winterizing brunnhilde - part 1

I took me so many years to develop a most efficient way to winterize Brunnhilde. When I didn't know any better I purchase many 1 gallon jugs of RV antifreeze. Now I only need may be 1/4 gallon of it, only to fill the sink traps.



this is my garbage bin made of a paper and plastic shopping bags; the plastic one lines the inside and I typically keep reusing it as long as I can - often the entire season

I didn't take as many photos that I would like to capture all the steps. The systematic procedure is as follows:

• Remove and  drain the auxiliary fresh water tank (if present). This tank is my own custom design.
• Empty and clean waste water in the cassette of the cassette toilet and replace.
• Empty grey water tank.
• Remove the fill cover to the main fresh water tank. Open the drain valve and drain primary fresh water tank. Open the drain valve for the hot water tank. Leave both valves open for now.
• Switch off the primary (I have a removable auxiliary fresh water tank with integral pump) fresh water pump. Open both kitchen and bathroom faucet and leave the levers at the middle of hot and cold. This facilitate the draining of the hot and cold water lines as well as the easily damaged plastic faucet valves and spouts.
• Use a 27mm socket and remove the anode rod from the hot water heater. This is an important step as it is the way to drain the hot water heater of any residual water the drain cock cannot. Allow the water to drain and then replace the anode rod (I use an expended one for the winter).
• The next steps are to use compressed air to blow out as much residual water in the hot and cold water lines.
• Install the brass blow out plug at the municipal fresh water inlet. This allow one to connect compressed air to this inlet. I assembled a pressure regulator to have better control of the pressure. I set the regulator to 50 - 60 PSI pressure which I deem safe as there is built in pressure regulator in the James Cook.
• At this time both inside faucets are open for both hot and cold water mixing. As well the drain cock for the water heater is still open. I plug in the external shower onto the outdoors shower outlet to allow any water to be blown out as well. I close the drain valve of the main fresh water storage tank at this time.
• Apply compressed air to the blow out plug through the pressure regulator and allow the three faucets and the hot water tank drain valve to purge any residual trace of water, especially at the faucet valve and spouts, and at the nipple of the outside shower. Since I done a good job of gravity draining there is very little water to be blown out by this time.
• I leave the main fresh water tank's drain cock open for the winter incase there is any water that might run down. I also leave the hot water heater drain cock open.
• The next step is to drain the flush water storage of the cassette toilet. I would discover it is design for easy winterizing.
• I ran the toilet flush pump until all the water is pumped into the toilet's cassette. I then drained the residual water by unplugging the level sight glass at the top. Once the top is detached you can tip the sight glass downwards to drain out the remaining water in the tank, as it has a flexible neoprene rubber hose connection at the bottom. I then pour in a cup of RV antifreeze into it just to be safe. I run the pump a big to fill the line with antifreeze.
• I empty the cassette toilet cassette and replace it into position.
• The last step is to pour a bit of antifreeze down two sink's drain and also the shower floor drain to fill the U-trap. This is not a necessary step as the little water that sits in the trap soon evaporates to nothing.

It is a long list but it is really very simple but systematic way to remove any trace of water that can cause expensive (more so PITA to procure the difficult to find European RV plumbing parts here) damages when freeze.

you can see the amount of water drains out from the anode rod port

also some strange looking sediments

I use this expended one to plug the opening

I also used the compressed air to blow out as much water in the water heater with the blow gun

I set the pressure to 50-60 PSI (it should be safe up to 100 PSI)

my Camco brass blow out plug

I now need not even 1/4 gallon of RV antifreeze for the job

all buttoned up for the long winter

Update:
I would add one more step just to be very safe, as I worry about some water trapped at the inside water line's oneway check valve hidden behind the kitchen cabinet (my speculation on the exact location). To do this I will need to open the main water tank. This involves detaching the pump and inject low pressure (less than 30 PSI) air into the hose and open the water heater's drain cock.