Winterize your Refrigerator Ice Maker today - even in Texas

[danemayer]

2nd wave of arctic air is hitting southern states today. East TX forecast is 22 overnight. The hill country west of Austin is forecasting upper 20s tonight.

If you have an ice maker or water feed in your refrigerator, and it's in a slideout, you have exposed water lines. If you don't evacuate the water from those lines today, you may wake up tomorrow with water leaks.

Pages 9-12 of our owner-written Winterization Guide will help you through what needs to be done on a Dometic RM1350. The procedure is similar on other traditional RV gas absorption refrigerators.

If you have a residential refrigerator (electric only), take a look at our Residential Refrigerator Guide. It details the procedure on a Frigidaire, but the process is similar on Samsung and LG units.

 

[Lou_and_Bette]

Dan, I have the residential refer and followed the instructions for clearing line. Not as easy as I thought. When doing again, will open drain valve first, then start with using door filler to drain water. With pauses to prevent servo over-heating took me 15-20 minutes before started spitting air/water. Seems like no matter how often I did this, some more water would come out. Finally just stopped, drained at valve getting more that "a few drops", redid door draining and got more water...never a lot but some. Also, shut off valve under sink only turns 1/4 turn from on to off. Well, not catching on to this right away, I'm not the brightest mechanical bulb, and finally deciding the 1/4th turn was all that was needed, I had forgotten which way I had initially turn to shut off DUH! Turned it the way I thought was off, disconnected air, reattached water and restored flow to rig. Tried using water filler in door praying none came out so that I didn't have to start all over again. Got lucky. When I got under slide and inspected line, can still see some areas where water remains...small areas and hoping that if it freezes it has room to expand along tubing and not out.

 

[MCTalley]

And, there is another cold front sweeping down the early part of this coming week. I know here in Nashville, it is getting down into the teens. Even checking ahead at the Gulf Coast, they were calling for low 30's.

Our water line has long since leaked for the third and last time. We have a counter-top ice maker as of the other night.

 

[jbeletti]

Dan - thanks for the timely reminder. This has been on my mind to consider doing on my coach for a few days. I think Paul A and I here in GA will winterize mine later today. I'll try to follow the Frigidaire method and report back here with my experience.

 

[boatto5er]

I don't have the residential reefer, but on our Dometic RM1350, no matter how much air I blow thru water stays in the lines. I also disconnect the lines from the solenoid and a lot of water drains out.


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[danemayer]

I don't have the residential reefer, but on our Dometic RM1350, no matter how much air I blow thru water stays in the lines. I also disconnect the lines from the solenoid and a lot of water drains out.


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Gus,

Every time I winterized my RM1350, I started by running the water dispenser until it's mostly air spitting out. That gets most of the water out. Then I finish with the ice maker, using the cheater cord to activate and run several cycles.

Even so, it's probably a good idea to finish by disconnecting the lines from the solenoid to drain anything left in the line.

 

[cookie]

Gus, here a couple of things that I do when I winterize.
Number one is I have cut the 1/4 feed line where it is visible as it exits the frame of the coach. There I added a union. I disconnect there to allow all water to drain from the lines. I have an inline filter so I quick disconnect from that and blow that out to where the union has been disconnected.
I disconnect the lines at the solenoid, activate the solenoid, then using a small tube, blow the water out of the solenoid.
Hope that made sense as it has been working good for me.

Peace
Dave

 

[For20hunter]

I winterized our Coach including the residential fridge about 10 days ago and used the guide for the residential fridge winterization process in the HOG section and it was pretty easy.

Rod

 

[jbeletti]

Paul and I winterized the water line today for my Frigidaire Residential Refer. We'll be camping in freezing weather for the next few days, but we'll continue to use the refer. The only difference between how I winterized the water line today and how I would winterize the entire refer water system is that I did NOT remove the filter inside the refer. For cold storage, that filter for sure would be removed.

I lacked a single part to make an adapter to use compressed air to winterize the refer water line, so off to Lowes for the part and I made up the adapter.

Our Steps To Winterize the Refer Water Line

• Disconnected the 1/4" poly refer water line where it was connected to the coach water system (non-standard install)
• Connected the 1/4" compression nut from the refer water maker line to the adapter and plugged adapter into compressor line (now only the refer water line was pressurized)
• Inside, using a 2 quart mixing bowl with graduations on it, obtained water through the refer door water dispenser. Allowed it run for 60 seconds during which time we collected 4 cups of water. Right about the 60 second mark, the discharge started to sputter, indicating some air was coming out as well
• Rested the solenoid for 120 seconds and attempted to obtain more water through the door. It was sputtering but in 60 seconds, we obtained another 1/2 cup of water
• Repeated the 60 second water / 120 second rest cycle a couple more times. In all, we obtained 5 cups of water
• Pressed and held the ice maker power switch to I (on) for 15 seconds. This forced a manual ice harvest. There was no ice to harvest. We repeated this process a couple more times. We never heard water or air come into the ice maker system
• With refer water line still pressurized, we opened the frame mounted valve in the refer water line. Only air came out. Closed the valve, removed the air, reconnected the refer water line to the coach
• Inside the refer freezer, turned the ice maker power switch to O (off)

 

[danemayer]

Pressed and held the ice maker power switch to I (on) for 15 seconds. This forced a manual ice harvest. There was no ice to harvest. We repeated this process a couple more times. We never heard water or air come into the ice maker system

Jim,

When we winterized your frig at Chocktaw last Spring, I'm sure we got water and air spitting from the ice maker. You might want to investigate further. Maybe the solenoid valve didn't open.

 

[jbeletti]

Jim,

When we winterized your frig at Chocktaw last Spring, I'm sure we got water and air spitting from the ice maker. You might want to investigate further. Maybe the solenoid valve didn't open.

That's what I thought Dan. Not too important for me right now but IF I ever need to do a full-winterize, I will reread the User Guide and try again.

 

[For20hunter]

Dan and Jim,

When I winterized mine I went step by step and didn't have water come out of our ice maker on any of the 3 times I forced the ice harvest. Did I do something wrong?

Rod

 

[danemayer]

Dan and Jim,

When I winterized mine I went step by step and didn't have water come out of our ice maker on any of the 3 times I forced the ice harvest. Did I do something wrong?

Rod

Rod,

If there's compressed air going through the feed line, and the ice maker solenoid opens, you should get air blowing through the ice maker, and probably a little mist/water as well.

When working on Jim's unit last Spring, after starting the manual harvest, the bail arm went through a complete cycle, returning to rest. The solenoid didn't open for another 60 seconds. I think the bail arm cycle is probably to make sure any ice in the tray is ejected before adding water. But I'm not sure why there's a 60 second delay.

Any chance you might have pushed the button again in less than 60 seconds? I'm wondering if doing so might abort the operation.

On my RM1350, one time while winterizing, the solenoid didn't operate. I didn't realize at the time, but that left water in the solenoid. The water later froze, cracking the solenoid.

The residential refrigerator solenoid isn't exposed to outside air, so if you're using the rig, heating the interior, it'll probably be ok. But if left in storage in freezing weather, I would expect any remaining water to freeze, causing damage.

 

[For20hunter]

Dan, I pushed the button for about 15-18 seconds until the ball arm cycle began and then did not touch it again for several minutes, when I repeated the process 2 more times

 

[danemayer]

Dan, I pushed the button for about 15-18 seconds until the ball arm cycle began and then did not touch it again for several minutes, when I repeated the process 2 more times

Maybe one of you guys can find some time to try to figure it out. If we're missing something there may be a bunch of problems come Spring.

 

[EPaulikonis]

I just completed winterization a few days back. The ice maker pushed air through about once every 3 cycles. I got a fine mist once during the first set through (4-cycles total) on about the second cycle. I then proceeded to move toward the front of the coach draining the shower, toilet, laundry connections and both sinks (bathroom and bedroom). Once that was complete, I started in the kitchen again. The refrigerator was cycled a total of 6 times over several minutes, and I only got air through the ice maker on two occasions. I'm confident running the extra cycles got all the water out of the line.

 

[For20hunter]

Maybe my problem was that I drained all of the refrigerator lines first by using the water dispenser in the door until it was just air flowing out before I tried to do the icemaker.

 

[danemayer]

Maybe my problem was that I drained all of the refrigerator lines first by using the water dispenser in the door until it was just air flowing out before I tried to do the icemaker.

If you're pushing compressed air into the feed line, when the valve opens, you should hear compressed air escaping.

Was the filter in place?

 

[For20hunter]

Yes it was there twice. I will reinstall it and do it 3 more times

 

[jbeletti]

Paul reminded me of this this morning and I felt I should add it here. About a half hour after we winterized the ice maker, we heard the solenoid buzz, calling for water. I'd forgotten to turn the ice maker switch off.

The only thing we could think of it that maybe we had created some sort of air lock when winterizing with air. We bled off a bunch of air from the line at the Heartland valve on the frame. It was not long after that, that we heard the ice maker call for water. We were seated and the refer doors were closed, so no idea if any air/water pushed out. Doubt it did as we'd let most of the air pressure out of the line.