Winterizing Residential Fridge

[Whiskey_River]

I have the Samsung RF18 Fridge with Ice Maker. After checking various google posts & forums on how to winterize it, there appears to be no easy way. Everything from accessing the back of the fridge (its in a slide) remove the water line, removing the actual ice making thingy, make a jumper wire for the water solenoid, and other various scenario's.
I feel like I'm trying to "redesign the guidance system" on a cruise missile.
Has anyone done this? After pumping the pink antifreeze thru the water lines & opening & closing all the various spigot's just leave the pump on with the hose in the gallon of pink antifreeze and turn on the fridge ice maker. I know the antifreeze will not freeze in the ice maker. Will this work & will the ice maker dump the pink antifreeze so you know it has pumped through the ice maker? Anyone have any actual advice of what I can expect? Thanks....
Or should I just head for Florida....

[Whiskey_River]

OK, Thanks Reisender & Mgirardo. That is what I was hoping to hear. My Fridge does not have the "water" in the door, just the ice machine.
I can certainly clean up the small mess of pink antifreeze in the ice tray/bucket, just knowing it came thru the ice maker. That is what I was not sure of how or if that would work since I knew it would not freeze. But I understand now that you get pink ice to start with mixing with the existing water in the line first, then pink slush after.
Dewinterizing, throw out the first few pink ice cubes, then add a couple fingers of whiskey to the cubes and enjoy the dewinterizing process...
I'll do it this weekend.
Thanks again...

[Skibane]

ford truck guy wrote:
When my RV was brand new, the first winter I blew air through the fridge line and kept it disconnected after that.

Seems like blowing it out and shutting off the water supply for the season would be entirely adequate.

The water lines are made of semi-flexible plastic, so even if there's a little bit of water left that freezes, it's not likely to cause any harm.

[mgirardo]

Whiskey River wrote:
Has anyone done this? After pumping the pink antifreeze thru the water lines & opening & closing all the various spigot's just leave the pump on with the hose in the gallon of pink antifreeze and turn on the fridge ice maker. I know the antifreeze will not freeze in the ice maker. Will this work & will the ice maker dump the pink antifreeze so you know it has pumped through the ice maker? Anyone have any actual advice of what I can expect? Thanks....
Or should I just head for Florida....

This is exactly how we winterized the fridge in our Bungalow. I usually let the setup sit at least 12 hours, 24 would be better. We'd get pink ice cubes until the water is all gone from the line, then just slush.

When we de-winterized, we threw away the ice cubes for the first few days. Never had a problem.

-Michael

[Reisender]

For ours it was easy but we left the fridge water filter in place. We just did a normal winterize and then used the front water dispenser to run water thru it till it was pink. Then tell the i emaker to come on until pink showed up. A little messy but fairly easy. Takes pretty much a jug of antifreeze by itself though because of the coiled line and the filter. A little more time consuming but meh. Not a big deal.

Hope you get it worked out.

[Campinghoss]

All I do on our res frig is disconnect the water line from the outside access point and run rv antifreeze thru it. Then I do nothing else. I leave the frig on year round. Along with Damp Rid I leave a small ceramic electric heater set on thermostat in case it gets to 32.

You do not want to run rv antifreeze thru the ice maker.

[ford_truck_guy]

When my RV was brand new, the first winter I blew air through the fridge line and kept it disconnected after that.. We buy ice and dump it into the freezer as we do not drink the campground water.