By-Passing Hot Water Heater
- Thread starter lehighsail
- Start date
Wow... I guess I am lucky to have a pretty simple boat. A PO put 3 valves on the hoses to my water heater...one on each inlet and outlet, and a bypass hose. Turn 3 valves and the tank is isolated. I have a drain on my WH with a short hose attached. I remove the scupper hose from the thru hull and put the hose out the hole and open the drain valve. If I am in a hurry, I have used an air compressor to push air in the TP valve to help push the water out.
On my old boat, I just took the inlet and outlet hoses off the tank, and put a short piece of tubing between 2 hoses (with the right threads, etc).
I winterize the engine and water systems by myself and with a few pieces of hose and fitting, it is a pretty simple process...
I start the winterization around 21:00 or so on his video. I had already by assed the WH and drained the tank while at the dock (and changed the engine oil). But you can see some of the hoses I use for winterizing water lines and toilet.
Greg
On my old boat, I just took the inlet and outlet hoses off the tank, and put a short piece of tubing between 2 hoses (with the right threads, etc).
I winterize the engine and water systems by myself and with a few pieces of hose and fitting, it is a pretty simple process...
I start the winterization around 21:00 or so on his video. I had already by assed the WH and drained the tank while at the dock (and changed the engine oil). But you can see some of the hoses I use for winterizing water lines and toilet.
Greg
You have it wrong. Freezing water does expand, and if there's no room for expansion the container will crack open or burst. Just compare the level of water in an ice tray before and after freezing. Water/ice is not compressible, but air is compressible. It's freezing water that does the damage.
Drain the tank and leave fittings/valves open. Use compressed air (max ~40 PSI) to blow out the pipes. A dinghy pump will do the job. No antifreeze needed.
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When I winterize my boat I use compressed air to blow out lines after draining the water tank. The dock side inlet has a check valve. I then close all faucets and pressurize the system again, disconnect air and open cold water faucet closest to hot water heater. The water comes out of hot water heater from the cold intake side. Under normal use, water enters the water tank from bottom and goes out the top so by opening cold water valve the pressure from the system pushes the water back thru the cold intake. I do this multiple times until all water is gone. When i open hot water drain it is empty no water leaking into bilge and no need for antifreeze. I then take off any strainers in system clean them and leave for recommission as well as leave all faucets open. Done this on motorhomes and my current boat for 5 seasons no drama. Of course i still use antifreeze for motor and head. Hope this is helpful Eddie
Each to their own, but one issue I've encountered using compressed air to drain systems is if there is a joint somewhere that small amounts of water can collect. If such a location exists in a system it can collect water after blowing out, freeze and cause damage in that location. Filling a system with antifreeze eliminates that risk. Additionally, an antifreeze protected system, even if there are areas with water dilution, will still not cause damage well below the temperature the mixture is rated at as that rating is actually for use of the mixture in a flowing system. The liquid in an antifreeze will become slushy and will require much lower temperatures than rated to freeze sufficiently solidly to cause freeze damage.
dj
dj
Interesting, - I've never seen that to be the case, but if so, I stand corrected. Direct experience has shown me that not to be the case. Do you have reference material to that? I would be very interested in reading it. Most especially as I've been counting on this to be the case.! Hahahaha...
dj
In the fine print on this description.
Winter Tech -50ºF Marine & RV Water System Antifreeze
Starbrite quality care products since 1973 for: Automotive, Marine, Aviation, Motorcycle, Powersports, Outdoor Power Equipment, ATV, Snowmobile, Home Care, Outdoor Furniture, Farm Implement.
Also, they’re generally the burst point for copper plumbing. In the fine print you’ll find, for example, that -50 antifreeze is only recommended in plastic plumbing for temperatures down to -10.
Again I want to thank all for the input. Today I went to the boat armed with all the info from the answers above, to winterize the system and it turned out to be surprisingly easy using the suggestions by dlochner in post #18 . Drained the water tank and then the water heater at the spigot. The cold water line just before it enters the WH was a push-connect fitting so after removing the collet it came off quite easily. The same was found at the bottom of the hot side, brass valve. Then I connected the two with a length of 15mm Pex and used a push connector coupling on the hot side. I also disconnected the feed to the tempering valve from the cold line and put a push-connect end cap on it. Then ran AF through to the faucets by pumping it in from the input side of the water pump using another length of Pex stuck into a gallon container of AF. Worked great. One of the first projects in the spring will be to run all this off manifolds with in-line valves to by-pass the WH as suggested by Ron20324.
Attachments
For the OP, attached is a schematic of how to plumb a tempering valve on a HW tank. (sorry about the upside down labels.)
Right - see below - but as I understand it, when you use a hygrometer to measure it gives you the freeze protection range, not the burst protection.In the fine print on this description.
Winter Tech -50ºF Marine & RV Water System Antifreeze
Starbrite quality care products since 1973 for: Automotive, Marine, Aviation, Motorcycle, Powersports, Outdoor Power Equipment, ATV, Snowmobile, Home Care, Outdoor Furniture, Farm Implement.www.starbrite.com
dj
Star brite® Winter Tech -50°F (-46°C) Marine & RV Water System Antifreeze will provide burst protection to -50ºF (-46ºC) and freeze protection within a range of +17ºF (-8ºC) tp +21ºF (-6ºC).
NotCook
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- Dec 29, 2008
- 805
Are you sure about that? That doesn't make sense to me.Air is compressible, water is not. Water expands when it freezes. I would WANT air in there that can compress to make room for freezing water. Help me understand how what you said is accurate.
Woohoo! found a 3-way valve that should be perfect for my bypass setup. With this I'll just need one each valve on the in and out nipples and a bypass hose connecting the two. Fewer connections and only 2 valves to turn. I'm doing this in PEX. I have the crimp toolkit
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