When to de-winterize

My wife and I are headed to Texas from Michigan in two weeks and wondered when and/or where it would be safe to de-winterize the RV on our way down.  It's a 2006 Winnebago View.

astepahead97 said:

My wife and I are headed to Texas from Michigan in two weeks and wondered when and/or where it would be safe to de-winterize the RV on our way down.  It's a 2006 Winnebago View.

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When you're far enough south so freezing won't be a problem. What I use to do is winterize just by blowing down my system. Then the night before or that morning we were leaving, I just 1/2 fill my fresh water tank. I carried a couple of gallons of water in milk jugs to flush the toilet while underway. Usually on the second day, I would be far enough south that all I had to do was start my pump and just fill the entire system.  This way there was no need to flush out any pink stuff. That's one advantage of utilizing the blow down method.

We're leaving upstate NY on Monday. The temps this weekend have been in the single digits to high teens so far. We connected our Extend-A-Stay hose to an external 40 lb LP cylinder on Thursday and turned the two furnaces on set to 50. Yesterday we filled the fresh water tank and checked that all the plumbing was working ok. I had blown out the lines, so no real flushing was needed. Today we're reloading the liquid items we brought into the cottage so they wouldn't freeze and are restocking the fridge/freezer. Tomorrow we'll double check that everything we want is onboard, put last minute items away, and late in the day turn the thermostats up to our normal temps. Monday we'll unhook the external LP and the power, hook up the car, and roll out. Basically, we travel warm and use all the facilities in our coach all the way to Florida.

We're leaving metro Detroit on Thursday morning to head down to Florida.  According to the extended forecast on www.Accuweather.com for our zip code - we're supposed to see high temps in the mid 30's and low temps in the mid 20's on Wednesday.  Thursday (the day we're leaving - we'll see high temps in the low 40's and lows temps in the mid 20's).  Temps for Ripley, WV - our planned "overnight" destination) are forecasted to be in the mid-50's with lows in the low 40's.

Last week I fired up the Aquahot as well as the heater in the wet bay and have confirmed that the heating system (including the heater in the wet bay) are fully functional.    I'll be driving the winterized coach off the storage lot early Wednesday morning - and will be parking it in front of our "stick and brick" home for the roughly 24 hours before we actually leave on our trip.  While parked in front of the house - I'll run a 110V line out to the coach which will be enough to power the refrigerator and the LED lights.  I'll also fire up the Aquahot and the wet bay heater - and leave it running to bring the coach interior and wet bay up to temp while parked out front.   

The last thing I plan to do on Thursday morning before we pull out is to fill the fresh tank.  We'll keep the Aquahot and the wet bay heater running as we drive that first day - and will happily absorb the $10-$15 worth of extra fuel we'll burn doing so in order to help keep the coach interior comfortable during the drive and so that we've got water available for flushing, taking showers and doing dishes for the 1st day and a half of our journey (at which point we'll be out of real freezing danger).  The only thing I won't do - it turn on the ice maker or use the fridge door water - so as to keep the antifreeze in the line to the refrigerator in place until we're somewhere warm.  (The tiny line size combined with it's route through the coach wall makes it extra susceptible to freezing). 

With the forecasted low temps being in the 20's ... and high temps being above freezing - I'm confident that the combination of coach interior heating and the wet bay heater will be enough to avoid damage.  If the forecasts lows were targeted to be in the 'teens ... I'd likely play it safe and put off unwinterizing until we were somewhere warm.  Obviously, I'll be paying close attention to the forecast as our departure nears just in case something changes.

When you reach
Your destinations

    Similar to Rene, we carried water bottles filled with fresh water, one to flush, one to heat and wash up, and most importantly one for coffee.  Usually on night 3 we could load the fresh water tank, turn on the pump but only use it to flush until we were set up at a full hook up to clean out all the pink antifreeze.
    While travelling in the spring, particularly when we were out west, we often would hit a night or so with temps well below freezing.  We never encountered any damage from a overnight freeze, or even with a week freeze when visiting friend in Taos, NM.

  Ed

If everything works perfectly and nothing stops your trip , all these methods are good. But if something goes wrong, rig is damaged and can not go on, or heat fails you will be very glad to not have "un-winterized" the rig until you are in warmer climes. For me bottled water, flush with rv antifreeze, and not take a chance gives me much more peace of mind.

Your nickel, your choice!

Old Racer said:

If everything works perfectly and nothing stops your trip , all these methods are good. But if something goes wrong, rig is damaged and can not go on, or heat fails you will be very glad to not have "un-winterized" the rig until you are in warmer climes. For me bottled water, flush with rv antifreeze, and not take a chance gives me much more peace of mind.

Your nickel, your choice!

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I normally have everything on board to blow out the lines if necessary, and even a couple of jugs of pink stuff that could be pumped through if needed. I refuse to worry about every possible problem that might occur when the odds are very much in my favor that they won't occur. Heck, with two furnaces, we even have a complete spare heating system if needed since we normally only need the living area furnace running to keep the coach at a comfortable temperature.

I agree with Dutch.  While a certain amount of prudence is justified, I catch myself ruining my trip over worrying about every possible problem.  This was not my intent in buying the rig.  I didn't say "Hey I don't have enough stress in my life.  I need to worry about every possible thing that could go wrong with a house on wheels.  Let's go shopping!"

Be smart and prudent and enjoy.

If not having running water for a couple days ruins your trip you are absolutely right!

Old Racer said:

If not having running water for a couple days ruins your trip you are absolutely right!

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I'd rather shower daily, flush normally, and turn on a  faucet to get water in the comforts of my own home. That's why I own a fully self-contained RV. Would it ruin my trip to not have water for a few days? No... If it was really necessary. Fortunately it isn't.

The best advice I've heard related to this, from someone on this forum, is to hang a small snowblower on the front of your MH and then drive south. When you get to the point where someone says "What the heck is that", you know it's safe to de-winterize.

The way the weather has been the last few days down south, that might not happen until Key West, FL!  ;D

Old Racer said:

If everything works perfectly and nothing stops your trip , all these methods are good. But if something goes wrong, rig is damaged and can not go on, or heat fails you will be very glad to not have "un-winterized" the rig until you are in warmer climes. For me bottled water, flush with rv antifreeze, and not take a chance gives me much more peace of mind.

Your nickel, your choice!

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Good point - thanks

The ongoing discussion about when to unwinterize seems to have an underlying assumption that you're stuck with whatever decision you make permanently.  The interior heating in my coach does well - even when the temps drop to the low 20s.  This includes heater in the wet bay.  If I'm going to be actively using the coach (i.e., running the heat!) thru whatever stretch of cold weather I'm concerned with - I use 20 degrees as my planning threshold.  If the forecast temps for the locations I intend to overnight at / transit aren't expected to dip into below 20 - I'll "un-winterize" so that I've got the convenience of having running water while traveling.  I do so knowing that IF the forecast is way off and find myself in the middle of an unanticipated "polar vortex" - armed with about $35 worth of RV antifreeze - I can be "re-winterized" in less than an hour. 

Winterizing is critical when the coach is sitting on the storage lot with no heat and no power - and/or when the ambient temps start approaching single digits.  A coach that's actively being used (heat's on, there's power to it) in cold (but double digit temps) ... it's simply something you need to be aware of, keep an eye on and have a plan to address if things change.  Worst case - i.e., you get hit with single digit temps, you have an issue with your heating system, etc. - you make the call, stop and re-winterize.  It's not that big of a deal.

Norman, we've seen -4 deg F temps while living in our previous coach and saw no need to winterize. We did put a small heater in our wet bay at the time though. Just in case the heat from the furnace needed a little help down there. It was 6 deg F yesterday when we left our upstate NY cottage. Tonight we're near Mt Jackson, VA, and the temp is currently 37 deg F. I like that better, but tomorrow promises 50 deg F when we get to Ft Chiswell, VA and that's even better. Really looking forward to the Florida temps when we get there though!

NY_Dutch .... sounds like you're a couple days ahead of us.  We'll be leaving metro Detroit on Thursday morning.  Coach gets pulled off the storage lot tomorrow morning - so I'm looking at a busy day of getting everything loaded and hooked up.  I'll be "un-winterizing" late tomorrow afternoon.  If the forecasts hold - we might get below freezing tomorrow night ... but just barely.  Our route will be taking us down thru Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia - and finally into Florida.  Been crazy weather the past couple of days .... I had to run the snowblower this morning to clear away about 4" of snow that fell last night.  Between rain and temps above 40 later this afternoon and this evening - it's almost all gone.  Tonight we've got high wind warnings - with gusts as high as 60 mph predicted.  That's all supposed to be gone by tomorrow morning. 

I'll be glad to be out of here!  Got back from Arizona a couple of days before Thanksgiving to spend the holidays near friends and family ... I'd have left the day after New Years if I had my way! 

It's almost 2 weeks since the OP posted this so I'm not sure if he left yet or made up his mind and won't see this but.......

I don't know why any one would need to unwinterize.  Maybe want to but not need to.

Remember the days before you had an RV and went someplace (in a car) warm for the Winter?
We would just stop at Rest Areas when needed and then get a motel if not driving straight through.

IF someone stopped at a campground because they didn't want to drive longer - they have restrooms and showers etc.

So I wouldn't dewinterize anything.  But I'm alone and don't have to please anyone else so I'm sure that doesn't apply to some of you.  ;D

Enjoying all your tips and ideas... especially 3 gallons of water... we don't plan to unwinterize on way down, but need to be prepared to rewinterize on way home.... ugh... so guessing some pink stuff better be put in rv...etc.

If you don't turn on heat in rv for first couple of days... what do you do with food etc.

You don't normally start dewinterizing until its spring but the more south you go I don't think that it would be much of a problem. It is really cold up here and I just found out that some of my windows has air leaks and I was fixing them by referring to this blog ( https://www.clerawindows.com/blog/how-to-check-and-fix-drafty-windows/ ).