De Winterizing

[JerryB13]

Another question (I apologize I am TT newbee just switched from pop up). I have a Jay Flight 2015 28BHBE. We are taking it out for it's Maiden voyage this weekend. I need to de winterize it, and that is one of the things they did not explain very well or I did not pay attention enough with my walk through. Does anyone have a you tube link that shows steps and processes ( I am a visual person) for the Jay Flights.

[gjoesimmons]

Hey Jerry, The wife and I worked through this this week for the first time. We found a video on youtube, but it wasn't the trailer both you and I own.

While this is probably not the 'video' you're looking for, I will offer what we did. Although I will direct your attention to the left where you can see that I to am a Junior member.

First, under the kitchen sink (I accessed it via the little door by your left knee when you step into the main entrance) there's a knob with a hose going up and filled with pink fluid. Close that knob.

We hooked up our hose to the city water hookup (that's the one on the back) then ran water out of all faucets until they no longer ran pink or foamy.

Then we took a 5 gallon bucket and used about 2 cups bleach (because that's all we happened to have left) and poured that into the bucket then filled it the rest of the way from our well. Then poured that into the gravity fill tank spout on the side. Then moved our hose from the city water hookup to the gravity fill and filled our tank.

Then we ran all faucets (on cold only) until we smelled the bleach mix from all faucets. Then shut them all off.

Then we went back to the water heater access panel, opened it and inserted the little white plug. Be EXTREMELY careful with this, plastic plug vs metal receiver; it will try to cross-thread on you. Once you have that in, reach around to the back side of the water heater tank and open the valve, that will let water into your hot water heater tank. If you didn't get the plug in good, this will also be the point where you are wet.

Then we opened all faucets on hot to get the pink out of the lines once again and smell like bleach.

Then we emptied our tank and refilled with fresh water and flushed all lines again to get rid of the bleach smell.

Emptied gray tank.

Well that's what we figured out anyway. Like you, we didn't get much of a rundown on de-winterizing. So if someone else sees something I did wrong I am open to constructive criticism as well.

Thanks.

[Jagiven]

Most trailers it is fairly easy to do. First thing you need to do is locate your water heater. Hopefully they showed you were it is during your PDI, often there is a screw you have to remove to get to it. On our HTT, I removed the screw the first time and put it in my spare parts bin. There are three valves back there one is your bypass valve and the other two isolates the tank. I do not want to put any antifreeze into the water heater, so I flush the lines before flipping the valves. Find your water pump, on some trailers this too has a screw holding a panel or a door shut. Most trailers the pump is directly above the axles, near the water fill, but you can turn on the pump and listen for it. There are three valves in there, too, one connects to a clear hose, that is the hose used for putting in the antifreeze, just make sure the valves are turned to pull water from the tank below.

I start out with hooking my hose to the city water connection and turn on each faucet, starting at the faucet closest to the water connection and work my way around, I tend to run each for a few minutes, especially at first with the hot water as the water has to go to the water heat and go through the bypass valve. Once my initial flush is done, then I will flip all three valves at the water heater. Being a new unit, I would fill the water heater and then drain it. There is a pressure relief valve in the outside water heater compartment, open the valve, until the water starts coming out. Personally, I like to remove the plug at the base of the water heater and drain the tank, and I do this a few times, who knows what manufacturing crude is in there. Technically you are done

It is recommended to sterilize the water system. In the owner’s manual it will tell you the relationship of plain bleach (not scented, no other additives) to the number of gallons of water, then you may need to calculate amount for your tank size(s). You can use a funnel and pour the bleach into the end of the hose, then connect it to the house and fill your FW tank. Once the tank is partially filed (1/2 -3/4), I then turn on the pump and circulate the bleach solution through all the pipes, typically I skip the water heater, due to its size and difficulty to flush out afterwards, but with a new unit I would fill it with bleach water. Once you opened every valve and filled all the lines with the solution, and the FW tank is now full. Let the water sit for 4+ hours. I let it sit overnight and flush the lines the next day.

The next day I drain the FW tank, there is a few ways to drain the lines, but one of the easiest is to open the water low point drains, open the water heater pressure relief valve and all the faucets, including the shower, and toilet. Once the system is drained, close all the faucets, I fill the FW tank to rinse it, turn on the pump and pump a bit of water. Then I connect to the city water connection, and finish flushing the lines until I do not smell the bleach. One thing to watch for is filling up your grey water tank. I open it up and pour the water on the flower bed as it is only water, with very low concentration of bleach.

One tip, if you try the high concentration of bleach mentioned in the owner’s manual you will need to flush for a long time before the smell of bleach is gone. I did that once, not planning to do that again.

Good luck.

[JerryB13]

Thank you so much, one quick question did you have to get under the bottom bunk and take the wood panel off to access the valves?

[dmward]

This pretty much covers it. My instructions would have a few more beers thrown in though! Most of this only requires one hand and there is lots of wait time.

[Jagiven]

Every model to is a bit different, hopefully someone with your model will chime in.

[gjoesimmons]

I didn't lift the bunk. I accessed my hot water take via the outside storage access. Reach in and over the panel of wood between you and the tank.

[JerryB13]

Thanks again everyone for your help. I have to let you know the crazy thing that happened while de winterizing. Was running the antifreeze (pink solution) out of the Kitchen sink when I shortly realized that no pea trap was installed. You can imagine my choice words. Did not think I had to check for that, but FYI. They will also be taking care of that issue this week. Other than that everything went great on the maiden voyage.