Winterizing with the Furrion Tankless Water Heater

[pnoetzel]

Update: I attached the jug of antifreeze to the City Water inlet, set the controls to "winterize", loosened the brass plug on the water heater, turned on the pump, let it prime and build pressure, then hooked up the outside shower hose, and turn on the hot side, then open the brass heater drains, and see if I can get pink stuff out.... nope, it did not... so I turned the red handle to 45 degrees and clear water followed by pink came out of the brass plug hole... so I immediately turned off the pump, and set the red handle back to the left... sooo, I feel like I have now winterized the tankless heater.

Thoughts or concerns anyone has on what I did above? Sure wish Grand Design would update their winterizing procedure for the RV with a tankless water heater, as well as publish a video of the process. They also need to include info about the washing machine plumbing. Just say'in....

I’ll let you know how the sanitize goes.
My next project is a water softener, they say the furion tankless is subject to early failure if you run hard , calcium enriched water thru it.
Where we stay is is pretty hard on fixtures.
Cheers

[Venturer]

I just found this post and glad I did. We have a trip upcoming this week which will be probably our last for a while. I have always jist pulled the plug on my water heater as I was leaving the campground and let it drain on the trip back home then just blow out all the lines for winter then pink stuff in p traps was always good to go. I had looked for the plugs before and didn't find them so this will help me look again. Ohh and on another note I absolutely hate the "on demand" water heater because it takes more water to get heated up than the old style did.

[pnoetzel]

I just found this post and glad I did. We have a trip upcoming this week which will be probably our last for a while. I have always jist pulled the plug on my water heater as I was leaving the campground and let it drain on the trip back home then just blow out all the lines for winter then pink stuff in p traps was always good to go. I had looked for the plugs before and didn't find them so this will help me look again. Ohh and on another note I absolutely hate the "on demand" water heater because it takes more water to get heated up than the old style did.

We are not a big fan of this type of heater either. We don’t do a lot of dry camping, but I see it will be a challenge to not over fill gray tanks.
Hopefully GD left the old wires in the harness to hook up an Atwood water heater if and when these units fail.
We are about to leave for 6 months, we will give it a go!!
Cheers

[upstateredneck]

When the Nautilus is in the bypass setting I would think it bypasses the water heater. Once the heater is drained I think you are fine. No pink stuff needed. The bypass in the older units with 6 gallon tanks saved you from having to use so much pink stuff. I just drained the tank with air and left it open as well on our older unit.

Dutchman2

Hi all, I had a confused moment when I couldn't get antifreeze to come out the brass drain. I figured it out.
You need to leave the red lever in the nautallis panel in the "city" position, don't put it in the winterize position, this allows antifreeze to flow through the heater. I ran through to a faucet, then pulled the brass plug and ran out until antifreeze came out, stopped and reinserted plug.
If you don't follow this about 1/2 gallon water will stay in heater.

Hope this helps.

[Dutchman2]

Hi all, I had a confused moment when I couldn't get antifreeze to come out the brass drain. I figured it out.
You need to leave the red lever in the nautallis panel in the "city" position, don't put it in the winterize position, this allows antifreeze to flow through the heater. I ran through to a faucet, then pulled the brass plug and ran out until antifreeze came out, stopped and reinserted plug.
If you don't follow this about 1/2 gallon water will stay in heater.

Hope this helps.

I left mine In then city position and blew the tankless heater out with air after blowing out the faucets and shower. Then left brass and plastic plugs removed. Should be fine. Not sure I saw 1/2 gallon come out of the heater tubing but definitely cleared it out with air pressure.

Dutchman2

[Cowboychincs]

Hi Folks... I still do not understand why Grand Design has NOT offered detailed instructions on how to winterize the tankless water heater....
I did some snooping today and found this link to Furrion and how to winterize the tankless water heater. It is somewhat helpful... but understanding what to do and when to do it with the Nautilus system would be of great help to those of us with the on-demand water heaters. Anyway, here is the link..

https://cdn.accentuate.io/4486627065...9835638826.pdf

[Cowboychincs]

OK... So I communicated with Emily Rose of GD and she sent me the following video... somewhat helpful... wished I had seen this before I winterized Friday... as I missed some things....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90Q3W1sHQqc

[DandS-303]

The latest owners manual, for the Reflection at least, has both water heater procedures for winterizing. Go to, granddesignrv.com, owners support, publications, owners manual. The latest revision, 5-2022, available for down load. I printed the tankless section for my manual.
Hope this helps
Dennis

[Cowboychincs]

The latest owners manual, for the Reflection at least, has both water heater procedures for winterizing. Go to, granddesignrv.com, owners support, publications, owners manual. The latest revision, 5-2022, available for down load. I printed the tankless section for my manual.
Hope this helps
Dennis

That is very helpful... it sure would have been great if GD had sent that info to all of us.... wished I had had it a week ago... LOL....

[Dfsjcs]

Hi all,
I recommend to watch the youtube video below regarding a damaged tankless water heater due to frozen water that was not removed during winterizing by the book.

Details: We have a 2022 Reflection 337RLS with a tankless water heater. We live in Michigan, so I winterized the camper in late October. I winterized by the book - including letting antifreeze flow through the tankless water heater filter and drain ports.

On Sunday I read a different thread in this forum regarding tankless water heaters freezing and rupturing. The forum thread said that there is a design flaw in the tankless water heaters that makes it very difficult to get the water out of the mixing bowl, and antifreeze into the mixing bowl. FYI - the mixing bowl has something to do with maintaining a constant water temperature - I think. The mixing bowlnis located on the back side of the water heater. You have to access this through the passthrough.

On Monday I checked the mixing bowl on my unit. This meant pulling everything out of the passthrough, taking down the wall/cover for the utility area, removing a couple furnace runs, removing the water pump, crawling on my side to get access to the mixing bowl - it's a big effort. However, I'm glad I did this because my mixing bowl was frozen solid. My guess is if I left it this way for the winter, then the mixing bowl would have split open.

I took the mixing bowl home and melted the ice block inside of it. My next step is not clear yet. But the suggestion in the youtube below is to add a drain port in the mixing bowl so that the water can be drained out when winterizing.

Again - I strongly recommend to review this youtube video. Also, check some of the other threads in this forum related to frozen tankless water heaters:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ivf...annel=Paradise

Sorry to bring such bad news, but I hope that this information helps to prevent more costly, aggravating failures.

Good luck.