LG Heater Water Capacity

I am going to winterize the TNT this week for the winter duration. I use RV antifreeze at night already, but I know the mix is being pretty diluted by the amount of water in the LG heater. I currently vacuum all the water from the water box, fill with 4 gallons of RV antifreeze and then run the unit until I get a nice dark red from the control panel outlet. The problem is that there must be more than 4 gallons of water in the heater, pump, and lines before I introduce the antifreeze.

I have given up on trying to blow air through the heater as it never gets all the water out and is a pita. If I knew how many gallons of water already existed in the system, I would just push a greater amount of antifreeze through the system and be done knowing that the strength would be good.

My brother laughs at how paranoid I am about freezing the unit. He winterizes over 200 boats per year and has been doing that for more than 35 years using just the cheapest brand of RV antifreeze that he can find. Just runs the motors until the water coming out is pink and shuts them down...done. He has never had a single case of freeze damage and those boats sit outside all winter long.

I use -75 RV antifreeze and worry every night about freeze damage after having the busted coil in the LG last year. That wasn't from me freezing the unit though as I kept it inside the house all winter, that was from the previous owner's mistakes. Still, it is on my mind even now with the outside temp at 38 degrees and I didn't winterize tonight.

On the Butler, I just run the pump dry before drawing RV antifreeze through the system, but is uses a rather small HX unit that doesn't hold much water. I don't think I could do the same thing with TNT without damaging the pump due to the amount of water in the heater.

I guess I could blow out what water that I can and then just push about 6 gallons of RV antifreeze through the system to make sure that the concentration is good. Might go that route I guess.

Won't you see the antifreeze come out of the wand? If you turn off machine when you see the antifreeze. I'm probably missing something, I don't winterize

I will see the antifreeze coming out of the system, but that dye turns all water into pink so you never really know how much mixing there really is and anything less than full strength lowers the effectiveness of the antifreeze.

My product is burst rated for -75, but lower the concentration and it might only be at Zero. Just no way to really tell. When I flush out the system, that dye can color the water for a full 10 minutes at times.

Be thankful you live where you do Mo on this holiday.

Our overnight low was 24 degrees the night before and I forgot to garage the van oops. Glad I have that stainless coil but I need to be more careful.

I remember last winter going to a job and there was ice in the water

Stainless steel coil? I thought they were all copper coils?

I think this will be my experiment for the week.

I just went out and winterized since temps will be in the low teens and barely above freezing tomorrow. I have the heater connected with qd's so I can easily inject air to blow out the water right through to my control panel.

I placed an open ended hose in a gallon jug to see how much water blows out, but the jug fell over. It sure didn't look like much more than a gallon on the driveway though. Just 200 psi blew it out in seconds. I am going to fill the old coil that I have in the garage and measure the volume this week.

I pushed the RV anitfreeze through the system and the pink dye was coming out in just about 1/2 - 1 gallon from the float tank. I kept running it until 3.5 gallons had passed through the system, but the end product is still lighter in color than the antifreeze was new and I sucked the water out of the water box before I started, so that mixing has to be at the LG coil.

Oh, well, it will protect it for now, but I still want better before the sub-zero temps hit this winter. I also disconnected the psi gauge so that it doesn't freeze although it never did last winter when I left it connected, so that threat might be overrated.

I should have the answer on how much water is in the coil after shut down on Wed. so get your guesses in early.

milspec6 wrote:Stainless steel coil? I thought they were all copper coils?  

I have that dynamite colored HX

Oh that's right, I forgot that you went with the HX. How is that working out by the way?

It works ok in the summer but doesn't get too hot on the winter. I jaczked up the lg a while back and didn't feel going or replacing the coil

That's the story with HX units right there. With the butler, as long as I leave the van doors closed up when running in the winter, I can still hold good heat. Nothing like the propane heater though, that thing is a beast.

Put a open ended hose from the sol outlet of the unit back to the water Bx. Start the unit and let it run 5 min should be enough. Then use a antifreeze tester from Walmart, autozone cost 5 or 6 dollars and works for all antifreeze

I didn't realize one of those testers would work on the RV antifreeze. Will check that out tomorrow.

Running in the loop back through the water box would just move the diluted antifreeze back through the system. My goal is to leave the heater, pump, and lines full of as pure of RV antifreeze as possible to have the best protection.

I will measure the coil volume in the morning. I am very curious at this point to see what the ID of that coil really is anyway.

Use dex cool it is safe for the environment and cheaper in the long run.

Now that is not a bad idea ACE, hadn't thought about the dex cool, but then it doesn't play well with gaskets if oxygen is present so I don't know what it would do to the hoses and pump seals.

It would mix with water better though than any RV anitfreeze, so might be worth looking at.

Okay, to get my OCD paranoia out of the way on this, I ran some tests using my old coil from a #4 heater.

The actual volume of the coil was far less than I expected. Despite the large OD of the coil, it only held 92 ounces of water.

The bad part is that when you remove the drain plug, it let 74 ounces of water out, so there was still approx. 18 oz of water left in the coil.

So, clearly, draining the heater is not sufficient to protect against freeze damage alone.

I refilled the coil and tried to see how much will evacuate under air pressure. Unfortunately, the outlet was left unplugged and there wasn't enough restriction so the air just pushed right past the water and blew out very little. That part of the test failed to provide details, but since I now know that the water content is about 92 ounces I will only need to move that much plus what is left in the psi line and pump head...less than 1.5 gallons total likely.

With that information, I can just run 2 gallons or 3 to be safe without blowing air through the heater or just 1-2 if using compressed air to end up with a full concentrated antifreeze.

That was very reassuring and now I can save a few bucks as well by not needing to use so much antifreeze. The jury is still out regarding the need to remove the psi gauge. I do take the butler TM's gauge inside as it is on a QD, but removing the TNT gauge each time would be annoying.

Maybe I just roll the dice again on that and have a new gauge ready for the Spring just in case?

Start the tnt loosen the line at the Guage, and let the antifreeze fill the line up to the Guage.

Thanks ACE, I will give that a try. I am amazed that I didn't have any gauge damage last winter where I left it fully installed and we were well below zero for weeks.

I will use your method just the same though, no sense in tempting fate.