Camco 35953 RV Water Heater Bypass Kit, 6-Gallon

Winterizing your RV means pushing antifreeze through the whole fresh-water system, and your water heater is the one component that drinks the most of it. A 6-gallon tank will happily swallow three or four gallons of pink stuff every single fall if you let it. The Camco 35953 permanent bypass kit fixes that. You install it once, and from then on a quick turn of a valve routes antifreeze around the heater instead of filling it, so you keep that antifreeze where it actually protects your plumbing.

Here's the idea. The kit adds a three-way valve and a short 8-inch hose that ties your cold-water inlet to your hot-water outlet at the back of the heater. In normal use, the valve sends cold water into the tank like always. When it's time to winterize, you flip the valve and water or antifreeze skips the heater entirely and loops straight through that little bypass hose. Your pump never has to fill six gallons of tank with antifreeze again.

This is the permanent version, which means it's built to stay plumbed in season after season. You do the install work one time. After that, winterizing the heater is a five-second job. There's no crawling behind the panel to swap fittings every October, no juggling loose parts in a cold storage yard. Turn the handle, and you're done. The valve handle gives you a clear read on which way flow is going, so you're never guessing whether the heater is open or bypassed. It's the kind of small upgrade that quietly makes every fall easier.

In the box you get the three-way valve, the 8-inch bypass hose, and the fittings you need to tie it in. The valve body and fittings are brass, so they stand up to repeated seasons of turning and to the everyday pressure of a fresh-water system. The threads are tapered for a snug, reliable seal once you wrap them with thread sealant. Packaging is bilingual, English and French, if that matters for your shop or your records.

This kit is sized for 6-gallon water heater tanks, which is the most common size you'll find in travel trailers, fifth wheels, and plenty of motorhomes. If you've got a 6-gallon gas, electric, or gas-electric heater, this bypass works the same way no matter how the tank is heated, because all it's really doing is redirecting the water line. And it's a fresh-water plumbing part at heart, so it's just as at home on a boat with a 6-gallon water heater that gets laid up for the off-season.

Installation is straightforward for anyone comfortable with basic plumbing. You'll want to drain and depressurize the system first, wrap the male threads with sealant tape, and hand-tighten the fittings before snugging them with a wrench. Don't overtighten brass, it really doesn't need much. Give the valve a couple of full turns each way to confirm the handle moves freely and seats where you expect. Once it's in, test it by running the pump with the valve in the normal position and checking for leaks before you trust it out in the cold.

So is a bypass kit worth it? If you winterize every year, yes, easily. Antifreeze isn't free, and a 6-gallon tank full of it is money you're draining onto the ground come spring. Skip filling the heater and you cut your antifreeze use for that step down to almost nothing. Over a few seasons the kit pays for itself, and you save the hassle of flushing all that extra pink out of the tank when you de-winterize in the spring. That's really the whole point. Install it once, and save antifreeze every winter after.