Finding great water pressure by accident

[geezerb]

After a hard days drive out of California, we pulled into the Rogue Valley State Park in southern Oregon ( Fantastic place,by the way) and in my haste, I grabbed the nearest water hose I had and hooked up. Not a leak which usually occurs when water hoses and I meet. Got inside and turned on the nearest faucet. Man,there was some force in place. (The hose I grabbed was not the one with the regulator and the filter) I rushed outside and corrected the hook-up properly. All water pressure was returned to a safe level in the system.
We were just there for the night so the next morning as I was dumping holding tanks I turned off the water and secured the system. I told the wife to add the blue stuff. She report that there was no water coming from the on-board pump. Returning to the utility door, there was water coming out the city water fitting.
The city, or shore water system works fine however, the on board pump runs and does nothing. Is there a valve of some sort protecting the pump from idiot moves in the system or have I destroyed a perfectly good pump?

geezerb

[hogdriver]

My bet is you popped a hose lamp or fitting from the overly high city water connection near your water fill inlet and your pump is either cavitating or sucking air. My guess is once you fix the connections or possibly a cracked hose your pump will work fine.

[Old Scout]

There is a check valve in the city water fill connector--holds pump pressure from tracking back thru city water system when city pressure is low. You probably blew the valve out. Camping World for sure and/or local RV shack should have a suitable replacement. Extreme water pressure can get the pump or other water "features" so need to check all connections.

[lofton3786]

if your pump is running an water comng out the city fill connection, check the spring loaded check ball in the city water connection. it could be stuck or have some trash from the park lines stuck in it! If the ball and seat system is damaged theses parts are easy to get and replace at almost any camping center. For now to use water system you can use a small valve for water hoses to screw into city connection and close the valve and should work until get new part, if you need the par

[Bigd9]

Returning to the utility door, there was water coming out the city water fitting.

There is a one way valve inside this city water connection. This valve may simply be stuck in the open position. If it is, your onboard pump will just pump water back through this valve. Try tapping the valve.

[geezerb]

Thank you bigd9 and all others answering my question.

It isn't often that my mishaps have such an easy solution. I cut the city water and relieved line pressure. A few taps with a few shade tree mechanic prayers and the thing is fixed. This is indeed a fine Tuesday for me. Sure beats groveling around in the bowels of the beast with little hope of finding what it was that broken. Coupled with the knowledge that the thing was screwed up by my hand.

Again, Thanks Gobs:

geezerb

[Bigd9]

Don't be so hard on yourself. I would doubt you did anything to cause this. It just happens sometimes. Speck of sand gets trapped in the seal, or for some reason gremlins grab that cone and cock it over a bit and presto, the darn thing is leaking. As discussed in another thread, you need to hit it with a BFH once in a while.

If this does happen again, you may be able to flush the valve dislodging any grit by reconnecting the city hose, open a faucet and turn the water back on. If all fails to reset the valve, and you are desperate, you can buy a plug to cap the city water fitting off and that should keep the water from leaking back out. Or even reconnect the hose and kink it so the water won't flow back out.


If you insist on blaming yourself, come on over to my place. I've done plenty of dumb things and I can sure let you take the blame for a few of them if you want.

[wa8yxm]

I will say this.. There is no way the high pressure hose damaged that check valve. So it is not your fault.

[paz]

Originally Posted by wa8yxm

I will say this.. There is no way the high pressure hose damaged that check valve. So it is not your fault.

Yes, there are a couple of ways pressure can damage the check valve - at least indirectly. It's not the pressure itself that damages the check valve, but the high water flow that is caused by the high pressure. When a faucet is opened, there can be such a sudden rush of water (sometimes even with normal water pressure) that the O-ring gets knocked off the plunger in the check valve. The sudden rush of water can also cause the plunger to hang up and not re-seat properly when the faucet is turned off. If the plunger is hung up, you can sometimes free it by removing the inlet screen and poking the tip of the plastic plunger with your finger.

[gemini5362]

If you did cause the problem you can look at it a different way. You made a mistake by not grabbing the hose with the pressure regulator. When you did that you effected a problem in the check valve which was easy to repair. In the future this worry that you broke something hard to fix will probably make you more careful to grab the right hose. You learned a good lesson with a small repair to make versus learning the same lesson by having high pressure crack a hose or fitting which would be much harder to fix. You were lucky celebrate your luck.