[C320-list] Antifreeze in water lines

[Jeff Hare]

Hi,
  Sorry, I didn't quite get around to recording the Video this year.  

But my suggestion is to skip the compressor and use a small wet/dry shop vac. For a couple years, I used a compressor.  I found it much faster and more useful for the process overall to use the shop vac.  Plus you can use it to suck water out of your bilge lines, exhaust muffler, fridge drain, shower sump etc. 
I got this little Stainless Steel beauty for the boat this year instead of lugging my full size one and I love it.  http://amzn.com/B00EPH63K0 Powerful, easy to move around and quieter with smaller diameter hose which is more suitable to boat tasks..

Note that the following description is really detailed so it might look complicated and long, but it's really not, I'm just trying to be thorough.  Much of the time I'm working on a beer and letting the shop vac do its thing.

Tools: Philips Screw Driver, Shop Vac, 2' section of hose with standard garden hose (house end) fitting.  I use a piece of *clear* hose with a garden fitting on it because you can see the water flowing.

Here's the step by step process I use:  (Takes me about 30-40 min. tops but at the end, I explain how you could reduce that further)

1. Drain the water tanks and *leave all the faucets open*, including the stern shower Hot & Cold.  
2. Unscrew the Stern Shower Handheld sprayer handle from its hose.  
3. Unscrew the aerator (sprayers) from the head and galley faucets.
4. Take the caps off the water tanks and vacuum out the water tanks to remove remaining standing water and sediment. **Don't screw the water tank caps back on yet**
5. While doing the aft tank, take the inlet filter off of the fresh water pump and suck the remaining water out of the supply lines feeding the water pump filter. If your tank valves are still here you just open both valves up and both lines will be emptied and dry quickly.
6. If you're a purist, you could remove water tank Vent hoses and vacuum out the vent lines since those sometimes end up with standing water if there's any dip in the line (yuck).  I've occasionally hooked up a hose to flush those out but that's another topic.  I don't always do this.
6. Remove the galley sink drawers
7. Remove the 5 screws on the drawer frame, lift the frame out and set aside.

That takes care of the prep work so empty the shop vac into the galley sink before starting the next step which is to drain the Hot water tank.
8. Connect your short garden hose section to the drain spigot on the water tank and stick the other end of the hose up inside the shop vac hose.
9. Turn on the vac and open the water heater drain.  This will drain quite a bit of water out (remember leave hot/cold faucets open).  You can use your hand to help seal the vacuum, but don't go for an air tight seal, not necessary.
11. While that is draining, there is a screw on fitting below the pressure overflow on the HW tank that has a short brass check valve in it (looks like a short piece of copper pipe with an arrow on it that has a whale fitting on each end).  This is the cold water inlet. I simply unscrew that whale fitting from the HW tank leaving the check valve and everything intact.  This will allow air in and will drain the tank much faster. I have to empty the shop vac into the galley sink one time while doing this.
12. When you don't see any more water coming out the spigot, unscrew the garden hose fitting from the spigot (leave open) and place that hose over the cold water inlet to vacuum the last bit of water from the bottom of the HW tank out the cold water inlet (which I believe extends to the bottom of the tank.

Water Heater Tank is dry and done and you can now close the spigot and screw the check valve assembly back on the tank.  (Good spot for a winterizing port!)
Finally Drain/dry out the hot/cold lines to the faucets.
11. Locate the hot (red) and cold (blue) lines coming straight down from the galley faucet into "T" fittings under the sink.  Disconnect the Hot hose from the "T" fitting,  hold the garden hose end over the open whale fitting and this will suck the water out of the lines from the Head faucet and Stern Shower. When no more water comes out, Replace the Hot line.
12.  Repeat with the Cold line but after it appears completely drained, disconnect the blue cold water supply line from the water Pump outlet to be sure that line is dry also then reconnect the hot/cold lines under the sink. Be sure to push the plastic PEX pipe firmly into the fitting until they pop all the way in and are seated.
13. Clean and replace the Stern Shower sprayer, Galley and head faucet aerators.
14. Final step is to lay a paper towel over the Bow and Aft water tank openings and set the caps on top of that.  This lets the tanks dry out over the winter without letting debris and dust in.

So, when you get good at this, it'll take you ~30-40min start to finish in the fall.  In the spring, just replace the caps and fill the tanks. Nothing else to do, no flushing or sanitizing required.  So while using the pink stuff is faster in the fall (10 min and you're done), it takes at least a half hour or more in the spring to flush the pink stuff out and much-much longer if you want to flush all the bad taste out.

Again, sorry I didn't do the video.  It's actually way easier to do than to explain.  There are also several things that could be done to make it unnecessary to remove any Pex pipe from the fittings and then the process gets REALLY easy to explain:

Adding "T" fittings with a shutoff or garden hose end caps to a 4 strategic spots would eliminate much of this work.  
Here are spots that would work well and cut down the time a lot.

1) One between the Water Heater Cold Water inlet and the Check Valve (allows air/water past check valve when draining water heater).
2) One between the Water Pump's inlet filter and the tank valves (drains all lines between fresh water tanks and pump)
3) One on the Pump outlet cold water pressure line. (drains all cold water supply lines to galley, head and stern shower)
4) One on the Galley sink Hot water supply line (drains all the hot water lines to galley, head and stern shower)

Then you'd just move the shop vac hose to each of the following places in sequence:
1) Water Pump Inlet fitting to dry the tank supply lines
2) HW tank Cold water inlet. Once you start the vacuum, then open the drain spigot to let air in.
3) To the Galley hot water drain for clearing the hot water lines.
4) To the Pump outlet to drain the cold water lines.

Done...  Bet this wouldn't take much more than 20 minutes start to finish.

-Jeff

-----Original Message-----
From: C320-list [mailto:c320-list-bounces at lists.catalina320.com] On Behalf Of Jason Alexander
Sent: Thursday, October 23, 2014 2:20 PM
To: c320-list
Subject: Re: [C320-list] Antifreeze in water lines

Jeff,

Where can we see this video.   I'm looking to use my air compressor this
year.  Tired of the pink taste in the spring.    Do you just connect the
air supply to the output of the water pump.  What are you secrets?

Thanks,
Jason


On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 8:00 AM, Jeff Hare <Catalina at thehares.com> wrote:

> We've never used antifreeze or vodka in our water system.  We only use 
> a small shop vac to suck out the water.  With the process we use, our 
> boat water system is just fine to drink with no noticeable tank taste 
> so we drink and cook with it.
>
> This year I may make a short video or do an illustrated article on how 
> we do it.  It took less than 30 min last year start to finish and in 
> the spring, we fill the tanks and we're ready to go, no clean out 
> process required.
>
> -Jeff Hare
> #809
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: C320-list [mailto:c320-list-bounces at lists.catalina320.com] On 
> Behalf Of katchu at chartermi.net
> Sent: Tuesday, October 14, 2014 7:42 PM
> To: c320-list at lists.catalina320.com
> Subject: [C320-list] Antifreeze in water lines
>
> Lou - there are many articles in the association site about winterizing.
> My process goes something like this:  1)Drain both tanks in the water.
> 2)Once in the cradle, drain the forward tank further.  3)Remove the 
> front of the cabinets for access to the water tank - Drain it and blow 
> it out with compressed air as a lot of water remains after draining. 
> 4) Bypass the tank, connecting cold to hot. 4) Add two gallons of 
> water to the front tank and pressurize the system -then blow out all 
> faucets in the head, sink, rear shower and the high pressure water 
> inlet 5) Pump antifreeze through the head, shower drain, and 
> refrigerator drain. 6) put antifreeze in the sump and pump out with 
> the electric bilge pump and also the manual whale pump. 7) I use a 
> west marine Engine Winterizing kit to pump antifreeze through the 
> engine. I mount it in the cockpit and run the line to the water strainer, then start the engine and watch for the exhaust water to run pink.
>
> Total antifreeze use is 5-6 gallons.  I think that Jeff Hare has a 
> completely antifreeze free method using compressed air, but I have not 
> tried that.
>
> Chuck Mueller
>
> Northwind #676
>
> Holland, MI
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2014 16:53:04 -0400
> From: Colleen Reszoly <colloua5 at aol.com>
> To: "C320-List at Catalina320.com" <C320-List at Catalina320.com>
> Cc: "<C320-List at Catalina320.com>" <C320-List at Catalina320.com>
> Subject: [C320-list] Anti freeze in water lines.
> Message-ID: <7571469F-9B12-4D4C-8A13-B9AAB6A3B6DA at aol.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
> Hello
> How many gallons of anti freeze should go in the holding tanks for winter.
> Is it best to drain hot water tank or let it fill with antifreeze.
> Lou r 429
>
>