It’s the Low Point – Dummy!

We’re winterized – we’ll find out how well we did in the spring when we de-winterize.  Only then will we know if all of the water lines and tanks were protected.  Yesterday we got ourselves wrapped around the axle after unhooking the city water from the RV.

The white object on the left is the water filter for the ice maker.  Behind it, where the label says “ice maker shut off” is, oddly enough, the ice maker shut off switch.  On the far right, out of frame is the hose that goes to the ice maker.  Not wanting to put antifreeze in a residential refrigerator, we unhooked the filter, so the water would drain out of the hose to the ice maker.   After unhooking the filter, we opened the shut off valve and expected a small amount of water to dribble out.  Nope, water dribbled out and didn’t stop.  It was weirding me out pretty good, where was the water coming from?  The water pump wasn’t running, there was not city water attached, where?  Hence the title of the post – it’s a low point, dummy.  If you look over to the right at the valve handle, that’s the low point drain.  It was closed, and so the low point was the ice maker filter.  After we opened the low point drain, the filter stopped flowing.  Note to self, remember this next time.



Today we went back and ran the antifreeze through the pipes and taps following the directions in the Beaver manual.  It took six gallons.  While Jim opened taps in the RV, my job was not to let the antifreeze tank run dry.  Last time we did that, we burned up the switch that sucks antifreeze out of the tank as well as the water pump.  In our defense, we did not know that the Prevent-a-Freeze system had been turned on by the mechanics during a maintenance stop.  It’s a cool system, instead of having to attach a tube to the water pump and stick it in the jug of antifreeze, one pours antifreeze in the reservoir and the Prevent-a-Freeze transfers it through the RV.

In the spring, I think the first thing we do is connect to city water and run water through the ice maker filter until it’s no longer pink.  Then we install a new filter and hook it back up to the hose leading to the freezer.  We’ll leave the ice maker shut off valve closed until the rest of the RV is cleared of antifreeze.

Yes, I know this was a boring post, but we’re leaving future selves notes on how this went.

In news of the weather, we still have a low over us, pulling up moisture from the gulf south east and generating high winds.  I will be very happy when the ridge of high pressure establishes itself.