Winterizing

[Michael Walsh]

It's now approaching another winter season. Last year was my first time with the sizable task of winterizing my 2015 36 foot mobile suites.. with a kitchenaid residential refrigerator.
I made two BIG mistakes.

1. I forgot to drain the toilet rinse water valve. It burst and I was greeted with water flooding the bathroom.

2. I negelected to purge the drinking water and ice maker lines. As with the toilet, I was greeted with water flooding from the frig.

The toilet replacement was easy. The frig valve was not. It required moving the frig out about 8 inches and like building a ship in a bottle, changing the valve through the little access door on the outside wall slide.

The valve in the frig is two valves in one housing.
The water side can be purged by holding the water button. The icemaker side is controlled by the yeng and yang of the ice maker system.
LMy local kitchenaid dealer had no suggestions except to sell me a replacement valve.
So I ask the real talent in the room.

"How do you purge the icemaker?"

Respectively

Michael Walsh

[Stripit]

i used to winterize the ice maker line, before i was able to move to a warmer climate, by reaching in and removing the line from the valve and used a small vacuum hand held pump to suck the water out of the line and the valve. I found like you very little access to the back of the fridge so this was how I did it.

[Michael Walsh]

Thanks Stripit
That might work if the suction was enough to suck past the spring loaded valves. I have a vac pump that can get to 30in. If necessary.
Then again, it might suck the guts out of the water valve assy. �� The icemaker valve is along way in and I dont want to change it x2. I will give it a try.
Thanks.

[steadfast]

The way I drain that line is with compressed air. With my compressor set to 25 lbs discharge, I simply push the water draw button until there is only air coming out of the nozzle. Before I start I remove the water filter and replace it with the plug.

[Campingnut]

Seeing as this is a winterizing thread I am hoping the OP is ok with me adding the question, looking for recommendations on winterizing the dish washer?
Thanks

[golf_bears]

Winterizing the drinking water line is the easy with compressed air. How about winterizing the ice maker with compressed air, just as easy or what?

[wingnut60]

So far, have been successful for 2 winters (-11 in Denver last Feb) in disconnecting the water line at the valve in the basement. Everything is downhill from the icemaker/water in the fridge. It seems to self-drain just fine. But we are full-time and possibly the back of the fridge doesn't get as cold as it would if stored in freezing temps.

[Michael Walsh]

I just got back from the appliance dealer and looked at both the refrigerator and dishwasher valves.
They both are checked to pressure!
Stepit, you were right ( I never doubted you;)

To purge the frig you would disconnect the 1/4 in line in the basement, apply a vacuum and both the ice maker and drinking water would be pulled from the frig.
The dishwasher would work the same way. Access should be under the sink? I have never used my dishwasher but I will make SURE there is no water in the dishwasher.

I hope this helps someone from flooding their beautiful camper.

[porthole]

Fridge

I added a tee and 1/4 turn valve at the low point under the fridge.

In the fridge I replace the filter with the plug and remove the water cooler from the back wall and tee off the lines.

[Michael Walsh]

Hi porthole
Thanks for the suggestion. Did you do this with the frig installed in its nook in the slide? Or was the tee in the basement? With the tee, did you apply pressure and push the water out of the frig or gravity drain? All of this would depend on what make of rv and refrigerator.

[porthole]

Hi porthole
Thanks for the suggestion. Did you do this with the frig installed in its nook in the slide? Or was the tee in the basement? With the tee, did you apply pressure and push the water out of the frig or gravity drain? All of this would depend on what make of rv and refrigerator.

The tee is under the slide, outside.
I run antifreeze through everything after pushing air.
The tee allows gravity drain from the main manifold and from the fridge down.

[LarryFlew]

Thanks Stripit
That might work if the suction was enough to suck past the spring loaded valves. I have a vac pump that can get to 30in. If necessary.
Then again, it might suck the guts out of the water valve assy. �� The icemaker valve is along way in and I dont want to change it x2. I will give it a try.
Thanks.

If you are using your refrigeration vac pump I took a large jar with metal lid and added fittings and a tube bent to create a swirl like a tornado vacuum. Hook vac pump to ftg without tube and line to the tube. Keeps water out of your spendy vac pump. Also works great to bleed brake likes by yourself.

[Stripit]

If you are using your refrigeration vac pump I took a large jar with metal lid and added fittings and a tube bent to create a swirl like a tornado vacuum. Hook vac pump to ftg without tube and line to the tube. Keeps water out of your spendy vac pump. Also works great to bleed brake likes by yourself.

Great idea, but I had a hand held cheap unit and didn't need to take any special precautions to keep it safe. But your right, when i did the brake bleed, i used a pop bottle and tubing, worked well.

[Michael Walsh]

You see, I ask the talent in the room for advise and look what happens. We all get smarter. Going to Flagstaff and grand canyon next week. When I get back its sucker down and put her to bed for the winter.

Thanks and may we all get through the winter without blowing our campers appliances up, ever again.

[elliott-maine]

Many residential refrigerators have a solenoid where the water line enters the fridge. Water can collect in these and, as they are plastic, they can burst of frozen.

[golf_bears]

Can draining the fridge water lines be done without the need for a vac. pump?

[Michael Walsh]

Hi mr. Bears
I guess the title of this thread could be called "destructive testing"
The volume of captive water in the icemaker and dishwasher valves is probably less than volume of a chicken's egg. How to best remove it is the question. Gravity would most likely, (might work?)
Removing the inlet water line and back blowing from the water on the door side would clear the water side but what about the icemaker side? Most likely that would clear the icemaker also but maybe not?
Gravity does work for the toilet but it drains back down 1/2 pex water lines.
This winter I plan on draining the tanks and evacuating the entire water system . If you dont already have the vacume equipment this may not be practical. How ever it's done it's done. We will find out success or failure come spring time.

[RayJack]

I use the A&A method. Use air to purge out most of the water and then fill with anti-freeze.
Put air to the system (30-50 psi max)
Frig: Plugged in and operating normally. Use the water dispenser to purge most of the water from the lines and cooling coils in the frig.
Dish washer: Put the waster on a rinse cycle. When you hear air, abort the rinse and let the washer pump out the water in the bottom.
Now hook up your anti-freeze jug and put anti-freeze into the water lines.
Frig: Run the water dispenser until you get pink. Now let the frig make pink ice cubes. Two batches should be fine. If you have an in door ice dispenser, then put some towels in the ice tray so you don't get anti-freeze all over. Once you have your pink ice, clean up the frig and you're done.
Disk waster: Run the rinse cycle. When you hear it start the rinsing, abort it. The washer will pump the anti-freeze down the drain. This should work fine but if you have a big p-trap on the drain you might want to do a second rinse cycle to make sure the trap is well protected.
Note: Keep water system pressurize with anti-freeze so the ice maker will run (Usually needs about 20 psi.)
It may sound like a lot of time waiting for pink ice but I find I have so much other stuff to do I'm never waiting on the ice maker.
Tip: If the rig will unoccupied in cold weather, winterize in the fall. If you take a short trip during "winter time", shut off the water to the frig and don't use the ice maker and water dispenser. Then when you re-winterize you don't have to mess with the frig.

One of these day I'm going to figure out how to "hot-wire" the ice make so I can just run it without waiting for ice.

[Michael Walsh]

Hot wireing the valves was my first thought (while I was in there) but nah, the ice maker electronics my not like a foreign elect source traveling up stream to the circuit board. (Possibly more Destructive testing?)
I am not to keen on any antifreeze at all in my drinking water system. If you can get the water out there's nothing to freeze up.

[Notanlines]

I'm glad y'all had this conversation, including the fridge and the dish washer. We are getting to 20 degrees here in Memphis next Monday night and I've decided to simply start the generator and keep everything toasty. I was okay until sucking water from here and there, etc, We're headed to Florida the 18th and I just didn't want to do it.

[Michael Walsh]

My solution at winterizing the refrigerator water system was to evac the system using my HVAC pump.
This was a failure as the evacuation process sucked the gut's out of the icemaker side of the valve. (I suppected that might happen)
The result was uncontrolled water streaming out of the icemaker into the storage bucked. No water damage this year as I was on it.
On a positive note I am much faster at changing the water valve this year.

Come this winter my plans are
A. rig up a small light bulb between the wall and the frig
B. pump a good grade of Vodka into the refrigerator water sys and sample the results come spring time.

Happy RVing to all