De-Winterizing Challenges

[cbraswell]

Hi Escape community,



We purchased a Escape 19 last summer so this winter we did our first winterizing of a camper. Outside of a few moments of head scratching, the winterization went well. This week I went to de-winterize the camper and have run into a problem.



I drained all the remaining Antifreeze out of the fresh water tank. Once the tank stopped draining, I filled the entire tank with clean fresh water. I opened the sink faucet and turned on the water pump with the hot water by pass on. I had the pink antifreeze come through the sink and bathroom faucet for a few seconds. Once the antifreeze was through, the water was white and had a significant amount of foam. It also had a slight odor of the antifreeze. While running an entire fresh water tank through the system, this foam has continued. I turned on both the cold and hot water valves in the bathroom sink as well as the kitchen. The odd part about this is when I flush the toilet, it comes out clear. Thinking about it logically, the toilet flush line does not have hot water lines.



This leads me to believe the foam (antifreeze residue as I believe it to possibly be) seems to have some association with the hot water lines.


I wanted to reach out to see if anyone else has experienced this or has any insight as to how to fix the issue.



Any help would be greatly appreciated.



Carson

[cpaharley2008]

Mistake #1, do not fill your tank with antifreeze. This is not the way to winterize. Please update your avatar to show what year Escape you have. some have an E-z- winterization valve where you inset a hose into a bottle of antifreeze, turn on your pump and then pull the antifreeze thru your system. You also have a water heater bypass valve where the antifreeze does not enter the water heater.. Both your hot and cold lines need to have antifreeze in them for protection. There are Escape videos on winterization also at the factory website and on YouTube.

[cpaharley2008]

For now you will have to keep flushing your tank and lines until all the antifreeze taste, color is gone. Eventually it will go away. Return your water heater valves to allow water to enter the tank once you have removed all the taste.

[cbraswell]

Thank you for the quick reply. I’m a little confused because the winterizing instructions on the escape website says #5 fill up tank with antifreeze. Either way Lesson learned. it seems like I’m just going to have to flush out the system. If I was to go ahead and do the sanitation step would the Clorox help speed up the line flushing process?

[padlin]

Do you know if you have the EZ winterizing hose and valve? If not you may want to get a RV Winterizing hand pump.

[rubicon327]

Unfortunately the winterizing instructions on the website and in the manual are outdated. You really want to keep antifreeze out of your freshwater tank (and hot water heater). This is possible with one of three winterizing methods: using RV antifreeze with EZ winterizing valve, hand pump of antifreeze through city water connection or compressed air. (A fourth method on early trailers used to be simply opening a low point drain but that was omitted once the toilet valve changed and there were freezing issues.)

To solve your current issue keep filling the fresh tank and flushing the system with fresh water. The pump and faucet aerators are likely taking residual antifreeze and causing it to foam. Once you get it flushed out well then sanitize the system.

For the future if you have the EZ winterizing valve (tee with piece of hose right before pump inlet) or you install one this is all you have to do with ~1 gallon of RV antifreeze:
-Drain freshwater tank
-Drain the hot water heater
-Turn two valves on piping at the back of water heater to put it in the bypass configuration
-Run pump for 10 seconds to pull any water out of line down to freshwater tank
-Insert EZ winterizing tube into container of antifreeze and turn EZ winterizing valve to allow flow
-Turn on the pump. Open all faucets (hot and cold), outside showers and flush toilet. Stop once you see pink.
-Turn off pump and put winterizing valve back to normal position
-Pour antifreeze down sink drains and shower drain (some antifreeze is already in sink traps from running faucets)
-Done

[cpaharley2008]

It would help us if you updated your avatar to show your Escape year and model. Excellent response Rubicon.......

[Dave Walter]

If you winterize by draining tanks and hot water heater, blowing air out of water lines with compressed air, and putting antifreeze only down the drains, you do not need to dewinterize in the spring. Just fill your freshwater tank with water and you are ready to camp.