HWH - Switched from antifreeze to air

[rcknecht]

Alex... This is my third year using compressed Air... So far, I have not had any trouble, and it was very cold the past two winters... Next time you winterize, I can bring my compressor over to your boat and help you...

I spent 8 hours this past week end trying (unsuccessfully) to get out one bolt on a exhaust manifold... Bought some new tools today, and will give another go at it this weekend... I wish all my maintenance was as easy as the winterization... Our boats, as our children, teach us patients and determination...

 

[Alex F]

As long as you have access to the HWH Hot and Cold lines you should be able to disconnect the Cold and Hot lines and connect them to each other in no more than a minute or two AND you won't have the additional points of failure in the FW lines constantly hanging off of the HWH.....

Dom, I just wanted to comment that I'm positive that my setup with 4 extra valves and couple of Ts will be the last point of failure to worry about on the FW side of the house. This hardware is really solid and all the plastic crappy fittings SR used will fail way before my additional hardware will. I've used similar hardware on my 320DA for engine and generator flushing system and was extremely happy with the results after few years of using the system.

 

[electricaldoctor]

"4. Here's the kicker that made the difference. I flipped the pressure relieve valve back to normal state. I connected hose from air compressor to the "IN" side. With the bottom valve still open I started blowing the air trough the HWH to get remaining water out. To my surprise, the water spitted out of the TOP "OUT" fitting and not from the bottom one that we're all expecting. I have no idea why this happened. Could it be b/c I closed the pressure relieve valve?..."

Any chance that your drain valve does not actually open as it should or perhaps it is plugged up with crud??

 

[Alex F]

....Any chance that your drain valve does not actually open as it should or perhaps it is plugged up with crud??

I thought about it, but as you can see from my steps it did the job of draining most of the water just by using gravity. This has changed only when I forced the water with compressor. I still think that some kind of crud occumulation is the the only logical explanation. It's possible that there was some crud and it was forced to the valve by the pressure from the compressor.

For those who uses the compressor to blow remainning whater from the HWH, how's does it work for you, where does the water come out (the bottom drain or the "OUT" line)?

 

[SCORPIO]

Even if a quart of water remained in the HWH and froze, it wouldn't burst the tank since it would have room to expand since the tank is almost empty.

On my boat, I bypass the HWH and don't run pink thru due to having to replace my old heater due to a rotten egg smell that was attributed to using AF in the HWH.
I use a much lower tech way to purge the water from my system. I first empty the FW tank with the pump, then I drain and bypass the HWH, I then attach a pump garden sprayer that I use only for this purpose, to the city water inlet and, with the sprayer empty and faucets open, I pump the sprayer and if forces air thru the FW system. After purgeing in this manner, I add pink to the FW tank (about 10% of capacity) and run that thru the system. Then I put pink in the garden sprayer and pump it thru the city water connection to get that purged and filled with pink. This has worked for me for four winters now doesn't require expensive fittings, air compressors or even electricity for that matter.
I like to keep things as simple as possible (KISS principle).

 

[Alex F]

....On my boat, I bypass the HWH and don't run pink thru due to having to replace my old heater due to a rotten egg smell that was attributed to using AF in the HWH.....

Did you have the HWH ON with pink in it? I've used pink in all my previous boats an never had a problem. If you follow the right steps there shouldn't be any issues with pink in a HWH.

 

[cod]

A lot of different points of view here, all I'm sure work, some maybe overkill but to each there own. I like the idea of bypass valves at the HWH to make things easier but honestly would do it to bypass the HWH. Then if you use AF for the hot and cold water lines, you're able to avoid filling the HWH. The hot water heater has a drain and thats what it is there for-winterizing. Then after filling the lines with AF, you could open the 3-way valve to the hot water heater and put a little in until you see it drain from the hot water heater. My 2 cents.........

 

[Alex F]

Steve,

That was precisely what I was after. Based on how you summed it up, the only steps I did differently was:

1. I used the "IN" valve (the one I used to hookup the compressor to) and added about 1/2-3/4 gal of pink, but I didn't open the drain valve to see the pink dripping out of there.
2. As you described, I turned both bypass valves to normal system operation and turned the FW pump ON for about 30sec. just to make sure that I let some pink from FW tank (it had antifreeze there from winterizing the overall system) run through the lines. I didn't feel the need to open the drain valve, b/c I knew 100% that I added decent amount of pink in the HWH and the rest of the lines. But, seeing whatever concentration of pink comes out of the drain valve is a good idea.