Winterized the 3160 RL LE

[Dam Worker]

Well the camping season is officially over for us in Eastern Washington. So I decided to winterize the unit before I took it back into the dealership for the rest of the warranty work. I did a quick search in the Forum under winterizing and started in on getting the unit ready for winter.

I took out all the canned goods, liquids and any thing else I thought might not do to good in a freezing environment. Then I crawled under the unit to look for the fresh water drain pipe that everyone talked about. Could not find it or any other valves for the waterline low spots. I finally used the 12 volt pump and opened the two valves that are in the convenience center, one red and one blue. I did not have much water in the tank and it seemed to work fine in emptying the tank. While I was pumping the water out of the fresh water tank I moved the valve to HWT bypass mode and went ahead and removed the hot water heater plug and drained it. At this point I went ahead and also shut the electric switch off that is located at the hot water heater. Once everything was drained I shut the red and blue valves and operated the valve labeled winterization. I bought a new ten foot hose from Walmart and cut it in half to suck antifreeze out of the jug. Used two rubber washers as directed on here but the pump still never operated as good as it does when pumping water out of the tank. I think there is an issue with one or more of the valves and that the pump is partially sucking air out of the empty fresh water tank. I also put my plug back in the HWT finger tight and later it had developed some pressure in there when I took the plug back out.
I did remember to flush the lines going to the washing machine prep area.
The dealer's service tech showed me where the tank drain was located but said everything else I did sounded good. The drain on my 3160 is at the very back of the unit next to the end cap.

Hope they get everything fixed and we are trouble free next year.

Tom Marty

[tspoon]

Don't forget to remove battery's from remotes and fire detector.
I've repaired and thrown away a lot of equipment at work from leaking battery's.

[Rondo]

The fresh water tank drain line is in the rear of the unit about midway and about three/four foot from the rear end of the unit. It should have a cap on it but some of the new ones have a turn-handle valve on it. The low point drains for the hot and cold water lines are the blue and red hoses with the handles on them in the convenient center. I myself blow my lines out using an air compressor with about 40 lb of air pressure on the line. I have an adaptor that connects to the city water connection that can be bought at most RV dealerships or CW. I close the water heater bypass valve and proceed to clear the lines with air. I open one faucet at a time starting with the closest faucet to the line and working my way back to the faucet the most distance from the connection. I do this with both the hot and cold faucets, shower, and toilet. I also do this with the washer faucet but connect a hose to it and run any water into a 5 gallon bucket. Don't forget to purge your outside shower also. The back flush for the black tank I just move the air hose connection to that connection and let it run a couple of minutes to clear any water that might be in it and I do the same with the fresh water tank connection. The final step is to open the low point drains and drain any possible water that may have settled there. I then go and put a quart or so of the pink stuff down each drain and down into the toilet into the black tank and then put about a cup or so of pink stuff in the toilet to keep the gasket soft. That's it and have not had a problem so far with any freezing. I have a water softener and filter coming into the unit and I take it out, recharge the softener about three times for the winter layover and remove any water from the filter unit and take both inside the house so they do not freeze. Didn't do that the first year and lost the whole house water filter do to the water freezing in it! Lesson learned!
I don't remove the batteries because our Monte is stored in an insulated building and is plugged in 24/7 and I check it on a monthly basis for any possibility of the cells going dry but that has not happened either.