Winterizing your coach for south to north trip

[RobRoy]

A few questions for the group.

This winter will be our first snowbird trip from north to south during the winter and then back home all done during the freezing weather in the north.

It seems that winterizing the coach is a straight forward deal and I have the coach living in its own shop with a compressed air so again appears to be straight forward deal , however I was a bit foggy as to how to deal washer/dryer combo and the home style fridge with ice and water and appears that I will be using rv anti-freeze cycled thu it to doso. ( and will take any advice on this also)

So the question is….For those of you that make this trip during the freezing weather how do you get your coach ready for the trip back home?

Do I assume that my HR Navagator with aqua hot will possibly keep all the zones warm and not to worry about it and drive it home? ….although I don’t want to get back home to freezing cold and deal with winterizing it….again.

Do you winterize the coach in the warm climate before coming back to the freezing weather? ….and then leg it home with no water?

Do the rv parks have service people that will do this for you?

Thanks for your input.

[PushedAround]

We go to Key West every January. I stopped using anti-freeze. I remove and drain the water filter and then just blow the beejebers out of every faucet, the shower, toilet, drain valves, ref ice maker & door water etc. until they are dry. For the washer I start a cycle and the air will clean that out too. Then I'll pour some antifreeze into the washer and cancel the cycle so it drains. Fill up the sink, toilet and shower traps, remove the ref water filter and that's it.

I re-winterize when I get home, as it really only takes about an hour, and the RV is still warm. It's all part of the cleanup process.

[K7JV]

Couple of thoughts. First, where are you going and for how long? The Montana Hi-Line? Seattle/Portland? Big difference. Will you have power to your coach 100% of the time it is in the cold country?

Assuming you have electrical power available and fuel in your tank, your AquaHot should be able to keep your coach safe and livable down into the teens, at least. We've experienced the low single digits for a few overnight excursions, with no problem.

If you are going to park it and power it down, you do need to winterize it. You can use air for almost everything. That is how we did our previous coach, in SW Idaho. Your owners manual has a great section on winterizing. For the residential fridge, you can disconnect the water line to the ice maker, and blow that feed by energizing the water solenoid(s), if you can get to it (them).

DON'T, DON'T, DON'T winterize the fresh water line through the AquaHot with compressed air!!! Regardless of how much air you push through those coils, there is a good chance water will settle into the bottom of at least one of the coil loops and if it freezes, you are well into the five-digits to get it repaired. If you don't winterize anything else with anti-freeze, at least push it through your cold line to your AquaHot and thence to the hot water low point drain. Again, go to your owners manual.

RV dealerships can do the job for you, but you would want to be sure they know about winterizing AquaHot equipped coaches.

We do our own coach, and we use anti-freeze for all lines except for the line to the refrigerator, and the line that feeds the kitchen InstaHot dispenser. We blow those out with air, and then close the manifold valves that feed them. We don't want anti-freeze in those circuits. I figure a couple hours and five gallons of anti-freeze for the job. The incoming water filters, and the surge tank if you have one, result in a fairly high anti-freeze volume requirement. Again, RTM.

Also, don't forget to drain the holding tanks completely, and make sure there is some antifreeze in there. If you have a SaniCon, be sure to pump some of that antifreeze thru the SaniCon pump. And don't forget the black tank flush line.

Good luck to you. Safe travels!!

[RobRoy]

Thank for the responses, So…does that mean that everyone making these snowbird journeys has no use of the water system in their coach until you hit the warm climate? …… or do you fill you coach just before you leave…(that sounds scary filling the coach with water in 0 deg weather) even with aquahot.

So now as far as winterizing? This looks to be pretty straight forward. Drain all the low points and remove the water filters and pump rv coolant thru everything via the water pump and fill all the traps with rv coolant. I also assume that running the all hot faucets until I see pink will take care of the aqua hot being winterized?

Where I’m a bit vague is on the winterization method of the fridge (with ice and water) the washer dryer combo and the insta hot. You say use air and not rv coolant? and DO NOT use compressed air in the aqua hot?... how do you separate these components to use compressed air?

Some U-Tube videos show them running rv coolant thu these components but I think I understand the reasoning of using compressed air is the posibilty of the residual after taste when doing so?

Thank again

[K7JV]

Our practice for the past ten winters has been to un-winterize the motorhome a couple of days before we departed south. We usually did that in the last week of November, here in southwestern Idaho. If overnight low temps for those two nights were forecast to be at or above 30 degrees, we would just leave her in storage with no heat on. If they were forecast to be colder than that we would either heat up the AquaHot and set the thermostats to 50 degrees or so, or we would take it to a nearby RV park and pay for a night or two of "camping". That way, in either case, we could take the last two days to load it and be ready to roll. We use a public storage facility and don't have power available, so we have to rely on the diesel and the batteries for whatever energy we need to keep her warm.

Our SW Idaho winters aren't that bad, normally, especially that early in the season. Last winter, though, we got down in the single digits for several days, with highs in the mid teens. We did take it to a local RV park for the last week before we left, and it was fine.

As for the AquaHot, once you get pink at any hot water outlet, the AquaHot is good to go. It just needs pink in its internal coils to be good.

Regarding isolating the ice maker, etc., our coach has what they call a Manibloc. That is a manifold that has hot and cold valves for each of the appliances and service areas. That makes it easy to valve off the ice maker, and the kitchen cold (for the InstaHot) to keep form running antifreeze into those two locations. The washer/dryer and the dish drawer? We use the owners manual procedure, and do those with anti-freeze. It's easy and just takes a few cups of anti-freeze for each of them.

Ice maker? I made a "suicide cord" that I use to energize the ice maker water solenoid (accessed through the louvered door on the outside of the coach) with air applied to the water system. That blows out that line from the Manibloc to the solenoid as well as the solenoid operated valve, itself. I do that with the line that goes up the back of the fridge removed from the valve. That short line drains by gravity, so its not a problem. I think you said you have a residential fridge. If so, you may or may not be able to get to that valve through that side wall opening. If you can't, I will defer to anyone else that have figured out a way to winterize it. Personally, I would not like anti-freeze in the cold water chiller of a residential fridge, as I think it would take a huge amount of use to purge away the taste of the anti-freeze. They have a reservoir in the cooled compartment to chill the water, and it would rely on dilution to finally purge the anti-freeze from it. I feel the same about the InstaHot and avoid getting any anti-freeze in it at all cost.

We've camped in near zero (Fahrenheit) temperatures on a couple of occasions, for one night. The AquaHot kept us comfortable and the coach out of danger. I wouldn't want to do that for very long, though. I don't know what temperatures these coaches would be ok in, for the long haul. I wouldn't have a concern in the 20's, and probably not in the mid to upper teens. IMHO, below that, it's time to go south or winterize.

When it comes to extreme cold conditions, the interior of the coach and the basement water compartments is probably protected by the AquaHot. My main worry is with the enclosed areas below cupboard floors and such, where the water lines are routed. Those areas don't get the benefit of the warm interior air or the basement warmth, and may not have a lot of insulation value between their environment and the outside walls/floors of the coach. In our coach, that would be the area below the cupboard floors in the kitchen, and the run under the driver side from the bathroom cupboard to the toilet and shower. Those areas are probably the most at-risk in our coach.

Those are some of my thoughts and our experiences. However, opinions are like belly buttons. Everybody has one. Again, if you follow the winterizing guidelines in your owners manual, you should be good to go.

[PushedAround]

If you decide that you want to split between air & anti-freeze, then blow out all the air lines first and if possible, valve off the feeds from the manifold. Then use anti-freeze, and may I recommend Prestone RV anti-freeze (the red stuff). It is only a dollar more than the pink crap, flushes out more easily and tastes much better should you not quite get it all out.

[RobRoy]

Thanks to everyone who responded for all your knowledge and the help.

[OB-One]

We're fulltimers and spent much of last winter in Colorado & Wyoming. Our coach survived -10F several times. The basement temps got down to 36-38F so that's as cold as I want to push it.

Traveling was not a problem between engine heat and the AquaHot. We don't hook up water or sewer when it's below freezing. Below freezing we only dump and refill and did not have any issues.

We burned a lot of diesel through the AquaHot last winter and went through two AquaHot fuel filters and one nozzle.

Slide toppers and snow don't mix well. I recommend cleaning snow from the toppers as soon as you can after a snow. I thought my days of shoveling snow were behind me after selling the house, but last winter I found myself on the roof with a long broom moving snow off the roof and slides of the coach.

[JohnBoyToo]

Although I LOVE winter camping, hope it's not encountering snow

Wouldn't just pulling the slides in clean off the slide covers ?

and if my roof can handle ALL my weight on my little feet, it will take a LOT of snow to be heavier than that and NO, I'm not going to do the calculation !!!

[OB-One]

Originally Posted by JohnBoyToo

Although I LOVE winter camping, hope it's not encountering snow

Wouldn't just pulling the slides in clean off the slide covers ?

and if my roof can handle ALL my weight on my little feet, it will take a LOT of snow to be heavier than that and NO, I'm not going to do the calculation !!!

The problem with snow on the roof is that it melts and the water then goes to other places and freezes. Freezing water expands which can cause problems with various seals.

Pulling in the slides will not get all the snow off the slide covers. The residual snow can jam the slide covers or cause them to freeze together making it difficult or impossible to open the slide without damage.