jontaylor
15.05.2021 1:24:22
There’s an image above that shows a connector available commercially to attach an air line to a water system. But, that one is designed to connect to the female thread on a sprinkler system. more
See full version: Blowing out water pipes with an air compressor to winterize your home
There’s an image above that shows a connector available commercially to attach an air line to a water system. But, that one is designed to connect to the female thread on a sprinkler system. more
Yes, it’s getting to be the time of the year in the Northern Hemisphere where we have to be concerned about water freezing in pipes that are exposed to the frigid wintertime conditions. here
If there’s convoluted piping, add higher pressure and get the flow of compressed air going into the pipe as fast as you can to build the volume of air inside the pipe quickly, to drive the water out before it. That may require a 1.5 – 3 HP powered compressor with a larger tank.
This page was created after the submission of a question from a site visitor about blowing out water pipes. I felt that the string of responses would be of interest to anyone considering clearing water out of their water pipes before winter freeze-up.
As noted below, the easiest way to connect air to a house system is at the hot and cold water connections for the washer and dryer. To do that, you will need what’s shown in the image right below.
Plus, you’ll need to know exactly where to plug the compressor in and you’ll need to consider where the water left in your RV’s water pipes will drain when you start the compressor.
If you follow the steps we’ve outlined, we’re confident that you’ll be able to blow out your RV’s water pipes with minimal effort.
If you have an inline water filter or another type of RV water filtration system hooked up, you should also disconnect it before continuing.
I know there are purists out there that don’t run the A/C and certainly if I were anchored off a beach with a nice breeze, I wouldn’t be either, however we are not right now, we are living aboard at a dock and it is summer in Louisiana. That means we want air conditioning and we want it cold and we want it always 🙂
I hope you find this helpful for any work that you need to do as well on your system. Again this is a pretty easy job and the hardest part is the first time installing the tee to the line. I found that having the tee allows me to bleed air out of the system, test flow, it is kind of cheap alternative to a bilge pump in an emergency situation in that I could connect a line from that tee to the bilge and shut off the inbound sea-cock to increase pump capacity. There are tons of reasons why the tee with valve is handy to have.
About every 2 years we flush out the lines of the air conditioners. To do this, we mix up about a 20-25% solution of muriatic acid to water and put it in a milk type jug or jar to make it easy to pour. I have heard of others that use vinegar to do this but we almost always have the muriatic acid on hand for the treatments we do for the electrodes in our waste treatment system, so it is easy enough for us to use this.
I hope you find this helpful for any work that you need to do as well on your system. Again this is a pretty easy job and the hardest part is the first time installing the tee to the line. I found that having the tee allows me to bleed air out of the system, test flow, it is kind of cheap alternative to a bilge pump in an emergency situation in that I could connect a line from that tee to the bilge and shut off the inbound sea-cock to increase pump capacity. There are tons of reasons why the tee with valve is handy to have.
About every 2 years we flush out the lines of the air conditioners. To do this, we mix up about a 20-25% solution of muriatic acid to water and put it in a milk type jug or jar to make it easy to pour. I have heard of others that use vinegar to do this but we almost always have the muriatic acid on hand for the treatments we do for the electrodes in our waste treatment system, so it is easy enough for us to use this.
After pouring the mixture in and letting it sit, it is then time to neutralize any acid in the line. This can be done with about a 1/4 cup of baking soda mixed in water. I just pour a gallon of this through the lines as well and this neutralizes any of the acid in there.
The last step is to blow the lines clean again with the discharge side of the vacuum and look at what comes out, you will be pretty amazed. [links]
I know there are purists out there that don’t run the A/C and certainly if I were anchored off a beach with a nice breeze, I wouldn’t be either, however we are not right now, we are living aboard at a dock and it is summer in Louisiana. That means we want air conditioning and we want it cold and we want it always 🙂
In short, we use vise grips and clamp the water line between the entry point and the pump and connect the discharge side of the vacuum to it and blow out until we hear air coming out the seacock on the bottom of the boat (the water intake side). We close the seacock, then remove the vise grips which blows all the water out of the line from that point to the discharge side. more
Then we tie the funnel up higher than the highest point in the system and slowly pour the acid solution into the lines and let gravity carry it through all the coils. We do this until we see it come out the discharge side of the boat We now know on this boat it is about 3/4’s of a gallon of fluid so that makes it easier on future clean-outs for this boat. here