We’ve finally enjoyed a few days of slightly cooler temperatures here in Virginia. The temperatures are climbing again, unfortunately, but once we get some cooler days, we know fall is finally on its way. I love the cooler weather of fall after the heat and humidity of our summers.

Cooler temperatures are great for camping, but it also means it’s time to schedule your RV winterization. Whether you do it yourself or pay someone to do it for you, don’t put it off too long. Neglecting to properly winterize your RV or travel trailer could result in expensive repairs after water lines freeze and water tanks burst.

What is winterization?

Basically it’s getting all the water out of the water lines and tanks (though there’s a little more to it than just that). This is accomplished one of two ways.

1. You drain all the water out of the tanks and water lines, then blow air through the water lines to dry them out.
2. Or you drain all the water out of the tanks and water lines, but small amounts of water may still remain. You then run RV antifreeze through the water lines and into the tanks. The down side to this is cleaning out all the antifreeze in the spring. RV antifreeze is not the same as antifreeze that goes in your car radiator, and is non-toxic. Even though it’s non-toxic, you still want to thoroughly rinse out the residue before drinking water from tanks that had RV antifreeze in it.

Our experience with delayed winterization

At the end of last October we took a last road trip to Gettysburg, PA. We intended to immediately take it back out and empty the tanks so we could winterize it. Unfortunately, something came up and we didn’t empty the tanks, which meant we didn’t winterize it. A couple months later we finally got around to it, but it was below freezing and the tanks couldn’t be emptied (big surprise).

In early spring we took the RV to a local campground so we could take pictures of how to set everything up. We were putting together a handbook for future renters and if a picture is worth a thousand words than lots of pictures are worth even more, right?

Anyway, we noticed some water leaking when we attached the water hose to the RV, so we turned it off quick and didn’t use the water that night. When we got home we called the dealership and took it in to get it fixed.

The kids and I took the RV on a trip after that and noticed a lack of hot water. After the trip Jeremy investigated and found that the water lines were still in winterization mode. He switched them out of winterization mode, but didn’t turned the water on to check it.

Fast forward a few weeks, and I was doing a final check before our renters came to pick up the RV. The water pressure had been having issues, so I turned the pump on and then the water, but the pressure was still bad. Then I heard water gushing on the floor somewhere. I turned the water off and looked for the water. It was coming out of the cabinet that houses the water heater, which was not a good sign.

I opened up the cabinet, found a light, and was greeted with this sight:

That would be a 2 inch gash that happened when the hot water tank froze solid while full of water. As we all know, water expands as it freezes, and it expanded the only way it could: at a weak point where the water line connected to the tank.

Our renters arrived right after I found this. And Jeremy was out of town for work. Talk about a nightmare.

The renters were super nice and understanding and changed their campground reservations to cabin reservations while I took the RV back to the dealership. They clearly hadn’t checked anything beyond the initial leak at the water inlet, which was so aggravating. They did discount the cost of replacing the hot water tank, at least.

Later this summer we found another leak, this one coming from the shower knobs. There was a tiny crack in one of the tubes just behind the knobs. This was a quick and easy fix: we just bought a replacement shower knob set. Jeremy had it installed in less than ten minutes. FWIW, we really like the new handles, so at least something positive came out of this 🙂

I tell you all this to illustrate the problems that can occur if you don’t winterize your RV in a timely fashion. It cost us a lot of money, time, aggravation, and stress to get everything fixed.

Don’t do what we did!

Now’s the time to winterize your RV

If you know you’re not taking your RV out again this year, now’s the time to winterize it. Even if you will be taking it out again, winterize it. Then either don’t use the water (we’ve done this while hunting in Colorado in December with Jeremy’s dad in his trailer), or de-winterize, then winterize again after you’re done using it. Obviously that would only work if temperatures will be above freezing.

Don’t wait too long, thinking you’ll have time before the first freeze. Things come up and you run out of time, and next thing you know, the first frost has hit and you never winterized the RV.

It may be 80+ degrees in our neck of the woods right now, but we’re winterizing the RV this weekend. We have a busy schedule this fall and we don’t want to get so busy that we don’t take care of it before the first freeze.

Not sure how to winterize your RV?

If you’ve never winterized your RV, you have a couple options.

1. Call your local dealership and let them do it for you.

No fuss for you, but you will be at the mercy of the dealership’s schedule.

2. Call your local dealership and see if they offer classes on how to winterize.

The dealership we bought our trailer from did this. We didn’t take the class, but we thought about it. The trailer was easy to winterize, though, so we didn’t need the class.

3. Read your owner’s manual and do it yourself.

The manual may be clear as mud, though, so read through it beforehand.

4. Hop on YouTube and do it yourself.

Jeremy used a combination of YouTube and the owner’s manual to winterize our RV. There were different connections and things were in different places than in the trailer, so it was not as straightforward as he’d hoped.

Have you winterized your RV yet? Have you had any mishaps like ours from not winterizing?