Winterizing the Plumbing Systems
In this video, I describe how I prep our boat’s plumbing systems for winter storage on the BC coast. This region of Canada is known for reasonably mild winters by Canadian standards, but it still gets below freezing, sometimes to as low as -10 Celsius or more (14F). First, I drain the dual 60-gallon freshwater holding tanks and the water heater. After draining the water heater, I bypass it by connecting the cold input and hot output hoses.
Next, I add about 6-8 gallons of non-toxic pink RV antifreeze to my fresh water tanks and open each faucet until it turns pink. There are sink/shower faucets in the forward and aft heads, deck washdown, plus a galley faucet in the main cabin.
Then, I drew more pink antifreeze from the faucets, added it to the forward-head electric toilet, and ran it through its built-in macerator pump and into the waste holding tank, which was emptied before we docked. I collect any extra antifreeze for use when winterizing the engine’s raw seawater cooling system.
To finish, I removed the aft-head manual toilet pump and the overboard waste discharge macerator pump, bagged them, and stored them in our heated storage room. I plan to clean and rebuild them for next season.
Prepping Boat Engine & other Systems for Winter Storage
This video details my steps to winterize our 1976 CHB trawler Ford Lehman diesel engine and various other equipment onboard.
A Look at the Boat’s Winter Storage Cover
For anyone curious, this is what it looks like inside our boat’s winter cover and how it’s set up for months of dry-land storage. The cover is from https://www.boatcovers.ca located on Vancouver Island, and came with the boat when we purchased it last year. It worked very well last winter.
Link to more LYRV&B boating videos
Raw Sea Water Pump Upgrade Video
