"Is that a new Apple product?" No.
"Is that what Snoop Dogg puts on top when making a cake?" No, that's icing, foshizzle.
This is to be pronounced: eye-zing. And be preceded by "winter"... as in: winterizing.
It is winter here in the desert; the forecast low for overnight Saturday into Sunday is 31º. Yeah, that's one whole degree below freezing. That means the RV, our outdoor water spigots at the house, and some of our plants need some attention.
Today, we took care of winterizing the Roadtrek. I went to Walmart to get some RV antifreeze, and the dumbass kid working there tried to sell me automotive antifreeze: "Yeah, you can use this on your car, truck, or RV." I explained to him that advice like that could potentially kill someone - this is stuff you put in your RV water system to keep the water pipes, connections, and pumps from freezing. His response, "No, I think they're the same thing." Didn't matter, they didn't have any.
Next stop: Home Depot. Nope, they didn't have any, either. Joan texted me that O'Reilly's across the street from Home Depot has some in stock. It took the youngish guy in there a minute to track it down - it wasn't out on the floor, they had it in back by their batteries. When he rang up the 5 1-gallon jugs I bought, he said, "That is a hot deal - this stuff is usually $20 per gallon."
Yes, I had to explain to him the difference between RV antifreeze that you use to winterize a boat or RV fresh water system vs antifreeze you put in your car. Seriously, how can people not know this?? At least this guy said, "Good to know." Unlike the dumas as Wally World.
Back to the house to get Joan, then off to storage to dump all the tanks in the Roadtrek and go through the winterizing process. It is easier with two of us, so one can be inside opening faucets and checking that the pink stuff (RV antifreeze) has gone through all the lines, while the other of us is outside handling the dump valves to make sure the pink stuff gets through the macerator and all the valves. This was our first time doing this with the Roadtrek, so we took our time to double check each step of the process.
"Does this mean you can't use the van until spring?" Not at all. It does mean we won't be using the fresh water system until we're ready to flush all the pink stuff out of the water lines. We can still drive the van, stay in the van, run the heat, watch TV, use the electrical system. Just won't be using the shower or kitchen faucets. And if we use the toilet, we'll flush it with more pink stuff (I bought an extra gallon). We had previously put a half gallon of the pink stuff down each of the drains - this process today will protect all the water lines and valves.
Not too bad: we made it to January 10th before feeling the need to do any of this. We'll get the outdoor stuff at the house done tomorrow.
2 comments:
Jim, you are wasting time. I have a house in Ramona, CA. It gets colder there than at your house. Our RV used to be parked in the driveway. It sometimes got as cold at 26 at night, but warmed up into the 50's in the daytime. Nothing ever froze in the RV. My house had a pipe freeze once when it got down to 18 degrees. They ran all the water lines in the attic. One pipe was right next to a vent screen to the outside. Not only did the pipe freeze but it broke and we had water in the kitchen. My neighbor has a house built by the same builder and his pipe broke in the same place. We used the same plumber to fix it. We covered the pipe at that location in a rubber noodle. It never broke again.
So with your rv I would not be worried about temps as low as 28. But I certainly understand that it is better to be safe than sorry. I'm sure it only took one gallon of antifreeze and about 30 minutes of your time. This comming fall we are leaving our HitchHiker in Montana and it will be the first time I will have winterized it. I am nervous about that because of the washing machine, and the ice maker.
Hi Jeff - good to hear from you. We lived in the frozen northland (the Black Hills in South Dakota), until 2006, so we are very familiar with winterizing RVs. That said, since 2006, we haven't had to do that while living in the Tropical Tip, and made it our goal to avoid the cold and snow. While traveling, if the weather got cold, we were in any given RV and knew that keeping the coach comfortable would also protect the heated bays and interior water tanks and lines. This Roadtrek has water lines that aren't enclosed, so we are following the mfg recommendations for winterizing. Right now, we are just day-tripping with the RT, so it isn't an inconvenience. Yep: better safe than sorry. The technology in this small rig is different (macerator and tankless waterheater), so we're being cautious. Both of our American Coaches had a washing machine and ice maker - we would disconnect those lines before winterizing and never had an issue. Good luck with the process.
Post a Comment