Purging the water system for Serious winter camping

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Dafinga

Advanced Member
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Oct 30, 2020
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Northern Cali
Hey folks,

Getting ready to take the camper to Tahoe. My plan is to purge the water system(s). I have a flatbed with a tank and the in house tank and water heater. I also have a grey water tank that will be purged. I have a Thetford that I will run and make sure all water is out of. I will then blow out the system with a purge valve and compressed air. I do intend on running the Thetford by manually dumping RV antifreeze into in post potty break. Anything I am missing?

Thanks,

Pete
 
Karlton said:
I drain the system then run RV antifreeze through the pump and plumbing to the sink.
Click to expand...

Exactly what do you use [brand], how much and what is your procedure? Seems like cheap insurance....even when drained. Might also allow me to use sink with system drained and then pour antifreeze down drain after I use sink with water from my jug...

Thanks
 
I'm headed into my 6th winter with the camper. Since I'm uninterested in introducing chemicals into my water system I do not use the pink stuff. There is also some evidence that the pink stuff is bad for certain plastics and rubber seals. I've always done a thorough job of draining and until this year I have not blown out the lines. I had tried blowing them and only got a few drops out. This year after hearing so many say they do it, I decided to try once again and surprisingly got a fair amount of water out.

We have a Gen1 flatbed with the cassette toilet where the flush water is supplied from the main water tank via a water line. The newer models have a dedicated flush water tank on the toilet. In the past I haven't paid a lot of attention to this supply line as it is pretty hidden. This year I realized that the plumbing is setup such that it's impossible to drain that line. It runs flat on the floor and goes up vertically on both ends. By blowing out the lines I was successful at evacuating a fair amount of flush water from that line. Once water stopped coming out of the toilet flush nozzle I let a little air pressure build up and then released it at the toilet flush. I was amazed at the amount of water that kept coming out after repeating the process a few times. As a final measure I used an epoxy syringe to inject pink stuff into the flush nozzle and down Ito the supply line.

Dean
 
Dean...I have a fitting [somewhere!] for blowing compressed air into my plumbing on the FWC...what exactly do you do when blowing out water? Where does compressed air go in and what valves are opened or closed?


Had never heard of the damage that RV antifreeze could do...thanks.

Phil
 
I am still trying to figure this out myself, so please don't take my approach as gospel.

I used the pink stuff last year and it took quite a few rinses to get rid of the aftertaste. I was not happy with it. I also read every post about this issue on WTW and came to the conclusion that the idea of putting vodka into the system was never really tried by anyone (please correct me if someone is doing this) - it looked like an off comment 10 years ago and kept getting repeated.

Since the temperature is up and down in MN, I wanted to be able to go back and forth from dry to wet easily since I use the camper year round.

I started by draining the system and then driving around with the drain open for a week or so.

Then I bought one of these:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B07KWXVRSL?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title

And used it to pressurize the city connection and blew out the Thetford cassette toilet (a lot of water came out), the shower and the sink lines. I also removed the filter to blow out the pump. I set my regulator at 50psi.

I also made a duct tape seal for the water fill line and pushed 50 psi air into it with the rear drain valve open. I did this for a while until it stopped spitting.

I will see if this is successful.

Ken
 
I do not drink water from the on-board system as I fill it from my hose. I use it for the dogs, dishes, and rinsing stuff off with the shower. I bring a large BPA free jug of filtered water with me for drinking. Thus, I'm okay using a bit of the pink RV antifreeze in the system.

The key is not not get it in your water tanks and to have your valves properly configured. I attached the fitting in the link below to the water pump and pulled antifreeze through the pump to the sink and shower lines. I ran the sink and shower for less than a minute then shut down the water system. I used less than 0.5 gal of antifreeze. In spring, I will give the system a good flush before using.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002MJDV2G/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
 
Karlton said:
I do not drink water from the on-board system as I fill it from my hose. I use it for the dogs, dishes, and rinsing stuff off with the shower. I bring a large BPA free jug of filtered water with me for drinking. Thus, I'm okay using a bit of the pink RV antifreeze in the system.

The key is not not get it in your water tanks and to have your valves properly configured. I attached the fitting in the link below to the water pump and pulled antifreeze through the pump to the sink and shower lines. I ran the sink and shower for less than a minute then shut down the water system. I used less than 0.5 gal of antifreeze. In spring, I will give the system a good flush before using.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002MJDV2G/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Click to expand...

I bought a BPA free 'drinking water hose' to fill our system; or do you not drink from your system due to quality of the domestic water?
 
I thought about getting the white RV hose, but we have a water filtration system in our house and I prefer to have a jug of filtered water. Not suggesting folks shouldn't drink water out of the system (do use a white RV hose if filling from the bib outside), but we don't.
 
I drink from my system, with a bit of maintenance and care, you will be fine. First two years, followed the air purge recommendation from FWC and also added in some of the pink stuff and pumped it around the system. First year the clear filter globe on the water pump got some crazing. Second year it completely fogged and turned opaque white. I believe this was from the RV antifreeze. This year I am just air purging what I can and gravity draining the tank and rear line. There is plenty of room for expansion of any residual water in that part of the system. I also found it challenging to get rid of the taste of the pink stuff the first couple years when i reactivated the system in the Spring.
 
I do not use the antifreeze due to the amount of space there is in the tank after it is drained. If you add antifreeze to it, the antifreeze will remain in the bottom of the tank until it is all flushed away (however long that takes since there is always a percentage left in it). I'm not slure why FWC didn't provide a drain at the very bottom of the tank like our Casita trailer or our Pleasure Way.

It seems to work to just drain the system and purge it with air and empty the pump bowl.
 
Thanks for the insights...just took RV anti-freeze off my list of options..also I didn't know that the main tank drain was not at the bottom edge of the tank....and that some water always remained in tank; I knew that the hot water heater left about 1 gallon of the 6 in tank after draining it into the main tank.. still mulling over how to pressurize my Hawk plumbing to remove most of the water..
 
Does anyone have a picture or drawing of the tank drain? I’m curious if parking on a steep hill removes a significant percentage of water through the drain.
 
Legs,

That is how I gravity drain my system [park on a hill] and then run the pump off and on a few times with the sink faucets open and rear drain open.

My concern remains with the outside shower plumbing and hopefully will figure that out along with a how to use pressurized air to push out any remaining water.

Phil
 
My take on this is I open drain valve as we head home before I leave camp. The rock and rolling of the truck combined with the long drive home seems to do a really good job of purging the system. Of course I open faucets and valve from water heater to main storage tank. Based on how rough the roads are getting back out to pavement this seems like a darn good way to get water moving around in the system including any residual water in the hot water tank. Our camper lived outside for a couple of winters and had no issues.
We also don't use our water system during the winter, just take along jugs as per years of non-luxury winter camping.

Safe travels -
 
+1 on opening all the faucets, the hot water heater bypass valves and trhe rear drain valve then parking with nose up.
+1 on then driving around to move even more water to the drain
+1 on running the water pump periodically for a short time to push out any remaining water

Having some water remaining in the main tank or water heater is very low risk. The risk comes from water expanding in volume as it freezes. Having the heater 1/6 full and/or the main tank 1/10 full provides enormous air volume into which the water can expand as it freezes.

If you leave the batteries in the camper through the winter and leave the camper on shore power to keep the batteries charged, just put a small oil filled space heater set for about 40F degrees and and leave the cabinet doors open to get heat to anything else that may freeze. I have used the Polonis or Intertek brands and prefer a smaller one that consumes about 700 watts for my area.

I place the heater in a plastic milk crate and block it to keep it flopping around if I drive the truck around.

I've done this since getting my Hawk in 2014 without issues even when the temp has fallen into the low teens F. Now if spending the winter in Alberta, BC, or Alaska where -40 degrees for weeks is possible, I might take additional steps including the RV antifreeze.

Paul
 
I thought I drained my system a few weeks ago. Turned on all the valves, including hot water drain. Opened the sink faucet. Drove around. Sat tilted towards my external water drain, it all stopped, I closed everything.

Few weeks later, I opened it all up again, and bunches of water poured out. Then I drove around for a couple hours, watching water trickle out behind me the entire time. Pulled into my driveway, and still a slow steady stream of water trickling out. It comes out this same faucet fast, when the system is full...

I cannot imagine where it is coming from!! Has to be gallons of water that is very slowly draining from somewhere. I had the camper apart a few weeks ago when I drained the system and could see the water tank was empty. So, I guess from the hot water heater.

Long story to a short question.. Is that normal? Does it take a while for the water to drain?
 
I had the same thing happen - thought I had everything drained and a couple months later was messing with things and a lot of water came out! I'm very curious about the vodka/grain alcohol option, but unsure how to implement it and if it really works. Don't really want to put antifreeze in the system, but would like to be a bit more confident that winter won't bring problems.
 
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