winterizing water system

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I imagine this topic has been covered before.
My Carver manual said to empty the tank, pour the pink antifreeze into the tank and (flush) open lines till pink appears. ( the easy way )
With my old boat I have been bypassing the tank and flushing the system diconecting the fresh water pump.
Which is better or worse?
 
Both are worse.
I use air and open all the valves until air flows.
I just drain the tank as low as it will go.
I hate pink ice in my drinks!
 
Bypassing and draining the tanks (hot and cold) and using the fresh water pump to flush the lines with pink antifreeze is the way we all do it and I think is best. Using air might or might not work, depends on the design (the way the water lines are run) the only way to tell if air will work is to try it and see if you have leaks in the spring, not recommended. I've been boating for 30 years and have seen air work and fail with many other boat, my way always works. You never want to get pink antifreeze in the tanks, because no matter what you do you can never get it all out, you can only delute it. Sure after numerous flushes it might be 99.9% deluted but some will still be there.
 
1. Bypass the hot water heater then drain it
2. I open all faucets one at a time and I blow air from the outside connection…this gets rid of most of the water.
3. I close down the faucets then pump pink from the outside and I have someone go around and open the faucets one at time until the pink flows and also flush toilets till the pink runs.
4. I stick the line going into the onboard pump and repeat step 3. This doesn’t use much pink, just gets rid of the little bit of water that might be left in the onboard side of the system.
5. I unhook the water tanks before the pump and just let them drain into the bilge. I do slosh around a little bleach in them first.

Others will tell you to do air only but like Jim said it depends on the design. Every time I do step 3 I get a little water out of the faucets first before the pinks starts flowing so the design of my system doesn’t lend to using air only. I have 10 places that water comes out and that equals a lot of lines and potential dips in the line where air could pass over some laying water.

Good luck
Niles
 
I switched to the air system of winterizing 3 years ago and would not go back to antifreeze. ..
 
Air has to work, the people that are failing are not doing it right.
If done right, it will work the same as pink.
 
quote:
Originally posted by CurrentSea

Air has to work, the people that are failing are not doing it right.
If done right, it will work the same as pink.

Click to expand...


without the taste and smell of anti-freeze in your water system. ..
 
Niles brings up a good point. My boat came with a 1 1/2 inch deck fill for the freah water tanks and a dock side pressure water hook-up for pressure water while at the dock without using the fresh water pump. A lot of times I would forget to fill the tanks before we left the dock, I would usually think of doing it but forget, so I have now replumbed the system to be able to fill the tanks by turning a valve on the inside of the boat and using the pressure water to fill the tanks without using the deck fitting, you just have to bypass the freah water pump because it has a one way valve in it.
The dock side pressure water line had a pressure control valve in it which also had a one way valve, I removed that pressure control valve and replaced it with an external pressure control valve which I can remove outside the boat, so now it just has a faucet, so I can also use the fresh water pump to pump the pink through that line.
 
Air can fail to work and like I said depends on the design of the system it is because water does not behave like a solid plug, in other words air can flow through a half full water line and when the air pressure is removed that water that is left can settle in a low spot and freeze and break the line. It is not a problem to flush the lines in the spring to get the pint stuff out as long as you did not put it in the tanks.
If air works on your boat great, I won't take the chance.
 
Well I've always bypassed and drained my water heater, but I've never bypassed my water tank. I just empty the whole system, put some pink in the tank, then run all the plumbing until pink comes out. In the spring, I flush the whole system about three times, once with about 1/4 cup of bleach (I let sit for a few hours) and then twice with pure water. After that, I've always been good for the season.

I guess bypassing the tank would be ideal as long as it's really easy on your boat, but since the way I do it I have no visible residue or smell from the pink stuff, I guess I'm not too worried. I suppose if anyone drank the water I might do it differently, though I haven't heard of waterline antifreeze being related to any serious health concerns.
 
I’ve been using Air for many years and have not had any issues with the 13 outlets on the boat. I have been know to use cheep vodka before using the air method since it was a bear to get the Pink out of the lines & Ice makers

Just need a compressor and some fitting like the ones use to blow out home sprinkler systems.
 
This discussion comes up every year and as this is BOATERED everyone needs to read both sides of this argument and decide for themselves. Dave and Carver do air and it works for them, which is great. I don’t believe air only will work in my boat so I actually do both. As far as not doing the air correctly I’m not sure how you could do that wrong short of not using much pressure. As I stated before I always see a “little” clear water come out of all 10 of my outletsfaucets. Every spring I hook everything back up and run fresh water through the lines for a half hour or so and all is good to go.

Niles
 
I agree, I use the pink stuff through out my internal system and flush in the spring for a good thirty minutes and I don't have issues with bad water... Only thing to note, do not put pink stuff through the water heater, it corrodes the heating elements and I never got the bad taste out of it again and had to replace it. I just drain that and run a bypass before running the pink stuff through the rest of the system.
 
I was in the underground sprinkler business for 7 years.
We blow them out with air.
Even if a little water settles back to the lowest spot, it won't crack the pipe becuase it can expand.
Ice freezes and expands to the weakest point which in a pipe with mostly air in it is towards the air not the pipe wall.
 
Do not run pink thru your ice maker, it will ruin it.
 
I don't have an ice maker :)
 
Blowin' air is the way to go.

Make sure your water tank is as empty as you can get it and the line from the tank to the pump is clear of water.

I do my ice machine, hot water tank, clothes washer, fresh water washdowns, everything.

I use air for the air conditioners and salt water washdowns as well.

Pink goes thru the motors, the head system, in the shower sumps, poured into the washing machine to get the pump at the bottom winterized.
 
I'm kind of anal about it so I blow out the fresh water system then put some pink in the tank and turn on each faucet until pink flows.
I don't have an ice maker and don't drink from any of the faucets on the boat so I'm not too concerned with the use of the pink stuff.
 
Icemaker try not to use pink from the solenoid to the ice molder. Disconnect the tube going to the molder and make a pigtail for 115 volts disconnect the the solenoid and attach that until you see pink coming out. when you commission the boat in the spring do the same with just water if you get rid of the taste of the pink fill the tank with water add one qt of clorox make sure is well mix with water nxt day empty the tank thru all the valves and faucets you have in the boat for icemaker use the same pigtail.AIR CONDITIONERS Air blowing the system is not 100% efficient there are water pumps they have cooling coil around the motor air does not blow most of that water out. I still suggest to use pink on the Air conditioning systems and don't forget the condensation pans on the ac's should have antifreeze too.
 
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