Water issue as of April 2020:
I’ve not really had much of any water issues with this RV other than drippy faucets since I bought it in Feb. 2016 and I consider myself lucky about that. Goes with this RV being that one built on a Wednesday or the one of 10’s that just by shear luck came off the line with few issues I guess. But…all good things come to an end on an 18 year old RV and what happened here was that ‘suddenly’ the water flow to the toilet and to the bathroom sink just seemed to drop off a cliff. Although the kitchen sink, the inside shower, the outside shower all operate normally, those other two water sources are misbehaving, and that’s either on shore water or from the tank. So today I started working on the area where I think the issue might be. This first shot shows where the shore water comes into the water compartment. That connector came loose from the cabinet ceiling within months of my buying the rig. I’m a full timer and travel a lot and it sees a lot of use. Hasn’t seemed to cause any problems like what’s occurring now over the years I’ve been full time living in it.
I wanted to get a look at what’s behind the water control panel so I pulled that off. Not because I thought there might be a problem there, but to satisfy my curiosity.
And here’s the panel in the way.
So when the problem showed up, I tried several little tricks to try to restore operation but nothing had any effect. I’m aware of the loose wire for the cabinet light…and the tubing wrapped around the valves is for winterizing, which I never do, so I’ve never used it. [I have since fixed that dangling wire, it just needed a new terminal crimped on]. I’ve now removed that panel shown above and the piping behind it is not very easy to trace. Kind of a mess back there.
I also checked the pressure accumulator that is nearby and it’s bad. Not a surprise in a 18 year old RV. It has a rubber bladder inside and you pump it up to 20 psi and it’s plumbed into the output of the water pump so when it runs, the water pushes on the rubber bladder which pushes against the 20 psi air…which resists compression slightly. This action smooths out the pressure of the water flowing through the pipes. They all come with a pressure valve for testing the pressure and mine measured 0 psi so that’s an indication that it’s not working. Tried to add air but it won’t hold it so most likely the bladder has a hole in it. Probably rotted away. No biggie, I’ll just bypass it with some tubing and keep testing. Have to go buy something to use to bypass it though.
So I went to the hardware store and got the parts to make a water bypass. Pulled the pressure accumulator out and replaced it with the bypass.
Unfortunately, that side of the RV is in full sunshine by noon, so I only can (want to) work on it until noon. Because of not wanting to repeatedly take a pan of water from the kitchen back to the toilet, I just connected my spare water hose to the washing machine faucet that’s in the same room as the toilet so now I have water in there again. Temporary for sure, but modern problems require modern solutions.
I found the drawings of the water system by Winnebago…terrible. Very hard to follow. I did discover that according to the drawings, the water heads straight up into the bathroom from the water compartment and branches off the same line that goes to the sink right up to the washing machine valve. And that valve has plenty of pressure. If that’s the case, how can the toilet and the sink have zero pressure? Something is amiss.
So I wrote a thread about the issue and published it at iRV2 forum and soon had several answers from members the main suggestion which was to blow the lines. So I tried that. I removed the aerator at the bathroom sink and boom, had water pressure galore. All sorts of gunk on the aerator screen at the faucet. Well, now, that seemed familiar. On thinking about it, I finally recalled having had a water flow problem 3-4 times over the last 16 years of full time RV’ing. I should have realized it myself. And those times it was one or two faucets were plugged, not the entire RV. Since I had two plugged lines in the RV, I had to reverse air blow them all out because if not, the others might plug up later. Not fun. Every faucet had to be cleaned too. And of course I needed to make sure that the air was getting all the way back to the bleeder valve (pretty much all RV’s have bleeder valves to drain the system).
As I got that blow out completed I went back outside and checked the hose just as I was reconnecting it. Whoa, hose had a big green plug of vegetation in it. And then it hit me, damn, I saw that vegetation back in Mexico last month before I hooked up…when I was running the water like RV’ers do before hooking up the hose. I ended up running the water a couple days before I got back out there and put the water filter right at shore water but those two days was enough to foul my system.
So that’s the story of having no water at the bathroom sink or the toilet. Now on to the story of replacing the Pressure Accumulator (PA).
The PA is a Shurflo product and when I’d tested it, it wouldn’t hold pressure. I could get it up to 40 or so but it would disappear almost immediately. According to the documents I had, it should have had 20 psi in it but my first test showed 0 psi. So it needed repair or replacement and first I had to drill out the pop rivets holding it to the wall in the water compartment, then pry it off the wall. Installed the bypass I’d made and took the PA to the work bench. Pulled all the screws out and opened the case. Inside is what appeared to be a rubber bladder one size too big for the case. It was all wrinkled and ill fitting. Somehow the worker had gotten it inside the case but it really didn’t appear that it belonged there. Like the worker had grabbed the wrong size bladder. I couldn’t see any holes. Anyway, I made the mistake of carefully pulling it out of the seam it was inserted in so I could wash it as it had some gunk on it. That was a mistake, because after cleaning, drying, and letting the bladder relax a bit, it never fit into the sealing slot again. Tried it time after time using every method I could come up with. Finally, after having wasted a good 3 hours trying to get it back together I just gave up and ordered a new one using the Shurflo p/n 181-201. This got me an exact replacement of 21 oz, with mounting bracket and NPT female connections. I pre-pressured it to 20 psi as the label stated. Total cost was $38.49 from a company in CA, Installation Parts Supply, which just got into the consumer market where before they only dealt with businesses. Amazon has the same part but for $54 prime but I’d have had to wait a week for it. Got it in three days from IPS.
Here’s a shot of the bypass I built up. After several days though, I found that the vinyl pipe was starting to bulge. Would have blown clear open if the water pressure had been very much more than the 42 psi my regulator is set at.
And here’s the new pressure accumulator mostly installed (below). What I had to do was beat those pop rivets all the way out, then I used screws and nuts to reattach the accumulator to the wall of the cabinet. That’s necessary because the vibration while driving can cause leaks if things aren’t tight.
I reused the NPT brass couplings that came out of the old accumulator and put new Teflon tape were necessary on the threads. A few turns of the plastic couplings after mounting it to the wall, and we’re good as new.
Based on the fact that the accumulator was badly manufactured and I’d never been able to get it to hold pressure, I think it was defective from the day it was built. The last owner and I didn’t really mess with it as it’s only used when on pump and the pump works well enough that a ‘pulsing’ water flow wasn’t really noticeable. Now that it works, I can see how solid the flow is. Not even minor pulsing. Nice.
As a follow up, I should mention that I’ve repeatedly had to blow out the hose and some of the inside faucets as the green leafy things kept plugging up the works. It seemed as though there were many of these leafy thing stuck inside the fresh water hose. Every time I’d turn around clear into June I’d need to blow out the lines. And I’d often see little pieces of that green leafy stuff stuck here and there in the plumbing. Grrrrr!
I finally stayed at an RV park where the water pressure was up in the mid 60’s PSI and blew out my hoses and I hope that helps. Again I saw another green plug flying off into the bushes when I did that. That and cleaning the green stuff off my filter screens I have here and there.
Update: Sept. 2020
Green stuff is still showing up in the oddest of places. For instance, I use water pressure to clear my brand new fresh water hose every time I disconnect it from the house to use to supply water when dumping the tanks. As many times as it’s been open with the full force of the water flowing freely through it, I’d think that it must be clear of the green stuff by now. Nope. Just a couple days ago, once again my water pressure is very low at the kitchen faucet so that’s a tip off there’s a blockage somewhere. I disconnected the supply hose from the RV water input and there was another green plug! How the hell is that possible?
Here’s a couple pictures of what the stuff looks like:
