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quoteDraining down your motorhome is an important step when preparing your vehicle for winter. To remain fully covered, Caravan Guard motorhome insurance customers need to drain down water and sanitary systems when they’re not using their motorhome between November 1st and March 15th.
Draining down means removing as much liquid as possible from the various water tanks and pipes on board. It’s an important step to take when the motorhome is not in use during those colder winter months, as freezing water or even frost damage can cause a surprising amount of damage to your motorhome’s pipes, fixtures, fittings and taps, leading to an expensive repair bill.
If you’re not using your motorhome over winter, it’s best practice to drain down at the end of your last holiday before winter sets in. If you’re using your motorhome in the winter months, you’ll need to drain down after every trip.
In this video we go through the steps to take to drain down a motorhome for winter:
To drain down your motorhome, first empty your grey waste as usual over a motorhome service point.
We then want to empty the fresh water and hot water tanks too.
So switch off the water pump, then locate and open the yellow drain down tap. This is usually positioned near the water heater. On some motorhomes this might be a blue tap. This will empty the hot water tank.
Close to your on-board water tank, you’ll find a yellow drain down tap. Turn this tap to the open or drain down position to allow the fresh water tank to drain too.
On some models this might be on the outside of your motorhome, so again turn this to the open position.
Depending on how much water you have on board depends on how long this can take. To help the water drain out of your motorhome, open all the taps inside your motorhome. In the case of mixer taps, open them halfway.
In the shower, remove the shower head and leave the pipe in the bottom of the shower cubicle to allow air to enter and water to leave.
Again, leave the shower tap up and halfway between hot and cold.
On some motorhomes, there are separate toilet flush tanks too. This should also be emptied, to again remove as much liquid as possible.
Get a bowl or a bucket and remove the plug on the end of the drain down pipe, which is usually found in the toilet cassette locker. This will drain down the toilet’s water tank.
A top tip is to run the flush pump to remove any last liquid out of the pump. Flush the loo until no more water comes out and make sure to empty your toilet cassette and leave the blade in the open position.
You don’t need to add any anti-freeze to the on-board tanks. And if you have Alde wet heating, you don’t need to drain the glycol out of the system.
Once all liquid has been removed from the fresh, grey, hot and flush tanks, you could take the motorhome for a drive, leaving all the drain down taps open. This will shake the last few drops of water out of the pipes and their connections.
A great gadget to remove nearly all the water from the system is the drain down kit from Floe. This blows air into the motorhome water tanks and allows you to remove even more liquid out of the pipes.
Finally, you could put plugs in sinks and the shower cubicle to prevent any nasty smells or little creatures coming through the plug hole.
Remember, draining down is just one of several winter checks you’ll need to make on your vehicle. See our video on getting your motorhome ready for winter storage for more information on other winter checks.
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