Winterizing problem.

[Dan50]

When I was winterizing my Big Country today I did the usual, turn the Anderson valve to winterize and flip the red handle of the hot water heater bypass to bypass the hot water tank. Put my hose into the antifreeze jug and turned on the pump. Antifreeze flowed through the faucets
etc. with no problem but when I turned off the faucets I noticed the pump cycling about every 5 seconds. Was wondering what was going on. Went back outside to check the jug and after listening to the pump short cycle for a bit I saw antifreeze start to drip out of the hot water heater. Stopped wen I turned the pup off. I'm thinking that the red handled bypass valve is defective and is letting antifreeze through to the tank. No leak behind the udc. Worked fine last year when winterizing Does that sound reasonable or could it be something else ? Thanks in advance.

 

[danemayer]

Could be a slight leak in the bypass. On most rigs, there's also a check valve on the water heater output that could be leaking. You might try replicating the problem and shining a light in the water heater drain to see if you can tell which way the antifreeze is entering.

You'll want to rinse the water heater thoroughly.

 

[Dan50]

The water heater was empty at the time so I don't think that the check valve in the output line would come into play. I'm leaning towards the tank bypass diverter valve leaking allowing a slow leak into the tank.

 

[Dan50]

It was the check valve on the tank. Thanks all.