

well with my first winter with my tt, i listened to friends instead of listning to research i did on the internet.. i had seen no one say anything of "blowing the lines" (but i did not look to hard either).. well i blew my lines... and decided to keep quiet about it here.. see it does not get really cold here (normally)... so if i messed up where will i see it first? i know when i will know it (our first trip next weekend).. but i am not sure where to look first..


also will i have to open a faucet so the hot water heater will fill up?

thanks i just kept quiet because i am still feeling my way around some of you

Some folks blow out the lines, others run antifreeze through them. If that is done, it is imperative to have a water heater bypass. Otherwise you will uselessly fill your hot water tank with antifreeze. It takes less than two gallons to run through a bypassed system. If you are blowing out the lines, you need to put antifreeze in each sink trap and in the toilet. Don't forget the outside shower.

Check to see if you have a water heater bypass, and if you do, see if it is closed. Your hot water tank will fill up if the bypass is open. I check mine by pulling the anode rod out to see if water comes pouring out when I turn it on. If it does not, I have to open the bypass.

The bypass will be located near the back of your water heater, probably in an inconvenient difficult to access place. I have to remove two kitchen drawers and bend down in ways the body is not designed to bend to get to mine, but I can.

[BENTE]

i seen a post here about the by pass system. i then stuck my head under the sink with a couple drawers removed and turned all the "valves" the other direction.. which makes me thing i had it in a position to bypass the water heater.. when i got it ready last weekend i returned those same "valves" back to their original (on?) position.. i put the anode rod back in shortly after i read something about them rusting if they were left out.. so i think i am ok.. but since i am a newbie i am still a little worried about leaking water from busted pipes.. i mean it was a unusual winter (as you know) so is there someplace that is more succeptable {sp} to breakage?

[NWJeeper]

Originally Posted by BENTE

i seen a post here about the by pass system. i then stuck my head under the sink with a couple drawers removed and turned all the "valves" the other direction.. which makes me thing i had it in a position to bypass the water heater.. when i got it ready last weekend i returned those same "valves" back to their original (on?) position.. i put the anode rod back in shortly after i read something about them rusting if they were left out.. so i think i am ok.. but since i am a newbie i am still a little worried about leaking water from busted pipes.. i mean it was a unusual winter (as you know) so is there someplace that is more succeptable {sp} to breakage?

Bente,

If you are methodical about how you blow the lines you should have nothing to worry about. I don't bypass the water heater when using air as it will force the water out of the tank. Removing the plug will insure that it is drained. Our friends keep their rig (our old one) at our house and use only air to blow the lines. In two winters of weeks on end in the teens around here they have had no problems.

Personally I have had worse luck with leaving the city water turned on at parks and leaving the rig for a day. Twice we have come back to find water leaking because of this.

I think you will be just fine, no worries.

[BENTE]

ok i kind of thought that but seeing it somehow makes me feel better.. this year it snowed again for the first time since i can remember two years back to back.. it was pretty cold so i will probably still be leery {sp}. especially since i read that if the tank is not full when power is thrown to the anode rod it could "cause damage..

so to prevent damage do i hook up the water and "bleed" the lines before i hook up the power? and will i hear the heater filling up?

sorry these may seem like basic questions but i have never done this before

[NWJeeper]

Originally Posted by BENTE

ok i kind of thought that but seeing it somehow makes me feel better.. this year it snowed again for the first time since i can remember two years back to back.. it was pretty cold so i will probably still be leery {sp}. especially since i read that if the tank is not full when power is thrown to the anode rod it could "cause damage..

so to prevent damage do i hook up the water and "bleed" the lines before i hook up the power? and will i hear the heater filling up?

sorry these may seem like basic questions but i have never done this before

No worries Bente, better to ask the questions before you cost yourself a lot of money

What I do is connect a water hose to the city water and open the cold faucets one at a time till water flows. Then open the hot water faucets until water flows. If you arent bypassing the tank it will fill with water and it will take a few minutes to do so before you get water out of the hot faucets. Turn on your shower and flush your toilet until you get water too. This is pretty much the same thing you did with the compressed air, just refilling the system with water now.

It's the electric element in the tank you will burn up if you don't have water in there and you turn on the electric element (if you have one), not the annode.

[flyrotor]

You probably won't hear water filling the tank in the water heater, but when you open the hot water on your sink while the water is connected, you will hear it sputter a bit, when it flows without air flutter and sputter, your tank will be full

[BENTE]

so basically what you are both saying is i need to turn on the water first thing.. before i hook up the "shore power".. i have a tt so am i wrong? when i think there is a seprate {sp} breaker switch that i have to throw on before the electricty will burn the element up. because i would hate to think that the electricty that flowed to the tt during the trip would burn up the element..

once again proabably dumb question to seasoned campers.. but the only experience in camping has been provided to me by trial and error. and errors cost money. i don't mind looking stupid but when it costs me money it feels worse

[flyrotor]

Bente, look at your breaker box, you should have a breaker for the water heater, also, when you open the cover for the water heater, looking to the left side of the plug and up a bit, usually hidden by a bunch of stuff there is a switch located there, most often it is in the off position, there is also a little cotter key type pin that locks this switch open. Chances are, the electric is shut off at this switch. Either way, if either of the switch or the breaker is off, you shouldn't have to worry about burning up the element.

For the most part, I plan to keep the electric element turned off, there may be a time that I choose to use this, but for now, I plan on using the gas to heat the water.

There are some here who use both and claim it has a faster recovery rate. I too am new to having an electric element in the water heater, so maybe sometime in the future I will use it. My previous trailer, a pop-up had only the gas heat in the water heater.

ps, no dumb questions, just listen to the advice when given, some people occasionally argue good advice without sound reasoning behind their argument

[BENTE]

ok thanks for all the info...

[cfsoistman]

Originally Posted by flyrotor

I followed NWJeepers advice and blew out the lines, cfoistman also has made an adapter for quickconnect to the aircompressor and fit it to the city water line, obviously low pressure, (40psi max).

Two weeks ago I went camping for the weekend, came home and re-winterized in less than 10 minutes. Less than 1/2 gallon antifreeze into toilet and traps,

I will never again hesitate to "Filler up and go". Thanks guys...

Get out there and enjoy the spring weather and blow the lines out when you get done.

Here's the adapter I made: Bought everything at HD.

[flyrotor]

Here's mine, little different, but similar, notice I wrote 40 PSI on the side as a reminder to reduce the hose pressure before I connect

[BENTE]

that is cool i will have to make something like that. i bought a adapter from campig world that i used

[sonicsix]

We're in Jemison just south of Birmingham. We'll be dewinterizing in about 10 days!