Morning all, Per the request of Montana Sky, here I am
First, Rudi, welcome to the forum! Hope you enjoy your coach and your time spent in it.
Next, try the search engine here at MOC, it is great, you will find lots of good information. Next, go back to the home page, look down the right side of the page and you will find ARCHIVES, click away and do a search there too.
OK, for winterizing. Yes, winterize.
For the end of September and October and late April and May, we can have the unit with water or without the winterizing pink stuff. We watch the temps at night, if it is gonna be 25 or above then we usually don't worry much. We find here in our home area, that it can drop that low, but it will not stay that low for more than an hour or so and it starts to warm up again. The coach will not freeze in the matter of an hour or so. We all know that if the sun hits Montana it is only a matter of an hour or so before the temp starts to go up. IF we are sitting at home, we won't have water hooked up nor in the storage tanks. IF we are camping, we are running the heat and you won't freeze.
We usually winterize around November 1st. When we leave for Texas or points south, we DO NOT clean and add water. We usually do not run the heat while we are running, old habits and all that rot, something we have not done, so we actually don't even think of that as an option. Many MOC members do run with heat on, and we are contemplating doing so, it is nice to come into Montana at the end of a long days drive and have it warm in here!
We usually drive 2 days, going as far south as we can get. Like Georgia, Arkansas, etc. Our experience is by the time we get that far it is warm enough to put the water in and not worry about freezeups.
On the way home, we try to get home after April 15th, drain the water, but do not winterize. Last year we got 4 inches of snow a week after we got home, Montana was not winterized, the snow melted very fast, my bleeding hearts (a plant in the yard) bloomed the next day and no harm was done.
The trick to this would be for you to be very aware of the weather patterns in your area. If I lived in Northern Michigan, I am sure my dates would be different. It gets very cold up there earlier and they have freezing temps much later.
On the average, we can winterize about one month after the first freeze of the fall and can un-winterize about one month before the last freeze of the year. We are just north of the Ohio/Michigan state borders.
I typed this all before the morning java, so, if you have more questions, please ask. I am not sure this makes sense or maybe it is as clear as mud! HAHA