Winterizing water system

[Dan White]

Instead of putting the pink anti-freeze in my lines, I decided last year to use an air compressor to blow out all the lines, one fixture at a time.
Everything went fine, so I am doing it again this year.

One question - what is the easiest way to make sure you get all of the water out of the water tank? Even after I disconnected the suction line from the pump, and drained it there was still a bunch of water left in the tank. It was a pain in the *** to get all that water out. Any good ideas?

[doubledutch]

I bought a little 110 V pump that connects with a garden hose. I am able to hold the intake hose to get everything but the last 1/4 inch or so out. It's handy for getting the water out of the bilges and the flotation compartments as well.
Henry

[thinwater]

A shop vac works great for drying the tank. Every drop.

Blowing the air out of the hot water heater has been hit-or-miss for us, though we have had no troubles on the rest of the boat. The fittings on the bottom have burst twice (PO and me). It's hard to get ALL of the water out of the tubes.

This season we are going back to glycol, but with valves such that no glycol will go in the tank.

Of course, you still need to do something with the head; blowing that out is impractical, I think.

[eepstein]

On the 36, the lowest point should be the water pump. Since we purchased the boat, we disconnect both hoses from the pump and let it drain. Then I vacuum the line, tank and bilge. I use about 3 gallons of anti-freeze in the head, after the holding tank is pretty empty. I vacuum out the show drain as well. Then the boat in on the hard, from underneath, vacuum out the raw water intake to clear that line from the head. So far, so good...

[thinwater]

I guess I should have pointed out that I stay in the water.

For the head, I disconnect the intake hose at a center point and pour glycol both into the intake of the head and out through the through-hull, then close the through hull while the glycol is still in the valve. We flush with very weak glycol in the winter, from a jug.

[Dan White]

Thanks guys for all the responses. Couple of comments:
1: yes - a 110 v pump connected to a garden hose does help. I suspect the shop vac would be even better due to the "wand" type attachments.
2. as for "...On the 36, the lowest point should be the water pump...". On my boat, it may be the lowest point, but there are isolated places in the tank that still have water in them, even after disconnecting the suction line from the pump. This must mean there are irregularities in the bottom.
3. I keep the boat in the water all winter, so the vacuuming the head intake from underneath doesn't help me -- I just pour some anti-freeze in the intake line and hope for the best.

[maxicrom]

Dan,

We stay aboard over winter on our PDQ so we only winterize the motor and cooling system. But, with our old boat which was stored in the water over winter we found that a 1/2 gallon of very cheap vodka in the water tank(s) used to work well and does not leave that taste that the pink stuff does (we had about 30 Gallons of water). We did use the pink anti-freeze liberally for the head and holding tank after pumping out.

Hope this helps,

Mike