winterize aquahot

[ekgflashnet]

To winterize my 2005 Dynasty I used an air compressor to blew out all the cold and hot water lines by opening faucets, toilet valve and washer/dryer lines one at a time.  Do I have to do something additional to winterize the aguahot unit?  Does it have a separate tank that needs to be drained or is blowing out the hot water lines by opening the hot water faucets sufficient?

thanks,

steveg 2005 DDIV

[Speerfamily]

There is a coil that wraps around the burner... I have always been told that you need to pump antifreeze thru the aqua hot and that’s what I do. A friend only blew air thru his and it froze up costing him 10k

[Skip Smith]

The aqua hot unit has 2 systems in the one unit.  One system is for the heating of the coach, and has permanent antifreeze in it, and requires no winterization.   The other section is the domestic hot water system, and needs to be winterized.  This can be done with blowing out with compressed air, through all the hot water fixtures, one at a time.   I always take extra cautions and are very thourogh with this process, taking a lot of time, blowing lots of air, and repeating every fixture..  The aquahot does not have a separate tank, like a gas fired hot water tank is.   It is an internal loop of  coiled copper wire, that is immersed in the hot coolant for the heating section.  Need to blow lots of air through this coil to be sure that no water is left trapped in the lower sections of the coil.  You may not want to hear this, but,  I follow up with rv antifreeze after blowing out with air, for additional protection. My coach has a separate tank to put the antifreeze into, and uses the water pump to pump the stuff through all the pipes. If you don't have this, you can buy a fitting that hooks to the water pump, with a short section of hose, that you can put in the gallon jugs, and pump the stuff through the pipes, I run it until I have pink stuff at every fixture.  I do not put the pink stuff in the water tank.  I also do not run pink stuff through the ice maker on the ref. Remember to run enough pink stuff, so every trap has some, and so the waste valves, black and grey have some.

[Dr4Film]

Do NOT take any shortcuts as it will be a VERY expensive repair if you do. If you choose not to run freeze protection into the fresh water lines of the Aqua-Hot an alternative is to keep the electric assist on plus the diesel burner on to keep the entire Aqua-Hot up to temperature but it will cost you some electric and diesel to do that.

[k7jv]

This is a copy paste from our owners manual on our '06 Dynasty. 

"Winterize the Aqua-Hot:

The Aqua-Hot can remain on during the winter months or it must be winterized with FDA approved RV antifreeze to prevent freeze damage. The RV antifreeze must be pumped through the Aqua-Hot until the solution appears at the hot water side of a faucet."

They absolutely mean it.  Like Speerfamily said, $10K seems to be the number that gets tossed around.  From what I have heard over the years, folks that have gotten away with just using air are very fortunate.

[trailmug]

I did it once before I knew better and it was ok. The boiler tank is like a barrel positioned on its side, and the domestic hot water loop is like a rope wrapped around that barrel 20 times. It's difficult to imagine blowing air through sufficiently such that that ice slugs can't form at the bottom.

It takes for stinking ever to get all the RV antifreeze out of the system in the spring, but the only alternative I'm aware of is to leave the electric heater on and hope you don't suffer a long enough power outage to cause freeze damage.

Edited October 18, 2020 by trailmug

[ekgflashnet]

thanks to everyone for your feedback.  I can see how the water loop wrapped around a barrel on its side would be nearly impossible to empty with air alone.  Looks like I'm buying RV anti freeze.

steveg 2005 DDIV

[96 EVO]

Good choice! It's what Aqua Hot strongly recommends!

These boilers are way too expensive to risk destroying!