Weird Occurence Winterizing

manyman297

Just winterized today. 3rd time doing it so you’d think I’d have it down by now. 

Went to first blow the lines out. Low point drains and alde drains opened and did a gravity drain. Set nautilus levers to diagonal positions as usual. Went to blow out lines but had trouble getting the hot side of the lines to blow out. Cold in bathroom fixtures blew out fine, toilet was fine. I also had trouble getting both hot and cold lines in the kitchen to blow out. It was like no air was moving to the kitchen faucet. 

I believe there are check valves on the hot and cold lines leading to the faucet hookups, correct? They never gave me trouble in the past but they seemed to be staying closed. 

Figured I’d run antifreeze through the system and that went as planned. All faucets flowed the antifreeze just fine.

Now I’m worried the alde still has water in it. Is opening the flapper valves enough to drain it or does it really need air pressure? I don’t recall running pressurized air through the system with the flappers open. 

Any thoughts? Why would the hot lines not bow out? Or was there no water in them to begin with so I wouldn’t get sputtering?

dsfdogs

I don't think we blow air through the Alde and I thought the yellow flapper valves drained all water from both Alde tanks. I thought the valves in diagonal were to blow out the water from the Nautilus. I wonder if you had opened the valves and closed the red Alde lever then tried to blow out the hot lines if that might have worked? I'll be doing my winterizing next month.

pthomas745

The "diagonal" position, according to the Nautilus manual, is to just blow out the "harness" on the Nautilus, and not the entire plumbing setup: This is from the 3.0 manual:  Using "CITY WATER" inlet or low point drain, blow out plumbing lines (40 PSI max) with handles still at 45 degree angle as shown. This will ensure any trapped water in plumbing harness is removed. (Italics added).

PS: not sure if you have the Nautilus 2.5 or 3.0 in your 400, but the idea is the same.

If you want to blow out the lines all the way to the faucets, you would set the valves to the "Winterize" position.  That would send air to each faucet, just like it would send antifreeze to each faucet.

The basic instructions we have in many threads points this out: 45 degrees for the "harness", and "Winterize" position for blowing out or filling up all the way to the faucets.

manyman297

@pthomas745 Thanks for clarifying. I did notice the “harness” verbiage in the manual but I swear when I did it in previous years I got water sputtering from the faucets on both hot and cold. This makes sense though. 

So will simply opening the low points and Alde flappers be enough to empty the Alde and Flow? In the Nautilus manual it has you keeping those drains open while you blow out the lines. Something I didn’t do but can’t remember doing (or not) in previous years.

Sharon_is_SAM

@manyman297 - have you seen this nuCamp video?
https://nucamprv.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/44002380601-winterizing-tab-400

pthomas745

It is interesting that NuCamp actually shows how to do a blowout.

What is it with the instruction on "keep one faucet open" when blowing out?  My Viair will not work that way.

manyman297

@Sharon_is_SAM Thanks, I did see that video but not this written manual. Everything in the video was good up until he says “continue blowing out your lines including the fresh and gray tank.”….????? Those videos are helpful as a start but I feel like they leave out the details. And their written instructions differ from the video instructions in some instances. I do like how detailed the written instructions are though.

@pthomas745 I leave a faucet open to avoid over pressurizing the system. And then I can keep my compressor at a steady 40psi. Some people like to build up pressure to help blow the lines out but I figure pumping the antifreeze will do the job for me.

pthomas745

I get it, but....I'm using a pressure regulator already.  Opening a faucet would seem counterproductive. But, whatever works!  We have analyzed compressors and blowing out forever.  As long as it works!

On the valves at 45 degree position: some one on the FB page mentioned that the Nautilus valves are "ball valves", so that the 45 degree position would have them "half open".  That might explain why you had "some air" getting to the faucets at that stage of the blow out process.

SLJ

pthomas745 said:

It is interesting that NuCamp actually shows how to do a blowout.

What is it with the instruction on "keep one faucet open" when blowing out?  My Viair will not work that way.

With a compressor, pressure can build up beyond what the pipes and connections can handle. Keeping one faucet open before opening the next and then closing the first helps to keep the pressure below what the plumbing can handle. Even when I have the compressor set to a pressure below the maximum I always keep one faucet or drain open at all times. It's harder to blow lines out when you have a smaller compressor like most 12 volt portables which don't produce many cubic feet per minute (CFM) of air.

manyman297

@SLJ Yeah, this is the methodology I follow as well. Once you close a faucet that pressure will rise exponentially so what you think it 40psi is suddenly 90 or whatever. I think the terms are dynamic and static pressure. Dynamic would be pressure while a faucet is open. Static would be closed.

I use a 6 gallon pancake compressor so I really need to be mindful of where the dynamic pressure is at and always leave a faucet open.