winterizing water system

[freddy063]

I had trouble winterizing my water system this year, drained as much water as I could ,added 4 gallons of antifreeze and tried to run it through all the sinks. But I never got a good stream of pink out of anything. " pink is the antifreeze color". I ended up, removing all the faucets disconnect the pump and blow air in all the lines. How does everyone else winterize there water systems?

 

[DennisG01]

Adding 4 gallons (more than enough) should of worked. When you emptied the tank, did water come out of all the faucets as normal... and then simply by adding the pink stuff it no longer did? Maybe there's some crap caught up in the aerators on the faucet. May not have been noticeable since as the water supply dwindled it would of sputtered, anyways.

Do you have dockside water? If you do, you could blow air in that way - and not have to remove anything.

On my Sundancer, I don't like to put pink into the fresh tank since we sometimes drink from it and it just takes too long to flush the system in the Spring. I installed a 3 way valve before the pump and I can select either the normal fresh water tank as the supply, or turn the valve and draw from a jug of AF (or a bucket that I put about 2 gallons of AF into). For that boat, I use about 1-1/2 to 2 gallons to do 4 faucets (including hot water side) and the vaccuflush head.

 

[grady33]

If you have hot water tank, bypass it. Remove the inlet and outlet and hook them together then drain the tank. I have a 330 and put in roughly 6 gallons cause I would rather err on side of caution and then started by opening the closest line open until pink came out and worked my way forward. Don't forget the windshield washer fluid if your boat has it. My 272 sailfish and now my 330 both had this. One thing I read is that depending on how much water is left in tank before you put the pink in, you might want to add a gallon of the -100 or -200 nontoxic antifreeze. It will offset the water you already had in tank by keeping the freeze point high. If you had 2 gallons of water left and added 4 gallons of -50 AF, the actual freeze point would drop quite a bit but not exactly by how much. You would probably have slush.

I guess you can blow the lines but from what I have read, using the pink stuff ensures you didn't miss something.

Don't forget to winterize the waste tank, toilet, live well, generator, air cond if you have them.

Good luck!

 

[DennisG01]

Grady28 brings up a good point about a hot water heater. I wasn't sure of what boat you had, I thought from the picture that it was a smaller one that wouldn't normally have a HWH? But if you do, that's the reason you weren't getting good flow. The HWH needs to get filled first and then you will get good water flow (which obviously would be a waste of the pink stuff). Now, if you do have the HWH, it's best NOT to fill the HWH if you have an electric element in there - otherwise use of the electric element could cause it to burn out. All you need to do with the HWH is to drain it (and bypass like mentioned above). I actually don't even put any pink in my fresh water tank - the little bit that remains will not cause any problems.

 

[freddy063]

I did bypass the hot water heater, did the live well pump, head, and shower sump and dumped a gallon in the bilge I think I'll be good, But I like to find some -200 antifreeze , I didn't know they made it. Thanks

 

[grady33]

I didn't know there was -200 antifreeze either. Seems West Marine has it. http://www.westmarine.com/webapp/wcs/st ... nGt2cu9KK0

I guess if you get all the water out, the minus 50 should be OK. I will probably add 1 gallon of this just to be sure.

 

[DennisG01]

I agree that the -50* is going to be more than enough (remember, wind chill temps don't matter - just actual). But, hey, you can never go wrong with over doing it!

 

[Legend]

I put 8 gallons in my Salifish - This is enough to get it to flow through the hot water system - Sounds like you could save a few bucks by bypassing the hot water tank as mentioned, not sure how much is involved to do that

 

[DennisG01]

Legend... bypassing is pretty simple. The ultimate goal is to connect the incoming cold line to the hot line. There are permanent bypass kits available as one option. The other way is to fab up a temporary connection line - it depends on the current type of connections. To get it to work, it could be just a short length of pex line, it could be a couple 90* male pipe to barb connections with hose, or it may simply be a short length of garden hose.

 

[Legend]

DennisGO1 - Thanks for the tip I will give it a try next year - seems like a waste putting 8 gallons in and they get heavy carrying them down to the dock plus saves a few bucks I can put into gas!