Greetings from a new member and new 5er.

[Ol Navy]

My wife and I recently purchased a full sized pickup to pull her horse around with.  It was only a matter of days and we decided to get a 5th wheel.  Found a 93 Alpenlite, 26' in very nice condition.  Jumped at the opportunity to be able to get help with my new adventure and signed up, so here I am.  I spent a few hours today finding out how little I know about the miriad of systems in the trailer by  reading all of the operating manuals.  Then decided to check out a few starting with water.  Nice purple water came out of the faucet.  "Winterized" is now a term I am learning about.  Any help on the various systems that need to be flushed will be appreciated.  I did fill and drain the freshwater holding tank 2 times and ran water through both faucets, shower and toilet.  The purple "appears" to be gone.  I ordered 2 Fan-tastic vents, 2 Maxxair rain protector hoods and 2 Maxxair window vents as there were no powered vents.  My first road trip will be in June.  I hope to do a weekend shakedown cruise before then.  Help and comments welcome, positive or negative.

Greeting aagain,

Scott and Sherri

 

[Ron]

Scott & Sherri,

Welcome to the RV Forum Framily.  Congratulations on the new to you 5th wheel.  I am sure you will enjoy the Alpenlite trailer.
Fell free to join in any of the discussions ar start new discussions relating to the RVing lifestyle.

I would suspect the purple water is an antifreeze to protect against freezing.  You might want to sanitize the freash water sytem by adding a 1/4 to 1/2 cup of Clorine bleach to the fresh water tank and fill the tank full. using the pump turn on each of the faucets ontill the bleach water comes out. then let it set for a couple hours and drain then fill and drain again.  Run fresh through all the faucets to wash out bleach.

What part of the country are you from?  Where will your first road trip take you?

 

[Tom]

Scott and Sherri,

Let me add my welcome to Ron's. We're always glad to see new faces in our friendly forum. Also, adding to ROn's suggestion, after you sanitize the water system with bleach and flush the system, add a little vinegar to the final fill in order to remove the chlorine tatse from the water.

Reading all those owner manuals can be somewhat daunting. Feel free to ask questions here, and we'll try to get them answered. We have a great group of folks here, and they're always willing to share their knowledge and experience.

 

[Steve CDN]

Scott and Sheri,

Welcome to the RV Forum and feel free to ask all your questions here.  Our members have a wealth of experience they are eager to share.

Though I can see your thinking in adding a MaxAir hood on top of your Fantastic Fan, the combination may be troublesome.  Fantastic Fan, one of the best RV supply manufacturers for customer service specifically discourages the use of a Max Air hood with a Fantastic Fan,

First they reduce significan air flow, which is regularly demonstrated at Fantastic Fan exhibit s at the rallies they attend.  Furthermore the hood reduces the amount of opening the Fantastic hood can open and if the Fantastic Fan has a motorized hood,  your FF hood will eventually break from forcing against the Maxair hood.

If your FF has a motorized hood along with a rain sesnsor, there is no need for an additional Max Air hood.  If it rains, the FF will close autoamtically.

If you really need air flow in the rain, you can open one window slightly, preferably under a awning, then open the FF jsut to the point the fan begins to rum in the exhaust mode.  This will create air flow without allowing rain to enter.

Let us know the configuration of FF you bought and we can give you more info on its correct operation for the rain sensor if so equipped.

Fantastic Fan will never charge you for replacement parts if any part of your fan fails...but they may object to hood damage cause by forcing against an auxiliary supplemental hood like a Max Air.

 

[joelmyer]

Any help on the various systems that need to be flushed will be appreciated.

Scott and Sheri,

Welcome to the forum.  We're one of the relatively few here with a 5er.

You should fill the fresh water tank with a bleach solution and let it sit for a few hours.  If nobody jumps in with the precise recipe I'll go dig out the book and give it to you.  (Oops, I see Ron already gave you the recipe)

I was told once about "the purple stuff": It won't kill you but you will wish it had!

If it's not too late, I second Steve's recommendation on the fans.  The service manager at our dealership told us the same thing.  We got the  FF with motorized hood and thermostat.  Nice combination.  You only need one of those.  They recommend against running more that one exhaust fan at a time.  Our 5er came with two "manual" FFs, we added the third with motorized hood and thermostat.  That's the one we use.  The bathroom fan is used occasionally as needed to clear that area.