How do boat owners that have air/ heat units, sinks,fresh water systems, heads with showers, transom showers etc winterize their boats and store them for the cold winter months without fear of freezing?
What products do you use?

Thanks in advance,

mike

It is a matter of removing all the water in these systems and replacing it with pink anti-freeze. Depending on your systems, you will either drain, blow out, suck out, or displace the water (using pink). Once all the water is removed you introduce the pink into the systems by suction, the system's own pumps via strainers, etc., or by force through an external pump. There may be more than one way to tackle each of your systems so you have to find the way that works best for you. Some also like to drain all the pink out instead of leaving it sit all winter.

Thanks Knot.

Sounds like a long and tedious journey is in order!
Getting ready to store the boat and looking for guidance.
Much appreciated.
Mike

What we do is drain the holding tank, then fill with antifreeze, then run the sinks, showers, toilets, till all the water is gone. the ac units, I leave to the marina.

Is there a prefered antifreeze for the fresh water system that won't leave a foul smell after it's been flushed a couple of times in the spring?

I get no smell from the pink in my freshwater system after flushing it out in the spring. The AC unit will be the toughest to tackle. We've done it a couple of different ways on different boats. On one boat we rigged up a new, Jabsco oil change pump with a fitting that would seal up against the water intake in the hull and forced pink up through the intake while running the system. On another we took the lid off the strainer and dumped pink in while on the discharge thru-hull fitting we stuck a wet/dry vac hose up against it and sucked the pink through the system. Sinks and showers are easy enough as you just drain the freshwater tank and then fill with pink and run the systems until they flow a nice, solid pink color. Remember to also drain or suck out any grey or black water holding tanks or shower traps.

Everything they said. Dump in the pink stuff and flush out the water. AC isn't hardware to do either.

Thanks for the help guys.
I have not had a boat with ac before and thought it was a challenge, thanks for the ideas.
Drain, drain, drain and lots of antifreze I guess.

in the spring I generally run a bit of bleach through the freshwater system diluted with water to get the antifreeze smell out. There is also this powder that I pour into the freshwater tank by Captain Phab, and it is supposed to clean freshwater tanks. We have a 200 gallon tank so it usually takes an entire day of filling and draining to get all the pink and smell out.

the pink rv antifreeze is suppost to be biodegradable, so it shouldn't harm if you drink it in the spring...now, having said that make sure you still flush the system with plenty of fresh water..