New to RVing

[Sshana]

Hi, I have a solitude 280rk-r. I went camping for first time, after the first week my brother saw water dripping from under the belly, opened one side under belly and lot of water came out so we brought down the underside to dry out and tried to find leak. Well we did, when the dealer hooked up my dishwasher the connections in the back of washer were leaking. We fixed the problem.

When I hooked the water back up, the pump kept coming on and off every so often. Never noticed it before, I am wondering if there could be another leak somewhere in my system. How do I check that and is there a diagram for the water system that I could follow to check everything on the system make sure that it was done correctly.

I would appreciate your help in figuring out the situation because I know that any water leak or any leak for that matter is not good at all in trailers…bad news.

Thanks for your time. Shana

 

[Capt Bob]

Hello Shana,
Let’s start with that I know nothing about your model RV but I’m just going to add another area you might choose in looking at to solve your problem.

Demand water pumps can be funky. I state this from my experience with ShruFlo pumps in both the RV arena and the marine game. If your system doesn’t have another leak, you may wish to adjust the pump. Small adjustments to these pumps often result in the running performance you seek.

 

[Riverbug]

In my experience, when the water pump cycles with regular frequency and there is nothing demanding water, there's a leak somewhere. The less often it cycles, the smaller the leak. Not to say there couldn't be something else afoot here, but never have I not found a drip somewhere when the pump starts cycling. I have had the drip infrequent enough that it only cycled in the middle of the night once. That turned out to be a tiny crack in the bathroom faucet housing. It would have taken a while for me to notice it if the pump didn't trigger my suspicion that something was up. Normally I check the water lines, not the faucet; but the OEM faucet was all plastic and had a hairline crack.

Nowadays I routinely feel around all the waterlines (at least above the floor) and directly under the faucet area to see if there is any moisture. When we are on city water for a few months (winter in FL), I will turn off city water and leave the pump on for a 24 hour period and see if it cycles on its own about once each month. Sounds like overkill probably but I've refurbished a couple of campers down to the studs (reframing as needed) and water damage from plumbing or exterior caulking is no joke if you plan to keep your rig for a few years. I'd just start checking everything you can and see if you can find any moisture.

All that said. Since you know the dishwasher to have been an issue, I'd triple check all of those connections. That would be a logical starting point. I've actually found a couple of small leaks during winterizing when I blow air through the system. The first time it was because I was alerted to a funny squeaking sound and that was a leak at the bathroom faucet water line. After that I started checking the lines during winterizing and I saw the kitchen waterline bubbling just a little bit. Just make sure you have a compressor that allows you to dial back the pressure and run 50 or 60 PSI through it.

Okay, shutting up now. Good luck! And congrats on the camper and welcome to the forum!