I have a hose to splice in a 5 gallon bucket of antifreeze into my washer but after running the fluid through some dirt came out on top. Is this normal?
I put the machine on low rpm with the water tank on to get water through. Then I put my hose into a 4 gallon bucket of RV antifreeze and switch the valve on for the antifreeze hose. It stopped flow from the water tank but did not immediately start sucking antifreeze out of the bucket so I switched the water back on until I could figure it out.
I turned the antifreeze valve back on and the water valve off and tried again and still no suction. I put the water back on and tried fiddling with the antifreeze valve until finally at about half a turn it started to flow. After the antifreeze went through I waited until it started coming out of the hose to refill yhe bucket. I turned the water back on after the antifreeze started coming out so as to not run the pump dry by accident.
All the antifreeze came back into the buck and when i saw clear water come out I turned it off.
I saw this black crud on top of the antifreeze. Did I damage the pump or is this normal?
I know I’ll have to do this again because I just realized I just dewinterized it by running water through it again. I was just paranoid about damaging the pump so I ran water though it and filled the antifreeze bucket back up.
Eh, it just looks like scale sediment to me. Probably from the coil or the reel.
I may have already told you this but when you get done using the heater you need to shut the heater off and let the machine continue to run water through the system until the water runs cool (ambient temperature) before you actually shut the machine down. If you just flip off the burner and shut the machine down you’re going to get a lot of calcium and hard water buildup inside the coil and it’ll require flushing with muriatic acid or other “coil cleaner” that pressure washing vendors probably sell. Let the water run cool for at least five minutes before shutting down. I would usually just throw the end of the pressure hose in the buffer tank and let it circulate through there while I gathered stuff up.
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Thank you! I was worried I damaged my pump because it ran dry while waiting for the antifreeze to be drawn in. Do you know any reason why the antifreeze wouldn’t pull into the pump initially? I’m thinking of getting a 30 gallon tank plumbed in for the winter instead of the 5 gallon bucket. Just for peace of mind that the entire system is full of antifreeze and I’m not running the pump dry once it’s pulled through.
And yes I do let cold water flow through the coil before shutting down every time. I’m try to be very careful and protect my machines.
A few seconds of dry running isn’t gonna hurt anything at all. You said you had machine on low idle so that’s a good start. I’m not trying to put down whoever built the trailer but I’d probably start by double checking their work. Does the ball valve they used actually open all the way? If so, good. I will typically start my machine with the buffer tank valve open and let it prime the pump with water then quickly shut off the buffer tank valve and open the antifreeze valve. Gotta be kinda quick. Then you’ll probably fight an air bubble for a few seconds until the pump can push it through and then it should pull antifreeze just fine. Also, those loops you have in your antifreeze hose are basically just begging for air pockets to form at the top of each loop. You want a straight run from the antifreeze tank to the inlet on the pump. We always used regular Fimco style tanks with the bottom port plumbed to the three way valve at buffer tank so the only air that could be in the system would be right at the three way and would usually get pushed through the second the antifreeze valve was opened and the machine started pulling.
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Note the air pockets highlighted in green.
