SV-192T winterizing

[aextremeskier]

I have a question, this is our first self contained (almost) camper and we love it.. now is the time to winterize. I followed the instructions in the manual... drained everything, bypassed the heater, blew out the lines as best I could. Filled the fresh water tank with RV antifreeze (about 6 gallons in)... turned the pump on and foam came out of the faucets.. no antifreeze. I called the place where I purchased the camper and they told me not to put antifreeze in the holding tank even though the directions did. They told us to use the kit that was factory installed under the bathroom sink directly from the antifreeze bottle... that worked great.

However even though we are never going to use the fresh water tank I need the get that antifreeze out of there. The problem is, is that the drain located under the camper which is about 3 inches long with a nut on it. When taken off only about a tablespoon of antifreeze came out? I went to the back of the camper and there is a red and blue hose about the same length with the caps on it.. unscrewed those as well and the same thing. Anyone have any ideas about how to drain this tank?

I had a pop up and winterized that through the holding tanks and there was a brass fitting on the tank where I could drain. I had full access to it, this camper has a covering under the entire camper so the undercarriage is protected. I can't see the tanks to see if there is another drain..

Any info would be great and appreciated... thanks all.

[steveqvs]

Okay the there should be a drain at the lowest part of your freshwater tank and opening that should cause it to drain. Most people have or intstall a bypass right by the water pump. It looks like a t in the line. It has a hose coming out of it. You put the hose into your pink antifreeze and you open the T valve. have someone or you jump over to a sink and turn it on. You should see the pink stuff getting sucked out of your anitfreeze bottle and eventually it comes out of the faucet. Do this for all the faucets and toilet lines including the shower and tub. Also make sure your filter for your water is out or bypassed as in another thead here it says it will filter out the pink and you wont see that its working. For the hot water side there is the same kind of bypass by your water heater. After you are done drain all tanks. Now I do pour a little bit of the pink stuff in the fresh and the grey and black... i dunno its probably not needed but i don't want any water to puddle up that might freeze. Hope this helps.

[aextremeskier]

Yes that does help, and I have found and figured out how to use the installed bypass. I opened the panel under the bathroom sink to get to the pump, took our the filter and put the cover back on. I can get it to pump out of the antifreeze bottle so I am ok now with that.

The only issue I am having now is trying to drain the 5-6 gallons of antifreeze from my fresh water tank. Under the trailer is a 3 inch hose with cap. When that cap is removed all that came out was about a tablespoon of antifreeze and not the 5-6 gallons. Not sure how to drain it, the owners manual isn't that good in telling me where things are. I have found 3 (what looks like drains) but don't know. One is the 3 inch blue house directly under the fresh water tank like described above. The other two are a red and blue (I would think hot and cold?) at the rear of the trailer. I did unscrew those two and again only a tablespoon came out.

On my hot water tank, there are 3 valves. One for the hot one for the cold and on inbetween. I have the hot and cold off and the one in the middle on. I am sure the loop is correct because I do get antifreeze to the faucets. I am not going to worry about the fresh water tank this year since the antifreeze wont hurt anything, I just need to drain it somehow....

[Bama Rambler]

The problem with the FW tank is that some of the "drain" fittings are not right on the bottom of the tank but are raised up 3/4" or so. That usually leaves about 3 to 5 gallons in the tank after the drain stops draining. Since you've winterized already, I'd just leave it in there till you de-winterize.

Those pipes with the caps you found were the low point drains. If you remove the caps and open the faucets the water will drain from the system. The two together are the water line drains and the one by itself is the FW tank drain.

When you de-winterize, fill the FW tank with water and drain it several times this dilute the anti-freeze until it's gone. This may take several times of filling and draining to completely get rid of it.

[chevy02]

Dont forget to drain your hot water heater and did you take the filter out of water filter if your model has one it is a must to remove this

[aextremeskier]

Yeah I drained everything, took the filter out, then bypassed everything. I just wanted to thank you all for the advice. I put about 2 gallons through the lines and down the drains. Now its just picking things up and cleaning the camper then covering :0(...