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SpaceNorman · 07-14-2015, 09:25 PM

My wife and I - two life long Michigan residents - are excitedly making plans for our first winter escape in our new (to us) motor home. Our plans have us heading for Florida - leaving Michigan sometime in early January and returning sometime around the middle of February.

Our itinerary has us leaving and returning to Michigan in the dead of winter - and planning to make it a two day drive in each direction- with an overnight stop somewhere in Tennessee while we're driving down and again on the way home. Obviously, it would be nice to have running water while on the road down and back.

I'm curious about how others handle the logistics of un-winterizing and re-winterizing their coaches for trips like this. Any suggestions?

RV Wizard · 07-15-2015, 03:18 AM

Once you turn on the furnace you can dewinterize the coach and turn on the water heater or Aqua Hot. As long as you are comfortable in the coach your water system will be OK too. Put enough water in the fresh water tank for travelling and use the pump at rest stops. We may still be having freezing weather here so you may just want to add a little water to the tank and not worry about freezing a water hose. Good luck and enjoy your MH.

normandlegra · 07-15-2015, 03:27 AM

A day or so before leaving, while packing clothes and food, I'd start the furnaces and heat up the coach with the kitchen and bathrooms cupboard opended to send some heat on your plumbing and I'd un-winterize and I'd run water in your plumbing system to rinse all of your plumbing antigel liquid, including the hot water tank; the morning you leave, I'd fill my fresh water tank 3/4 way and I would make sure my hotwater tank gets filled up and then I'd get that water going.
I'd buy 2 cases of plastic bottled water for drinking and making hot breverages
Coming back, I'd fill my water 1/2 way for your personnal toilet usage and arriving home, I'd winterise within the hour.

TomandGloria · 07-15-2015, 05:15 AM

I added a wireless weather station with remote sensor in my wet bay. That way I can monitor outside temps. With furnace running we have not encountered any issues.

HD4Mark · 07-15-2015, 06:53 AM

We used to fill a couple of plastic gallon jugs to flush the toilet or if you are worried still bring along RV antifreeze for that. Like already said, get bottled water to drink and make coffee etc.

We filled the fresh water tank shortly before leaving since in central NY like in Michigan could get sub zero temps. The sloshing around and warmth from the coach kept it from freezing I guess. Then wait until we got to somewhere that did not have sustained below freezing temps to use the fresh water and blowout the antifreeze from the lines. We never filled the hot water tank until then. A lot of your planning might be by the forecast right before leaving and returning.

Check in Florida about getting RV antifreeze or bring some. Where we go there has never been frost so they don't stock much in the stores.

We have since retired so we use the easy method to winterize by driving somewhere warm before the weather gets bad up north. Usually mid Oct. to late April or so. Keeps us from ever seeing actual snow. The family knows where we will be if they would like to spend the holidays with us.