It’s officially fall, but if you live anywhere in the Southwest then you know that it isn’t quite cool yet. But that doesn’t mean that it’s too soon to think about winterizing the RV. Mother nature is so unpredictable that she just may come on in with a cold front that may leave you wishing that you had already winterized your RV Texas.
Winterizing protects the pipes in your RV or travel trailer from freezing and causing damage like leaks later on. I highly recommend winterizing your RV or travel trailer. It take a little bit of time, but will save you in the long the run. The overall plan for winterizing is to empty all of your water tanks (fresh, grey and black) and then run non-toxic, RV antifreeze through all of the plumbing and tanks.
Before we start with the tanks though, empty all of the water from the hot water heater. Do this by locating the drain at the bottom of the heater. Once all of the water has drained put the plug back in.
Next you’ll want to attach a blowout plug to the RV’s city water inlet. If you don’t have one of these plugs, you can get one at any ExploreUSA RV Super Center. This little plug, when attached to an air compressor at 30 psi’s, will get just about every last drop of water from each water line and water fixture. Start with one line, blow it out, replace the cap and move on to the next one. You’ll need to do this on every hot and cold water line, shower (inside and out), and everything in between.
To make sure that your water lines won’t ever freeze, it is best to run antifreeze through them. To make this easy, I recommend buying and installing a valve on your water pump inlet piping which allows your pump to draw antifreeze directly from the antifreeze bottle. Again, you can get this at any ExploreUSA RV Super Center. In addition, I also recommend installing a bypass line for the water heater to avoid wasting 6-10 gallons of antifreeze which is what it would take to fill up the water heater tank, unnecessarily.
To get the antifreeze running thought the lines, just turn on the water pump. Next, open each water fixture one at time and let it flow until you see pure antifreeze. Keep an eye on the antifreeze bottle to make sure it doesn’t run dry. Do this for each and every water fixture you have including the shower(s) and toilet(s).
Now that you have the fresh water system winterized, you need to clean and empty the back and grey water tanks. A great tip to help clean the inside of the tanks is to flush a bag of ice down the toilet then drive on a hilly road for 30 minutes. The ice gently helps to loosen any buildup and doesn’t cause damage to the seals. You can do the ice trick in addition to whatever method you do to clean the tanks. Then go to a dump station and empty the tanks out.
Once you have parked your RV in the area where it will rest over winter, pour antifreeze into the toilet, black and grey tanks.
Depending on where you are storing your RV you many want to consider RV covers, wheel covers or you may even consider taking the wheels off so that they do not develop flat spots.
For all of your RV winterizing equipment, check out ExploreUSA RV Super Center today! And if you have any winterizing tips you’d like to share, please post your comments below.
