RV antifreeze vs Regular glycol antifreeze, what’s the difference?
by admin on Sunday, February 6th, 2011 | 2 Comments
I am wondering what the difference is between RV antifreeze and regular glycol antifreeze. I have a outdoor woodboiler which is corrosion proofed with a boiler additive, but I need to use an antifreeze incase of the fire going out, power outage, etc. The boiler heats up to 180 deg and is an open system so there is no pressure to deal with.
On Peak’s website they say the RV antifreeze can be used to protect heating systems. So I am wondering if I can use it to provide freeze protection? The price difference between RV antifreeze $2-3/gal, regular glycol antifreeze $8-10/gal and Cryotec boiler antifreeze $12-14/gal.
Thanks for the help
Mike
We use RV antifreeze to keep our pipes from freezing in our RV>
There are two types of glycol in common use these days. One is ethylene glycol typically used for cooling internal combustion engines and propylene glycol used for freeze protection in hydronic heating systems and rv potable water systems for winter storage. Ethylene glycol is highly toxic and is typically more expensive while propylene glycol is non toxic. Either will work fine for freeze protection but if your system is “open” I would suggest propylene glycol to prevent any accidental poisoning. The only true way to tell how well you’re system is protected from freezing is by use of a refractometer that will tell you the percentage of glycol to water and to what temperature the mixture will protect.