Please help! Fresh water pouring out from under coach!

[scrapperjohn]

Just passing by. Don't have a MH, have a TT .
Did you accidentally open fresh tank drain & not close ??
My Lance trailer has a blade valve with a 2 inch drain pipe.
Mine looks just like a dump valve, only white handle..
Just an idea. Good luck..

[sartor]

Thanks again to all the posters for the proferred advice.

To Capt. Bill, can you offer any additional guidance on locating the two sensors you mention: the fresh water tank full sensor (behind the pegboard bay), and the "overflow shutoff valve"? For the former, are you suggesting that I need to actually *remove* the pegboard in order to get *behind* it to locate the fresh water tank full sensor? As best I can see, that would be the only way to get behind it (it's the last storage bay on the passenger side on my 2019 Dutch Star 4369). I have removed the "top guard" that covers the upper few inches of that pegboard, and having done that I can *barely* get into an inch or so above the pegboard, but I'm hard pressed to determine what anything is up there, let alone actually be able to access sufficiently to test/diagnose/fix.

For the latter ("overflow shutoff valve"), where is that located? The overflow *drain* is under the RV at the front end of the pegboard bay, but I was unable to observe anything seemingly related with having removed the aforementioned upper guard in that bay.

Meanwhile, back to Harland's response, I'm becoming inclined to agree with you. It does seem that twice on my current trip (10 days), I've seeN the fresh tank guage seemingly displaying erroneous values (like a drop down to 30% when I know it was really full). But then when I check it again it seems to register correctly. For example, today, as we've driven all day and no longer connected to city water, it's dropped from 100% to 90% as we've used a little water. So I'm thinking an erratic sensor is probably the source of the problem, keeping the auto-fill open past 100%.

And back to the shower miser for a moment, and just to document for the record for awareness for future readers, a fw things to clear up. First, the "square knob" control that I had been asking about earlier I believe I've confirmed (via other related posts) is truly/completely non-functional at this point. I believe that control knob is a vestige of an earlier design, and hence no longer relevant to a 2019 Dutch Star. There *might* still be some relevance though with respect to winterizing; some other posters have suggested that fully/completely winterizing the shower may require manipulation of that square knob.

But the *real* control of water recirculation is now the *bottom*-most knob in the shower, below the water control, which has a handle and three "detent" positions: one for shower head, one for handheld, and one for off/recirc. And the way that recirc functions is that one must set that diverter to the off/recirc position, AND one must turn ON the shower's water control (on/off handle) itself. Having done this, one can actually HEAR the water flow, as the recirc delivers water through the hot water feed and then back to the fresh tank via the recirc line. And then the 3" plastic "dot" thing that is stuck on the shower wall immediately above the metal water control and square knob plate is the "indicator," that starts out as dark blue when cold, and then turns whiter to indicate that the hot water has now reached the shower head, and thus it's "ready" to turn the diverter from "recirc" to shower head to begin your hot shower.

But all of this understanding leaves me questioning the assertion that several other posters have made about the relationship between "auto-fill" and the shower miser recirc function, and overflowing the fresh tank. It would seem that once one turns *on* the shower water control, and sets the diverter to recirc, and one is connected to city water, that city water is going to flow to the shower diverter and to the recirc line and from there back into the fresh tank. And it would seem that that recirc function would be COMPLETELY INDEPENDENT of the setting of auto-fill. That is, turning ON the shower water control and setting to the recirc position while connected to city water is going to prompt the filling/overflowing of the fresh tank, regardless of whether or not one has enabled auto-fill.

Does that not make sense? Why would auto-fill have anything to do with the ability of city water to flow through the shower recirc and reach the fresh tank? Water isn't going to flow to the shower and through the recirc unless/until one turns *on* the shower water control, and having done so that flow is going to happen, independent of auto-fill.

Finally, getting back to the auto-fill control and the "sensor" that's supposed to shut off auto-fill when the tank hits 100%, is that sensor not built into the same "taped-on" circuit board that's at the back of the wet bay, with the flickering green lights, which I think is providing the tank fullness info to the control display above the driver seat? If I have a problem with the auto-fill sensor, would it not be on that same taped-on circuit board?

Tom

[jepoland5]

On our 2019 DS 4369, that square knob is not a vestige of an earlier design but rather it allows you to turn the water off mid-shower and then back on again (i.e. Navy shower) to rinse the shampoo out of your hair without touching the main mixer valve and risk inadvertently changing the hot/cold mix when you turn the water back on.

[Capt. Bill]

Originally Posted by Capt. Bill

Sounds to me like it's the fresh water tank full sensor that's gone bad. If I remember correctly- I think this an external prox switch on top of the fresh water tank accessible behind the pegboard bay on the curb side basement door. I would try jumping it & see if the water flow stops? could also be the overflow shut off valve- you can test it by running a set of 12 V jumper wires from another 12V source - like a cargo bay light- to activate it.

Happy Trails

Yes - you have to remove the peg board to access the fresh water tank sensor. I've never fooled with the auto fill valve, but common sense would tell me the valve is located directly behind the wet bay panel where the controls are for auto fill- this would be the closest plumbing route- call Newmar to verify it's location.

[mahdi]

The shower miser has 3 positions. 6 for re circulation, 10 and 2 for shower head and handle respectively.
When set in re-circulation mode the water comes from city water if connected and turned on into the fresh water tank. It adds to the tank level despite the auto-fill being turned off. I know because DW always turns it on when planning to use the shower. I keep 30% water in the fresh water tank when we travel and after a shower it goes up to 40% even when the auto-fill is turned off.
From your description, it seem that with the tank full and you have city water going through the re-circulation (which bypasses the auto fill shut off) you over fill the tank.
Move your re-circulation to a shower flow position and try it again.



Safe travels

[sartor]

To Jepoland5, I stand corrected! Thanks for pointing out the function of the square knob, and indeed it is the same on my RV (as one might expect). Not sure how I missed that, although I was going from memory from my last time using the shower and I thought I hadn't seen the knob make any difference. But the "middle" position turns the water off, while up or down are essentially the same (or at least I don't think there's any difference; water just runs).

To Capt. Bill, thanks for the follow-up; will continue investigating.

To Mahdi, thanks for confirming what I suspected: shower recirc will add city to fresh *independent* of whether or not auto-fill is enabled. But just to confirm another detail, I believe it's true that setting the shower knob to recirc will ONLY cause city water to flow into/fill the fresh tank if you actually set the shower *water control* to ON. That is, just having the recirc knob in the recirc position doesn't do anything unless/until you turn ON the shower water, right?

But back to my fundamental/underlying issue, pretty sure it is NOT related to shower recirc. I've got that knob in the normal (shower head) position, so recirc is not happening. So I believe my issue is still related to auto-fill being "stuck," either because the auto-fill valve itself is stuck and won't close, or because the tank *sensor* is failing to recognize the tank reaching 100% and thus failing to tell the auto-fill valve to turn off.

Still need to do some experimenting/investigating.

Tom

[mahdi]

Der Tom,
You are correct. When the shower water handle is turned off. The water does not flow into the fresh water tank if the routing nob is in recirculation mode.


What I do is use city water when hooked up and fresh water tank when the city water is turned off at spigot.

[sartor]

Thanks for the follow-up Mahdi!

And just to "close out" this thread for now, today upon arrival at our next campground I got everything connected again, enabled auto-fill, and everything worked as intended (just like it used to). I actually heard the valve click off and the water stop flowing, as I stood out by the wet bay and waited for the fresh tank to hit 100%. So I think the problem the entire time was just a "glitch" in my fresh tank meter that failed to recognize that it hit 100% when I was at my previous campground, and hence failed to shut the auto-fill valve off.

Thanks again to all posters for their insights. Since I'm lazy I've put off continuing the investigation to find the precise location of the auto-fill valve and the fresh tank sensor, but I appreciate the posts from the community to help in my future search!

[foundwaldo]

Sorry just curious about something you said you only have 2 settings auto and manual but no city water connection. Is there a separate connection for city water directly where you don’t have to fill the tank.

Also have you tried just turning off the water supply and using the water out of the tank until it gets low like 50% and then try turning the water supply back on auto and see what happens once it gets filled. It really sounds like a sensor that tells the auto tank fill to shut off is bad.

[sartor]

Hi FoundWaldo,

See my previous post for an explanation as to why my fresh tank was overflowing on auto-fill earlier (I believe it was a glitching sensor that failed to recognize that the tank was full).

As for my auto-fill settings, on my 2019 Dutch Star 4369 Spartan, the lever in the wet bay only has two settings: Manual Fill and Auto-Fill. If you have city water connected but don't want the fresh tank to fill, you put the lever at the Auto-Fill setting, but then on the *control screen* (which is above the driver's seat) you can *disable* the auto-fill function. So lever in Auto-Fill with control screen set to "disable" auto-fill is effectively the same as "use city water and don't fill."

Hope that helps!

Tom

[mbrooking]

If you want, you can change the set points for the autofill under Features/Autofill Configuration... It is behind a password protected screen, but 042 works for ours. If that doesn't work, you would probably have to contact Newmar. There you can set the start and stop points for the autofill. I was never comfortable with 100%, because I was worried it might overflow. I set mine for 75%.
I've learned, if you run with the pump when using water, you can just let the autofill do it's thing and fill then tank when needed.
Oh, and by the way, you won't get water when the autofill is running without turning on the pump.

[TJ]

There’s one other possibility that I haven’t seen mentioned. A number of Newmar owners (including us) have had a siphon problem with the fresh water tank overflow. If the tank gets filled to the point where water starts coming out of the overflow, it is not uncommon for the siphon effect to pull the tank down to the 50% level before it stops.

Suppose the autofill doesn’t shut off until the FW tank starts pushing water out the overflow and then shuts off...but, the siphon effect drains the tank down to the point where autofill triggers to refill? In some situations, this could be a repeating cycle.

There are some old threads on the Newmar Owners Forum that discuss ways that owners have modified the overflow to break the siphon event. Might be worth doing a search and checking it out.

TJ

[DLRocket]

Originally Posted by TJ

There’s one other possibility that I haven’t seen mentioned. A number of Newmar owners (including us) have had a siphon problem with the fresh water tank overflow. If the tank gets filled to the point where water starts coming out of the overflow, it is not uncommon for the siphon effect to pull the tank down to the 50% level before it stops.

Suppose the autofill doesn’t shut off until the FW tank starts pushing water out the overflow and then shuts off...but, the siphon effect drains the tank down to the point where autofill triggers to refill? In some situations, this could be a repeating cycle.

There are some old threads on the Newmar Owners Forum that discuss ways that owners have modified the overflow to break the siphon event. Might be worth doing a search and checking it out.

TJ

On my 14 Dutch Star I have this exact problem. To get to the top of the fresh water tank I’ll need to pull the outside TV and when I do I expect to find the overflow drain hose collapsed. Hopefully raising the exit height will solve the siphon issue. It very frustrating not knowing exactly how much water capacity is being affected.

[36PFT]

water is bypassing in your 12 volt water pump. there is a check valve in the pump. there should be a shut off valve before the pump. shut it off and see if the water stops overflowing. Stan