Winterizing Dock side water

[jerseyalbin]

I am not sure how to winterize the dockside water connection on my 28 TE? Do you need a pump to push some antifreeze into the hose connection? Thanks for anyinfo here!!

Jersey Albin
Craig

[KathyN]

That's a good question, and I don't believe it's covered in the winterizing thread. Any answers to this????

KathyN

[Pitou]

As the water tank is drained the dockside water connection will drain naturally when the fresh water tank is emptied.

The following is how I winterize my entire freshwater system :

Personally I just drain the fresh water tank dry and call it a show by not adding any antifreeze to the tank. Be sure to do this while you are still in the water or you will never drain the fresh water tank entirely if the boat is on stands and tilted back to stern in order to get the bilge dry. I then lift the hatch cover in the quarter berth and disconnect a section of the blue (cold) pex water tubing exiting the water tank and slide a snug fitting piece of clear tubing over the blue pex leading to the domestic (fresh water pump) and put the other in the 1st gallon jug of - 50 (pink anti-freeze) and pump it through the fresh cold water faucets/washdowns/ and transom shower. Leave all faucets, wash downs and sill cocks open for winter lay-up.

For the hot water system I drain the hot water tank by opening the drain / sill cock on the back side of the hot water tank to drain any remaining water left in the tank. In order to get the the last bit out you must disconnect the blue (cold) line coming into the tank and the orange (hot out) line coming out this fully vents the system. You will be surprised how much more h20 gurgles out of the drain on the tank. Now connect the disconnected blue that fed the hot water tank to the disconnected orange that feed the hot water lines leading to the faucets and fixtures and you have now bypassed the hotwater tank for flushing the hot water lines to their respective faucets. As with the cold system I run the hot until the pink flows bright through the overboard discharge drains. Having someone outside to knock on the hull when it starts to flow and to knock again when things are bright pink will save a few gallons overall.

Some will want to run antifreeze through their fresh water tanks and hot water heaters. For me it seems to just be an added unnecessary task using an excess of pink antifreeze. I prefer to bypass both tanks. With my method both tanks are now empty and any little puddling of a few ounces that may remain has plenty of room for expansion when the freeze of winter hits. For those more cautious you could use a funnel to pour in many gallons of antifreeze into your fresh water tank and run it through the entire domestic water system.

As I have described is what was taught to me by my mechanic who did my winter lay-up the 1st year and I have followed this procedure since without incident in an area that always seems to find its way into single digit temps for days and occasionally dropping below zero in the wee hours of the AM.

I hit the hard this past Friday and winterized all systems on Monday. How bitter sweet!

[RobS]

Agree with Kevin on the dockside water connection. I have never ran the pink through it.