Well today, we started to winterize the camper. the guy we bought it off of said he put 6 gallons of antifreeze in the fresh water tank.. sooo, thats what we did. didn't work. not enough of it for the water pump to pump in through. we would just get the adapter to hook up to the pump but we cant reach back there to unscrew the hoses and stuff.

now we have $30 worth of antifreeze in the fresh water tank, and cant pump it through. any help ??

Our rigged up funnel. made out of a antifreeze bottle.

My understanding is that you are not able to reach your water pump. I have not had a situation of not being able to get to the pump to either unhook it it or have a diverter valve there where I can divert the pickup for the pump from the fresh water tank and pull out of my antifreeze jug. It sure would be difficult if you were not able to access the pump fittings.
One thing I have done in the past on the hot water side is pump antifreeze backwards in the lines. You could do that in both the hot and cold but I have not tried to do that on the cold water lines. By pumping backwards, I mean to force the antifreeze from the faucet backwards. I don't know if you could get antifreeze into the toilet valves by doing that. Walmart has a great little hand pump for doing this. It is about $7 and does a great job. You can use duct tape to seal around the hand pump hose and the faucet before you pump. I did this in the past before I had the chance to install a water heater bypass on an RV we had in the past in the past.
Since you have 6 gallons in the fresh water tank already, my thinking is that you should continue to try to get the antifreeze pumped through by that method. Is your water heater bypassed now? By that, I mean do you have a bypass installed and did you switch it to bypass? If not, most of your antifreeze will go into the water heater until it is full and your water heater most likely will hold 6 gallons. Make sure the trailer is sitting not level but to where the freshwater tank outlet is sitting with the outlet lower than the other parts of the tank so the antifreeze will be standing at the tank outlet so it can be pumped. You will probably have get a flashlight and look around to try to see where the water tank outlet is. Might have to do some seaching and taking our drawers and look behind them to find the tank. I have seen situations where you could not see the outlet at all. I hope that is not the case with your tank.
Good luck with getting it winterized.

thanks we'll run to walmart and check out that pump. we had the camper level. and the fresh water tank is up under the camper. there is a valve that you turn to bypass the water heater.

we will try to find the outlet as well. we hate to waste 6 gallons of that stuff, or pay the rv place $70 to do it ! thanks!

You might try lowering the front of the trailer considerably, turn on the pump and listen to it and see if can hear a difference when it starts to pick up the antifreeze from the tank. If that does not cause a change in the sound of the pump and allow the pressure to build and cut the pump off, raise the front of the trailer up and higher in reference to level then try the pump again. What I am suggesting here is an effort to try to get the antifreeze to the tank outlet that feeds the pump.
I hope I am explaining this well enough for you to understand. If this works, you won't need the hand pump that I mentioned earlier. Pumping the antifreeze through using the electric pump is the preferred way to get the antifreeze through lines, faucets, showers and toilet if it is possible to do that, in my opinion.
If the pump has only air in it, the sound level will be much less. When it picks up fluid, it should make more noise. That is the way it is with a Shurflo pump anyway. If you have another brand pump, that might not be the case.

I have a question on the antifreeze thing and have never asked anyone. Is that antifreeze you are talking about the same kind as the antifreeze in a car? If so how do you keep it from killing you when camping season starts? Even if you flush it is there any of it left in the system somewhere? I have heard of that before. I always though it was put in the sink and other drains not the fresh water supply. I do mine a little different.I installed drain cutoffs so it will drain out. I also made a hose with a air fitting on one end and a regular water hose fitting on the other. I let it drain out then I put about 40-50 pounds of air on it to force out any left in. I also leave about 20-30 pounds of air pressure in it to keep the water out. I can also tell in the spring if there are any leaks by turning a faucet on then. If it has held and no leaks the air pressure will still be there and you can hear it leaving the faucet.

Willy, the rv anti freeze is not the same as car anti freeze! Do not use automotive anti freeze in your camper! The rv antifreeze is of a food grade material and needs to be flushed out before use.

were buying a air compressor tomorrow and blow the lines out. it should not have much in it, because we opened the low point drains. then pump a little antifreeze in.. someone told us this today.

Was wondering how your winterizing problem went. I have never heard of using 6 gallons of anti-freeze, usually it only takes 2-3 gallons. If you are planning on keeping this trailer for a while I would look into relocating the water pump to a more conveint place. Most people that I have talke with say that you shouldn't put anti-freeze into your fresh water tank because it is very hard to flush it completely out when you de-winterize the unit.



Coolbreeze1

Blowing out your lines is the best bet for corrective action. Remember to pull the plug or unscrew plug to completely drain your water heater. I never heard of 6 gallons or putting that amount in the fresh water tank. even at 3 gallons I wasted some antifreeze. it is a good idea to put anti-freeze (a little bit) in your drains. so hope this helps.

well we have left it with 6 gallons of antifreeze in the fresh tank. blew the lines out. about to get something to drain the fresh tank with to get the antifreeze out, to put in the lines the best we can.. we have never used the fresh water tank on any of our campers.

but, were not keeping this one. so we'll let the new owner decide. lol

We sould take up a pool to see when willandgill we get rid of this trailer. LOL

Just kidding you, wiish you all the best..........




Coolbreeze

Thanks for the info fisherpal . Even though I have learned a lot about campers in the last year and a half I am still learning. Plus I rebuilt mine thinking about the very idea of making it easy to winterize. So I put in drains from the git go. I don't understand why these companies that make these don't make it easier to winterize.

I dont know who was the closest.. We sold the camper, so let here, um... 3 weeks ??

I can poor 2 gallons in my fresh water tank and pump through all my my cold water system, but I don't have a by-pass on the hot water heater so I have no way to get anti-freeze into my hot water lines unless I pump enough to fill the 6 gallon water heater first.

Figures, the weekend after after I put the anti-freeze in it, we went capming again so I wasted the two gallons of anti-freeze. I opted this time to spend $5 on the goods metal air fitting and just blow the lines dry. This way I have zero cost in winterizing and we can camp all winter long if we want to. I just spend an extra 5 minutes when we get home to blow the lines dry again. This time I actually went ahead and took the WH plug out, opened all my low point drains and all faucets before we ever left the campground. Left them open the whole trip home then blew out what little was left once we got home.