It’s that time of year again: time to dump lots of brightly colored liquid into all of your RV drains. You Need Antifreeze! What do you need to know about it?

RV and Marine antifreeze, conveniently packaged in the same bottle, surprisingly doesn’t protect against freezing, which isn’t necessarily harmful. It’s designed to prevent bursting, the plumbing damage that comes from ice freezing, expanding, and then rupturing. A rupture can result in gallons of pipe water flooding into the RV, causing a headache of damages. 

“RV antifreeze rated for -50 F and -75 F will start to freeze at around 20 F, but it won’t freeze to the burst point until -50 F or -75 F respectively.

In parts of the country where temperatures go into minus digits and stay there you should use the -100 F antifreeze for added protection. This type freezes at about -20 F, but provides burst protection to -100 F.” Said girlcamper.com. 

The most important part of using antifreeze is draining as much water or waste liquid from the pipes as possible. Antifreeze mixed with diluted water from an undrained pipe will burst far sooner than the temperature estimates on the bottle that assume there’s little to no water in the pipe. 

After winter is over, you can fill your pipes without water once again without worrying about draining the antifreeze, which is typically nontoxic. Of all the preparation your RV needs for winter, put antifreeze–and saving your pipes–at the top of the list. 

For more tips about winterizing your RV, check out our Winterization Tips with Pete’s RV Guru Randy Murray.