Since I’ve been living in Texas I have only winterized our travel trailer by blowing the water lines out with compressed air. Then I use RV Antifreeze in the sink and shower traps and in the toilet bowl. This year I decided to do a bit of a new twist on winterizing. I decided to blow out the water lines with air and then follow that up with running antifreeze through everything, and then blowing the lines out one more time.
So, you might ask, why the change? Well last year we got the big Texas freeze, and I had wondered during much of the winter if my winterizing job cleared all the water out of the lines. In particular the toilet, for some reason, is very hard to purge. In the past I have probably spent at least fifteen minutes fighting to get all the moisture out of that line. When springtime came, many folks had leaking or broken toilets, probably for that exact same reason. I had no issues; so maybe I’m just that good, or maybe I just got lucky. I think it’s luck personally and a lot of overkill blowing the lines out.
So, here is where the new process gives me piece of mind. I get the lines as dry as possible with the first pass with compressed air. Next I follow that up with filling the lines with RV antifreeze. Lastly, I blow the lines out clear again. This last step actually adds more antifreeze to the traps which is fine. Blowing the lines out also means I hopefully can quickly clean the lines out come spring, and not have antifreeze residue foaming out of the faucets for days.
I doubt that we will have another winter like 2020 but lets face it no one wants to spend their first trip fixing plumbing issues. Also, given how parts shortages (particularly with RV toilets) are affecting the ability to make repairs; adding a little extra protection could be the safest and smartest thing to do right now.
Whichever way you decide to winterize, take your time and do it right. If you don’t want to do it yourself, seek out an RV facility (or a knowledgeable friend) to do the job.
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