RV Antifreeze and Water Shutdown Before Alberta Freeze

Alberta's first hard freeze can show up in September some years and hold off until late October in others. Water expands as it freezes and it does not care what the calendar says. One overnight dip is usually survivable. A few nights in a row well below zero will do real damage to a pump, a water heater, or a fitting buried in a wall.

Chinooks make this worse, not better. A mild week in November can talk you into leaving it one more weekend, and then the temperature drops twenty degrees overnight. Repeated freeze and thaw cycles are harder on plumbing than steady cold, because the water keeps moving, refreezing, and working away at the joints.

The safe habit around Calgary is to winterize once daytime highs stop climbing much above freezing, and to do it before the unit goes into storage rather than after. Once the trailer is parked in a lot on the other side of town, the small job you meant to finish becomes a drive, and that is how most freeze damage actually happens.

Start at the dump station. Empty and rinse the black tank, then the grey. Back at the unit, drain the fresh water tank from its own valve and open the low point drains, usually a pair of coloured lines hanging below the floor near the middle of the RV.

The water heater is the part people rush. Let it cool right down, shut off the electric element and the propane, and take the pressure off the system before you touch the drain plug or anode rod. Pull the plug, open the pressure relief lever so the tank drains properly, and rinse the sediment out while it is open.

With the tanks empty, run the pump for a couple of seconds to clear the pump body, then shut it off. Open every faucet, hot and cold, including the outside shower and the toilet flush valve, and leave them open while the last of the water finds its way out.

There are two methods, and doing both is the belt and suspenders approach. Compressed air pushes standing water out through a blowout plug threaded into the city water inlet. Keep the pressure low and check your owner's manual for the maximum your plumbing is rated for. Shop air straight off a compressor will damage fittings.

Then pump non toxic RV antifreeze, the pink propylene glycol kind, through the system using the pump's winterizing kit or a siphon hose. Bypass the water heater first or you will waste jugs filling a tank you just drained. Work one fixture at a time, hot then cold, until pink runs steady, and do not forget the outside shower, the toilet, and any washer or ice maker.

Never use automotive antifreeze. Ethylene glycol is toxic and has no place in a system you drink from. Finish by pouring RV antifreeze down each drain to fill the P traps, some into the toilet bowl, and a little into the holding tanks so the dump valve seals stay protected.

The city water inlet has a small check valve behind the screen. Press it in with a screwdriver tip to release the water trapped behind it, otherwise there is enough sitting there to crack the fitting. Take out the water filter cartridge, drain the housing, then disconnect, drain and coil the fresh water hose instead of leaving it lying under the trailer.

Check the exterior kitchen, the water heater bypass valves themselves, and anything added after the RV left the factory, such as a booster pump or a water line to a residential fridge. Aftermarket plumbing tends to sit outside the standard winterizing routine, so it is the first thing to freeze.

Bring it to us in Calgary if the water heater plug is seized, if there is no bypass kit installed, if the pump will not draw antifreeze, or if you find a damp spot, a stain, or a soft floor while you are down there. Those signs point to a leak that has been running a while, and that is a repair, not a winterizing step. If a cold snap is closing in and you are out of time, a shop winterize is far less work than chasing split lines in the spring.