Winterizing the Rig: Our Checklist
Cold weather checklist
Water left in a line over a freeze is a spring repair bill. Winterizing is draining the water system and protecting what cannot be drained, using propylene-glycol RV antifreeze, the kind made for drinking-water systems. Never use automotive antifreeze in an RV water system: it is poisonous, and it does not belong anywhere near a faucet.
The checklist we work from
- Drain the fresh water tank and open the low-point drains.
- Drain the water heater, and set its bypass valves so antifreeze does not fill it. Six to ten gallons of antifreeze in a water heater is waste, not protection.
- Choose your method: blow the lines out with regulated low-pressure air, fill them with RV antifreeze using the pump, or both. Follow your manufacturer's instructions for your unit; systems differ.
- Run each faucet, hot and cold, until the water runs pink, including the outside shower, which is the one everybody forgets.
- Flush the toilet until pink, and pour antifreeze down every drain so the traps hold antifreeze, not water.
- Do not forget the extras if your rig has them: ice maker line, dishwasher, washing machine, and any filter housings. Filters come out before antifreeze goes in.
- Note the tankless water heater, if you have one, separately: it has its own procedure and its own maintenance. See tankless descaling.
In the spring
Flush the system with fresh water until it runs clear and the taste is gone, sanitize the fresh tank, and check every fitting you touched for drips before the first trip. The checklist works both directions: what you open in the fall, you verify in the spring.
General information from our experience, not professional advice. Your manufacturer's winterizing instructions for your model come first.
