Help winterizing my new 27odk

I am new to the RV world. We just bought our first travel trailer, a new 2013 27odk. We took it out for the maiden voyage last weekend and had a great time. I'm very pleased with the trailer. I need to get it put into storage in the next few weeks but must first winterized it. I think I can figure out what I need to do, but any tips and pointers would be greatly appreciated. I did buy a pump bypass kit that has a hose where I can siphon RV antifreeze out of the jug and pump it through the system. My plan was to drain all the tanks as best as possible and then run the RV antifreeze through with this siphon hose kit. I guess a few questions I have is 1- do I run some into my water heater? How much? 2- how do I fully drain the water heater of water? 3- What does the blue hose between the tires on the right side of the trailer drain? 4- how much RV antifreeze should I dump in the fresh water, grey, and black tanks? Anything else I need to think of?
 

danemayer

Well-known member
Hi Kevinrossler,

Congratulations on your new North Country and welcome to the Heartland Owners Forum.

You don't want any antifreeze in the water heater - expensive and could cause damage. You bypass it and drain it. The blue hose is likely the fresh tank drain. If you drain the gray and black tanks completely, you don't need to add antifreeze. BUT you do need to pour a little antifreeze into each drain to fill the p-traps. A little extra going into the tanks would protect in case your tanks aren't completely empty.

We have an owner-written Winterization Guide that provides details and some pictures to help you through this the first time. There's also a more complete Water Systems Guide that may be helpful to you.
 

JohnD

Moved on to the next thing...
Food for thought . . .

I'm going to advise you to have your dealership winterize it while it is still under manufacturer's warranty.

If you do it yourself, and if you have any problems, the fact that you did it yourself will void the manufacturer's warranty!

And if you have our experience . . . you are going to have some warranty issues!

Our 2013 Trail Runner:

NewCamperTruck-P9110306.jpg
 

danemayer

Well-known member
Re: Food for thought . . .

I'm going to advise you to have your dealership winterize it while it is still under manufacturer's warranty.

If you do it yourself, and if you have any problems, the fact that you did it yourself will void the manufacturer's warranty!

JohnD, I'm not sure how you came to this conclusion, but there's no problem with winterizing the rig yourself. Many if not most owners do winterize themselves. The Heartland manual includes instructions on how to winterize.

Of course if you have freeze damage, that's not covered by the Heartland warranty, whether it was from failure to winterize, or perhaps a mistake you made while winterizing. So if you're not sure you can do it correctly, you might be better off paying someone to do it for you.

If you want to learn more about winterizing, we have an owner-written Winterizing Guide that includes a number of tips that you might find useful.
 

JohnD

Moved on to the next thing...
Re: Food for thought . . .

I just picked my trailer up from the dealership this afternoon.

Cost me $90 to have them winterize it . . . which includes de-winterizing next spring.

I like the peace of mind of having the winterizing warranted in case something does freeze up over the winter.
 

whp4262

Well-known member
Re: Food for thought . . .

What's "de-winterizing" entail?

Not much other than making sure the valves are closed or switched back to the correct position, flushing the anti-freeze from the pipes with some clean water with the hot water heater bypassed at first. Then run some water into the water heater with the anode rod removed to flush the tank a little. Put the anode rod back in, purge the air in the system, fillup and truck on.
 
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