Unusable freshwater - once again, sloppy/lazy workmanship

[Steve Sanders]

I saw a TV show about building RVs that showed them friction welding tank fittings. They screwed the fitting onto an adapter on a drill. Press the spinning fitting against the tank to create friction and melt the two pieces of plastic until they start flowing together. Stop the drill and let it cool. Then remove the drill adapter and cut out the tank surface that's now inside the fitting.

You don't cut a hole in the tank until you have successfully installed the fitting.

It would definitely take some nerve to do it the first time.

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[ADR]

Well well- stumbled across this thread after finding an issue with MY water system.    The drain for the fresh water tank is pretty handy- been using it to get small amounts of water when I'm outside near the camper.
Went to get some to dampen a rag and nothing.   Odd.   Went inside gauge says 2/3 full.
Poked a tie rap up through the valve and fitting and it is clear all the way into the tank.
Decided to see if water pump would pump water- it did - 2.5 gallons of it into a bucket.
Gauge now shows 1/3 full with NO water available via drain or pump. 
Next step is to measure how much water I can add to the tank-
I can't actually see my tank because of the plastic underbelly.
stay tuned....

Did the testing- the tank does indeed hold about 25-26 gallons.
BUT- the level monitoring system is near worthless.
No way to remove enough water to get the level gage to show empty.
As stated above it shows 1/3 full with NO water available. 
Add 5 gallons and it shows 2/3 full.
Add another 3 gallons and it shows Full-   so with around 8 gallons in a 25 gallon tank it considers that FULL.
 
I'm used to every one of the 14 or so campers/RV's I've owned being inaccurate but this is the worst I've ever seen.

The pump pickup does appear to be pretty low in the tank as it should be. 
If I ever remove the underbelly skin I'm going to tee in a new drain to get that last 2.5 gallons the factory drain did not remove. 

[Steve Sanders]

Part of the problem is probably the shape of the tank. The shorter and flatter the tank is, the more inaccurate the gauge will be, because it is measuring the vertical drop of the surface level.

The same problem exists with fuel tanks in small airplanes. The tanks are in the wings and only about 4 inches deep, but several feet long. The fuel gages are useless.

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[alazear]

I dewinterized my water system yesterday for the first time since buying this trailer last month.  Filled the water tank and was getting very poor flow to anything. The city water ran fine everywhere.  Eventually, I isolated the flow problem to the pump, and tested it. It was only pumping about a quart a minute where it should be pumping 3 gal/min.  It's a brand new trailer... never even used it yet.  I could tell the white piping, really white flexible hose coming from the tank to the pump, is fully kinked where it enters the trailer through the floorboard, right behind a behind a cabinet and also the inverter.  I can just barely feel the kink with my fingers.  After disconnecting the hose from the pump's inlet side and trying hard to work the problem out from above, I just can't get it.  Now I will need to pull of the whole enclosed underbelly to access the tank and piping from below and suss this out.  I may choose to repipe that portion from tank to inside with PEX rather than white flexible hose for greater rigidity and less kinking, then go to flex hose just before the barb fitting entering the pump.  No choice but to solve this.  I'll report what I find.

[DavidM]

Also check the pump's strainer. Could be plugged up with construction debris.

David

[alazear]

Hi David,
Thanks for tip, much appreciated. I did that hoping it would be that simple. The strainer is clean. I'm sure the hose is kinked, as I can feel it, just barely.  I'm not sure if this enclosed underbelly will be worth the trouble keeping long term for exactly these reasons.

[DavidM]

You are welcome. Here is another thing you can do to confirm that your pump is working ok before you pull the cover off the bottom and deal with the kink:

Buy a length of clear hose from your hardware or big box store, the same size as the one on the pump. Disconnect the hose to the strainer and connect the temporary one. Put the other end in a bucket of water. Turn on the pump and see if you get good flow.

If you get the same low flow then the problem is likely the pump.

David

[alazear]

Hi David and others,

This is what I found on my 2018 LL 21 BHS w/Platinum + Off Road Package.  Hopefully it'll be helpful to others with my model and a recent build.

I took your suggestion and did exactly that test of the water pump.  I was getting 1 qt. a minute rather than 3 gal. a min. spec'd on the pump.  It was super slow and felt like it was sucking, but getting nowhere.  I could also feel a serious kink in the hose as it came through the floor in the hole cut out, but had to stretch my arm seriously to feel it after removing the drawers in the cabinetry to access.

Spent yesterday taking off the rear portion on the underbelly to fix this.  Not fun and not fast, but eventually allowed me to have it partially it hang down working from back forward and barely have enough room to squeeze my body in to look around.  What I found is my model has 3 tanks, each transverse mounted.  They each go all the way from one side to the other between the frame members.  The black + gray tank are identical models and black color.  The black tank has a larger waist port of about 3-4" where the gray's waist port was about 1.5"; expected. The black was positioned the furthest back, pretty close to the rear bumper, just inside the framing.  The gray was spaced about 1.5' further up. The fresh was positioned nearly dead center between the axles.  The fresh being located between the axles gave me good piece of mind for carrying a bit of water in route in the future; good news.  The bad news was that my suspicion of a kinked hose was correct.  It was so kinked and pinned down by other hoses and wires coming through the stock hole, that to remove it - I had to cut it at the tank at the fitting below.  Then literally rip it up through the flooring from above with serious force inside the trailer where I removed the cabinet drawers for access.  It was super stuck and crimped.  I'm not sure how any water at all was getting through to the pump.  Needed to be done, no question.

Then I replaced the fitting coming out of the fresh tank with a brass one [Screw in/Push-In "Shark Bite" 1/2"x1/2" PEX from Home Depot].  The spacing was so tight under the trailer, I could not get a PEX crimp tool in there to do a regular crimp fitting, so used a Shark Bite push in which worked really well to get out of the tank into an area of more space to further route the rest of the piping.  This elimated the stock 1/2" plastic barbed fitting coming out the of the tank as well.  Then I ran PEX tubing with regular crimp fittings up a different factory hole that was not only a more logical routing, but had plenty of space to avoid further kinking of piping down the road and was also closer to the pump above.  While I was at it, I also fitted a second drain valve in the new PEX piping, so now I have 2 drain valves for the fresh water tank, each from opposite sides of the tank. 

The second piece of good news was the surprise of finding the stock position of the valve placement at the very bottom rear edge of the tank.  The tank is basically very close to centered between the axles, a slight bit closer to the rear axle than the front axle.  The fitting placement at the tank that feeds the pump was welded by the factory on the very rear - bottom corner of the tank [door side of the trailer], not 1/3 of the way up the tank - as others have found.  Very good news for water use in the future.

Made sure all my connections were water tight and retested the pump's output.  Bad news:  the stock pump is only putting out 1.3 gal./min.  I am 100% sure I have no obstructions in the piping to the pump.  I have the shortest routing possible from tank to pump of not more than 3'.  So, I'm confused why I'm not getting more efficiency than that?  Maybe it's the 1/2" tubing rather than larger diameter or maybe I'm still missing something or maybe Shurflo just lies about their pump's capacity of 3 gal./min.?  Anyway, that's a flow I can use and live, with so I'm off to sussing out other things.  I spent another hour putting the bottom the trailer back together and now I have useable water system.

I filled everything up tested it and I'm satisfied for now with flow, even if it's less than 1/2 of what is spec'd on the pump.  However after testing the water heater next, I cannot seem to get the water heater to heat on the electric setting at all.  I'm going to try the gas setting on the water heater today to see if I can get anywhere with that.  I'll report back what I find.  Sorry for the long details of this post, but thought it might be helpful to others working with their own water issues.

[DavidM]

I suspect that the 1/2" suction tubing size plus Shureflow's spec being on the optimistic side results in your lower flow. I think that is about what I get out of mine.

Glad you got it working to an acceptable level.

Can't help you with the water heater. Ours is only gas.

David

[Merlin]

Good details; thanks for taking the time to post what you found and the "fix". Great suggestion by DavidM to look at that input side. Bummer about the kinkiness. I had the same problem with the hose from the black tank flush inlet to the tank; it was so kinked that no water got through until I put in a 90 degree fitting to make the corner.  I've never measured the output of my water pump, but it's just enough for a shower, so for sure less than 3 gpm.

I realize you know what you're doing, but even those who do sometimes need a gentle reminder to check the obvious. Did you turn on the outside switch for the heating element in your hot water tank? 

[alazear]

Hi Merlin,

I definitely must plead ignorance here.  What outside switch?  I've just flipped the toggle switch inside the bathroom, located on the panel together with some of the other toggle switches, like the water pump, etc.  They are grouped together on a single panel inside the bathroom. 

Boy, I hope I'm missing something easy.  I have seen two black button type resets? [I don't understand what these black buttons do] up high on the water heater panel when you take the cover off from the outside.  They are just to the left of the pressure relief valve.

Adam

[Merlin]

The switch hidden under the burner tube on the outside:

[Merlin]

Of course I probably should not have assumed you have the Suburban SW6DE heater; maybe yours is an Atwood or other brand? If it's a Suburban like in the photo above, here's the operating manual on-line.

https://www.manualslib.com/manual/601578/Suburban-Sw6d.html?page=7#manual

[alazear]

Hi Merlin,

Found it.  Your picture was super helpful.  Thank you so much.  It was covered with tape.  Our dealer missed that one on our walk through which was partly our fault in the timing we picked the trailer up in - too short and also Friday afternoon of a holiday weekend.  We were exited to get it and I knew I'd just have to suss it out later once home.

This is my wife and I first real RV.  For the past 30 years we've van camped:  VW Vanagon, Ford E-350, Ford 4x4 Sportsmobile, and most recently Dodge 144 Sprinter Van we outfitted ourselves from a raw cargo van.  These vehicles were all step ups from tent camping and biving out in the open as committed rock climbers when we started.  Once we added expensive mt. bikes to the equation, things became quite crowded inside those vans and we've tried most every major brand outside rack system out there...  Then I took up kiteboarding 4 years ago [my new addiction] and that put us over the edge space wise inside for vans, and we ended up here - with our new LL 21 BHS.  We haven't even taken it out yet it's so new.  Things like water heaters, showers, sinks and toilets inside and power awnings outside are definitely new to us.  We are exited to have more space to enjoy reading and hanging out at night.  It's a beautiful trailer overall. 

Do you mind me asking about the black reset buttons higher up on the water heater?  How do they work?  Do you press them together if something gets tripped and needs a reset for some reason?

Adam

[Merlin]

Those buttons are for resetting the water heater thermostat and heating element if the water heater ever shuts down due to getting too hot. It's a safety thing; if the temperature of the heater goes over 180F, the safety switches turn off to prevent an explosion. You'll never need to use those resets, because if the water heater ever gets that hot, there is something seriously wrong and it should not be used until repaired or replaced.

Be sure to fill the heater with water before turning it on.

You live an adventurous life! And those Sportsmobiles are nice! But, welcome to the world of camper camping. I've always said, I can take a lot during the day in the way of fun/adventure/weather/bugs/etc, so long as I have a comfortable place to sleep. Your new 21 certainly fits that!