Need to bypass my hot water heater

[steveziv]

New to me boat (99 SD 290), my surveyor has advised me to bypass my hot water heater for winterization. I bought a non-permanent kit at West Marine; essentially two male-to-male fittings and a length of hose with female flanges.

Here's my hot water heater. I fooled around with it for a half hour and cannot figure out how to disconnect the red and blue lines. The gray fitting have a slip on retaining clip which leads me to believe these might be some kind of quick connect fittings? I took off one of the rings, pushed, pulled and pried with no luck. If they do somehow pop off I'm thinking my treaded bypass kit is useless.

How do I disconnect?
How do I bypass?

Thanks!

 

[JimG]

For the elbow fittings, you remove the "C" clip, and push the grey piece towards the elbow, and pull the pipe out. Hard to tell from the picture, but I have to think those elbows are threaded to the hot water tank. If that's the case, it may be just as easy to get a piece of garden hose and two worm gear clamps and connect the red pipe to the blue pipe.

 

[KC_Sundancer]

How do I disconnect?
How do I bypass?

Non-permanent by-pass:
You need to connect your bypass kit to the end of them and pump RV anti-freeze through the system.

I follow-up with draining the system and blowing it out with a compressor (low pressure).
That goes for the tank too - it should have a small drain plug.



Here is basically how a permanent bypass works:

Three valves - one in each tank line and one in the bypass line.
This can also be done with two bypass valves - one in place of each "T" fitting.
Here is a picture of an RV tank:

 

[northshore]

The WM kit can go back.

If you push in (toward the 90) on the 'grey' part of the fitting while pulling the tube (red or blue) out of the fitting the tube will pull out of the fitting.
So now you need a 'union' type fitting to connect the red line to the blue line that you just disconnected from the heater.
I'm pretty certain Home Depot or Lowes will have these. Use the union to connect the red to blue.
You might have to buy 2 'unions' and a small length of tube if you do not have enough slack.

-Mike

 

[steveziv]

Awesome, thanks! As long as I have your attention....I was advised to connect my bucket-of-pink to the filter side of the water pump. Here it is. Should I disconnect the blue line, unscrew the elbow and then screw on a female garden hose fitting? Or get a fitting to connect a section of blue hose to my garden hose? FYI, the garden hose is old and stiff and should hold up to the vacuum OK. Thanks again.

And what is this?

 

[northshore]

Steve,

If you pulled the grey section out of the white 90 degree section of the fitting, I'm concerned you might have a leak potential as those really are not meant to come apart.
You might want to pick up a spare.

-Mike

 

[JimFromMD]

New to me boat (99 SD 290), my surveyor has advised me to bypass my hot water heater for winterization. I bought a non-permanent kit at West Marine; essentially two male-to-male fittings and a length of hose with female flanges.

Here's my hot water heater. I fooled around with it for a half hour and cannot figure out how to disconnect the red and blue lines. The gray fitting have a slip on retaining clip which leads me to believe these might be some kind of quick connect fittings? I took off one of the rings, pushed, pulled and pried with no luck. If they do somehow pop off I'm thinking my treaded bypass kit is useless.

How do I disconnect?
How do I bypass?

Thanks!

These two posts might be helpful:

Writeup including link to a FW pump pink connection:
http://clubsearay.com/showthread.php/62393-Blowing-out-the-water-lines/page2


Bypass Photo:
http://clubsearay.com/showthread.php/458-300-Sundancer-questions?p=620545#post620545

 

[JimG]

Awesome, thanks! As long as I have your attention....I was advised to connect my bucket-of-pink to the filter side of the water pump. Here it is. Should I disconnect the blue line, unscrew the elbow and then screw on a female garden hose fitting? Or get a fitting to connect a section of blue hose to my garden hose? FYI, the garden hose is old and stiff and should hold up to the vacuum OK. Thanks again.

And what is this?

I completely drain my fresh water tank and simply add two gallons of the cheap pink stuff to the fresh water tank and then run all taps until I get pink coming out.

The bottom photo is your vacuum generator for you toilet... dump a gallon of pink in the toilet and flush it through.

 

[bbwhitejr]

Awesome, thanks! As long as I have your attention....I was advised to connect my bucket-of-pink to the filter side of the water pump. Here it is. Should I disconnect the blue line, unscrew the elbow and then screw on a female garden hose fitting? Or get a fitting to connect a section of blue hose to my garden hose? FYI, the garden hose is old and stiff and should hold up to the vacuum OK. Thanks again.

And what is this?

I empty my freshwater tank, take the hose off before the fitting and attach a short length of garden hose to it. Stick the other end of the garden hose in a jug of pink, turn on the pump, and go around and run faucets until pure pink is coming out. This way, in the spring, fill the tank and flush all lines and go. What small amount of water left in the tank will freeze and not hurt a thing....

+1 on the gallon down the toilet....

Bennett

 

[steveziv]

Just a quick update. The quick connects disconnected just as northshore said they would and an 8" section of water line with couplers from West Marine on each end completed the bypass. Once I round up the fittings to connect my garden hose to the strainer I should be good to go for the water system.

Now I'm dealing with the engines (see my most recent post).