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winter and water freezing


zimmer4me

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I am going to drain the plastic water tank of most of its water to avoid frost problems , can I still run the engine or will the calofirer require water from the tank?

I confess to not knowing how it all hangs together !

Will also take out most of the water in the electric toilet flush as well as do a check on the anti freeze in the engine.

can ayone give a bit of advice...basically I still want to use the boat over winter occasionally so I do not want to completely winterise her. so what should I be doing.?

Last year I got away without any nasty problems but who knows what our winter will be like this time.

 

rgds

JK

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There is no problem running the engine with the calorifier emptied of domestic water, but it does mean that your raditors will not heat up on the engine if you have a twin coil calorifier (which most boats do have) Don't forget to check that the water in the central heating is either drained down or has Anti freeze in it. Draining down the Water tank and running the taps until there is no more water coming out will not empty the calorifier, for this you will need to open the drain plug and drain down the tank, you may also have to remove a vent plug in the top of the calorifier to release the back pressure. I find it quicker to siphon most of the water out with a tube pushed down into the calorifier via the vent plug hole, rather than draining through the tiny tap on the bottom of the clorifier.

 

As far as the Toilet system is concerned, I assume you are using a Thetford type with it's own integral flush tank. I would either leave this empty and use a bucket for flushing, or add some cheap anti freeze to the flushing water. I also put some anti freeze into the waste tank which doesn't seem to do any damage and eliminates the need to empty it every time I leave the boat

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what about the main water tank? Mine will be below the forward cockpit deck (Liverpool Boats shell) so it will be in contact with the shell bottom and the canal water, but also with the colder ambient temperature at the sides and above. Should it be left empty or nearly empty?

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I agree that for most winters in the south, winterization is probobly a bit "belt and braces" however I have experienced winters where the pipes would definitely have frozen if they were still full of water. If you can get to the boat quickly if a realy bad freeze up is forecast, then it may be ok to not winterize, but if the boat is a hundred miles north (as mine is)and you can't get to it for a week then my advice is winterize - it is certainly a lot less work than replacing underfloor pipes.

 

As far as the tank is concerned. if it is a steel integral tank, just drain down until it is les than two thirds full. This will leave enough room for expansion should the water freeze up. The steel hull will withstand any pressure from freezing water.

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I would go with David on this one - a sharp frost can freeze up anything overnight, particularly if the interior temperature of the boat is similar to that outside, which it will be if you haven't visited for a couple of days.

Winterise anything that doesn't contain antifreeze - and check the concentration of anything that does!

 

As far as the calorifier goes - it is fine to run the engine with it empty of fresh water but do drain it of that fresh water over the winter.

Turning on the taps will not do this either - you will need to find the drain tap on the fresh water feed to it since hot water comes out of the top.

You will doubtless have a non return valve to stop the calorifier emptying through the cold water taps if the main tank runs out.

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In the 20 years that we have been boating, all that we have ever done over the winter is open all the taps, lower the shower head to floor level, drained the loo, drained the water tank down to half and turned the water off at the stop cock under the foredeck. If you have a gas water heater then open the drain valve and drain. We have never had any problems by using this method. We visit and use the boat frequently to check that all is OK.

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It's always difficult to know what to drain. The Paloma is an obvious candidate and draining that is about all I do. I have had a bit of damage over the years, a plastic water flilter housing burst in that very cold christmas period 7 or 8 years ago and I found that one of the halves on my Sureflow pump had ruptured at some time, but that was repairable.

 

Thats about it in 25 years but then I keep things simple, if you haven't got one it can't freeze.

 

If you leave your boat for one or several weeks at a time, insulation is virtually useless.

 

Steel or plasic tanks shouldn't suffer especially if they are low down in the boat, the canal water below a few inches will have a warming effect, another reason for having your pump-out tank sitting on the baseplate.

 

John Squeers

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I have had a plastic fitting split in the frost, and that was after I thought I had drained all the system.

 

I now get the water tank down to about one third full or less, turn off the stop cock, then use an old pump to suck the water out of the rest of the system, or reverse the fittings on the water pump. This empties the calorifier and seems to be effective at getting the pipes empty. As others have indicated, after about a week , no amount of insulation will protect you from a persistent frost.

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What sort of grreenhouse heater do you mean Timbo? If it's one of those paraffin fuelled things you can keep it. Leaving a naked flame in an unattended boat is just asking for trouble. If it's an electric one, it would probably run your batteries down in double quick time. If you have a shore mains hook-up you could probably find a small electric heater that would be safe to use but whether it would be enough to heat the whole boat must be questionable - unless somebody knows otherwise.

 

I go with draining the tank down to about 1/2 full, turning off the stop cock, running the pump to clear the pipes and leaving the taps and shower open (having turned the pump off). We can get too paranoid about these things - they are part of life's rich pageant!

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Would you believe it! The day after we have the boat craned in at Napton it has about four inches of snow dumped on it! The marina phone has been ringing all day with requests for winterisation (correct spelling?) of the callers prized processions!!

 

On the boat I fitted all the hot and cold pipes so they sloped down to two stop cocks which then drained into the shower pumpout. The "plan" is to turn off the pump, open all the taps, and with the two stop cocks open wait for all the contents to be pumped out. Some weak antifreeze in the shower trays "should" finish the job.

 

However, in the States they do a gallon of what is called RV (recreational vehicle)water tank antifreeze for about $2. The last item added to the water system is an soft plastic pipe which can, by a couple of valves, be selected as the supply to the pump rather than the water tank. This plastic pipe could then be put into the RV antifreeze gallon container and the contents then pumped around the system.

 

My problem is where in the UK can this RV anitfreeze be obtained, and at what cost?

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