A Few Jobs & A Prime Rib Dinner

Sunday was another beautiful, sunny day here in Cowichan Bay with temperatures in the high 60’s.  I figured it was way too nice to spend the day inside watching football, so I decided to do a bit more painting as well as a few maintenance jobs on our fifth-wheel.

While I was in the garage yesterday looking for a paint brush, I noticed I still had 4 gallons of RV antifreeze I had picked up a few years ago.  I never winterized our 5’er last year as it never got that cold before we left for Palm Springs in early January.  Although I doubt it will get cold enough here to freeze up and do any damage before this January, I thought I may as well use the stuff I have just in case – better safe than sorry.

Hot water tank bypass valves in basement

I find winterizing is one of those fun and easy jobs to do.  There’s no need to crawl under the 5’er, go up on the roof or get your hands all covered with grease and oil.  The first thing I did was to set the valves to bypass our hot water tank so it wouldn’t fill up with pink antifreeze.  When we first got our 5’er, I took a picture of the 3 valves in the non-bypass position so I would always know the correct settings for that. 

Pulling the plug and draining the hot water tankNext, I used a small wrench to unscrew the hard plastic plug for the hot water tank.  The plug on the Atwood Hot Water heaters is in a kind of awkward position, I find.  There is a small piece of sheet metal right beside the plug that seems designed only for the purpose of scraping knuckles – and it works just as designed!

Attaching a siphon hose to the water pump and jug of antifreeze

With the hot water tank emptied and bypassed, I attached one end of a siphon hose to the water pump intake and put the other end in the gallon jug of antifreeze.  After that, it was just a matter of turning on the water pump, each tap and shower head and running them until until pink antifreeze flowed freely.  I poured a little bit of the pink stuff into the sinks and bathtub to sit in the traps as well.

With that job done, I put another coat of paint on one of the garage doors, that leaves just one more and then I’m finished painting – yahoo!!

Last night, we went out to dinner, to the Pioneer House, with Paulette’s brother and his wife.  We were planning on going to their house for Thanksgiving Dinner this Sunday, but both their son, daughter, both spouses and the three grandchildren will all be in Vancouver.  So, quite naturally, Paul and Marleen are going there to spend Thanksgiving with them.

So, we decided to celebrate Thanksgiving a week early by having great Prime Rib dinners at the Pioneer House here in Cowichan Bay.  As usual, it was terrific and even though the desserts looked incredibly tempting, we were too stuffed to even think about that. 

All in all, it was a perfect way to end another great weekend!