Unfiltered Waterlines! Tell me it isn't so.

[offtohavasu]

Wow, that response doesn't seem to be the norm. Definitely keep us posted. I'm a bit confused on the "comes from the factory that way" statement as well. Aren't they the factory when it comes to running water lines?

[Don and Jean]

Update- talked to Mark Hauser end of day. Looks like I'll be redesigning my system and redoing the plumbing to allow this to be a true whole house filtration system. Good news is they will reimburse for expenses. For those that wonder why this is important to me it's because my FW is permanently parked at a RV Park in rural South Ga and I live in it during the week all year round. They are on a well system that has had problems in the past. I don't want or need sediment or other impurities going through my system. This happened last week and the filter caught all of the sediment for the cold water side. I'm sure based on what the filter looked like I'll need to drain my water heater to get the sediment out of it. I also wonder about water quality at other parks when we travel. I don't like to take chances. Like I said earlier a filter does more than eliminate bacteria. Rust, odor, taste are also factors. You can't boil that out.

[gordofuchs]

I appreciate the information that you have shared. My filter system will be modified THE WAY IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN FROM THE FACTORY, ASAP.

Gord Fuchs
Grand Isle State Park, LA.

[CloseToRetirement]

It's my understanding the Kantleak valve provides a single inlet for water to supply the cold side and the water for the hot water heater. The 4-way valve on the left in the utility center is what receives the water. When you attached your supply line from the shore to the lower left inlet, it should loop through the filter then into the 4-way valve. Any and all water should pass through the 4-way valve to all areas of the coach, cold or hot. All the splits occur from the value to the coach, cold and hot.

If you find the inlet connection splits before it reaches the 4-way value for any reason, I would attempt to contact Anderson Brass to confirm how this should be configured. Once I have my Solitude in hand, I will be reviewing the plumbing for the single inlet, no splits setup. I intend to replace the factory filter with a 2 canister system (sediment and carbon). We have experienced some very nasty water systems in campgrounds (especially one we frequent for dog field trials) where I have normally hauled my own water in for the event. When the dogs won't drink the water (even with an inline filter), I know it must be bad water.

[apulido]

I am tired making things and I only make repairs if I have to. I rather buy the right product/item and pay someone else to fix things. I want to enjoy my retirement, I want to fish, golf, entertain people....and simply live life like you suppose to. .... enough of the rant...LOL...does any one here know where I can buy an inline water filter for my FW ?

[Ditkitty]

Update- talked to Mark Hauser end of day. Looks like I'll be redesigning my system and redoing the plumbing to allow this to be a true whole house filtration system. Good news is they will reimburse for expenses. For those that wonder why this is important to me it's because my FW is permanently parked at a RV Park in rural South Ga and I live in it during the week all year round. They are on a well system that has had problems in the past. I don't want or need sediment or other impurities going through my system. This happened last week and the filter caught all of the sediment for the cold water side. I'm sure based on what the filter looked like I'll need to drain my water heater to get the sediment out of it. I also wonder about water quality at other parks when we travel. I don't like to take chances. Like I said earlier a filter does more than eliminate bacteria. Rust, odor, taste are also factors. You can't boil that out.

Let us know what you end up doing - ours is permanently parked as well - we filtered our former rig at the inlet line. For now we will add that filter back, but would be very interested to see what you end up doing for a fix.

[LCBoyer]

It appears mine goes to the can't leak valve then tees off to water heater and fresh water fill valve

[Don and Jean]

CloseToRetirement, the way you have described it is the way it should be based on my conversation with Mark. However that is not the case. The line runs directly to the valve and then splits. It's the line running to the cold water that is routed to the filter. My intent is to reroute the system so it runs to the filter first and then from there to the Kantleak valve. This way all of the lines are filtered including the line to the fresh water holding tank. My wife has made a good suggestion that I will include in all of this reroute. Right now the water from the holding tank is filtered after the fact or at least it appears that way. I'll probably keep this set up in place even though that water would technically be filtered twice. But as anyone knows if you let water set for any amount of time you can promote mold or bacteria. While the tank will be sanitized on a regular basis this just adds another step for protection. Sort of like belts and suspenders. As I do all of this I plan on color coding the lines before and after. I'll be glad to share this once I'm done.

Apulido you can buy the online filters in the RV section of Walmart or any RV Dealership.

Don

[CloseToRetirement]

Don,

I am also interested in what type of filter is supplied from the factory. For you as a full-timer, you have water circulating through the filter regularly. For me, I am still a weekender and a carbon KDF filter will be important to have in place to stop the promotion of mold and bacteria.

My planned two canister system will have the sediment filter first with a clear canister and the carbon KDF filter in the white canister. This will allow me some security for a clean system each weekend with driveway idle time during the week. Sanitation is also in the schedule periodically during the camping season too. I don't think I have enough space for a reverse osmosis system in the utility center, otherwise that would be my preferred filtration system over the planned 2 canisters.

I will be interested to learn how your re-routing works once you have completed the project. Keep us posted. Thanks.

Lyle

[Don and Jean]

Attachment 1290

I have diagrammed the layout of the pipe system and have come up with what I feel is a viable option for re-routing the hoses to allow all of the water to go through the filtration system first. While I don't have the amount of replacement hose or fittings figured out you don't have to move a lot of the lines. Here is what I've figured out. If you look at the color coding I used anything with blue on it denotes a cold water line. Anything with red denotes hot. For my benefit and to understand how everything is flowing I've drawn diagrams that show how the water is routed under each of the following scenarios - city water intake, use of the fresh water holding tank, sanitizing the lines and winterizing the lines. I've done this for both the current layout and the way it will work once the hoses are revised. I've also drawn up rough sketches showing what the lines look like around the Kantleak valves. These layouts are in a PDF format so I can't post them. I will be glad to share them with anyone who sends me a PM and provides me an email address. The files are small enough to send across most email addresses and will not need to be zipped.

Now going back to the picture. If you can zoom in or see it clear enough here is a breakdown of the current lines. Please note this is for a 2015 Solitude 369RL. It may be different for yours but I'd bet the layout will be similar especially coming through the valve system.

From the right - Small solid blue line is the line in from the "City".
That line ties into what is known as a 4-function valve. The valve allows it to flow in one of the three directions.
To the left is a solid white line that tees. The white line with blue tape shown coming off at a 90 degree angle is the cold water line going to the filtration system.
The white line that continues to the left takes you to a brass butterfly valve that is the heater bypass valve. This routes the cold water to the water heater. I'll go over that in a minute.
Going back to the 4-function valve. The white hose with blue and yellow tape and the solid blue line with yellow tape coming from the bottom of the valve go to your fresh water tank. This line is unfiltered. Coming from the top of the 4-function valve is a white hose with double blue tape. This line goes to your pump.

Going back to the tee in the middle of the Kantleak valve system and the white hose with single blue tape. As stated this line goes to the filtration system. The white hose with the blue and green tape directly below this one is the line coming from the filter. It tees into the solid blue line that has the sanitizing valve to the right and the second white hose with blue and green tape. This hose flows into the main cold water line for the R/V. The cold water line is solid blue and flows in two directions from the white hose. Part of it flows up into the R/V and part flows down to the cold water low point drain and the outside shower.

Now back to the brass butterfly valve on the left side of the Kantleak system. As stated this is routed to the water heater. Again this water is UNFILTERED. The line at the bottom of the valve with the red and blue tape is the line going into the cold water intake for the heater. The white hose with a single row of red tape that is sort of in the background is the hot water coming from the water heater. The white hose with the double red tape is the hot water line that ties into the red line that routes the hot water into the R/V. Like the cold water line it also flows up into the R/V and down to the low point drain and the outside shower.

I mentioned the white hose with the double blue tape that goes to the pump. This hose would act as the siphon end of your pump system for drawing water from the fresh water tank or from a gravity system outside the R/V. Things like sanitizer or R/V antifreeze or water from live streams or cisterns if you had too. The white hose with the blue/yellow/blue tape is the pressurized end of the pump and is routed back to the white hose with blue tape that is your feed for the cold water into the filtration system. When using the pump however this line pulls double duty and not only feeds cold water into the filtration system but also flows back up to the Kantleak valves and feeds the hot water. Again since the fresh water tank is unfiltered and the hot water line is unfiltered if you have any sort of bacterial growth developing in your fresh water tank it will be transferred into the hot water tank.

The quick fix for this involves just a few steps. (I've not done the actual work yet so I can't tell you how much of the existing hoses or fittings can be re-used. Hopefully most of it will so cost can be kept to a minimum. I've found that with most do it yourself projects you usually end up getting too many of one thing and not enough of another so allow time to make that extra trip back to you favorite hardware store.)

The line coming in from the "city" fitting needs to be routed directly to the filtration system. This is the white hose with the blue tape. The tee from the pump needs to be removed from this line since you won't be tying the line from the pump into it anymore. Since this line is cut to fit the tee fitting for the pump I'm figuring a longer line will be required to go from the city fitting to the filter.

The line coming from the filter (white with blue and green tape) needs to be routed to the 4-function valve where the small blue line originally tied in. This one looks questionable about reaching. I'm figuring Murphy will kick in here and the line will be about an inch or so short so I plan on having some extra.

With these two steps you have now filtered every internal line in the R/V. Next step is to tie the cold water lines back together and link the pump system into it.

The white hose with the blue tape that comes off the 90 degree tee in the middle of the Kantleak valve system needs to be tied into the fitting to the left of the sanitizing valve. This is where the white hose with the blue and green tape coming from the filter originally tied in. This line, however, needs to be cut and a tee added to allow the line from the pump (white hose with blue/yellow/blue tape) to tie in. It almost looks like there's enough slack in the line to allow this hose to be reused as well as the original tee fitting. Who knows? Anyway this line will now serve double duty. It will be the cold water feed for the R/V and when the pump is being used it will not only feed the cold water line but will pump water back into the Kantleak valve for the hot water.

Job complete. Filtered water from the main source.

With that being said I'll probably take this a few steps further. Whether I do it now or not will depend on how ambitious I get. What started this whole issue was when I sudenly found myself without cold water but still had hot water. I discovered my filter was clogged with sediment and in the process I also discovered only my cold water lines were filtered. To me that's not the way a "whole house" filtration system should work. Anyway long term I plan on creating a first, second and most likely third line of defense. First line of defense - sediment control. I'll probably research a system that has a canister for that. Second is the standard filtration for bacteria, odor, rust, etc.... The third one I may look at will actually be a separate system to be tied into the line going into the pump. While this layout filters all of the lines going into the R/V and should make the water pretty safe when you store water in a tank you create a welcome environment for mold, etc.. I don't want this working it's way back into the system after I've gone through all the trouble of trying to purify. That's why the manual recommends you sanitize the system on a regular basis. I plan on doing that but I don't want to chance it in the long run especially when we decide to go on the road. Right now I'm permanently parked so this one isn't as big an issue as the other two are. They are top of the list.

Anyway, I know this post is long but I hope it helps someone. Like I said I've prepared some more detailed diagrams that I'm willing to share if anyone wants them.

Don