Community Forums

Nedra · 12-18-2011, 09:35 AM

We've only had our Allegro for a month but this is the first time we've been in it for more than our 2 day shake down.

We are connected to city water and the other day water was starting to come out the outside fill. When we opened the the fresh water compartment the fresh water tank was full. It was NOT coming out the overflow just the tank fill.

We thought perhaps the water pump had been left on but it was not on. We turned off city water and started using the water in the fresh water tank to try to empty it. It emptied down to about 1/4 and we put masking tape there to see how long it took to fill up again when we turned on city water again. It only took 1 1/2 days and then the fresh water tank filled up.

Any ideas why this is happening?

We've never experienced anything like this before and something is seriously wrong if when you connect to city water the fresh water tank starts filling every time you use water inside the water inside the coach.

Steve N Sal · 12-18-2011, 09:48 AM

You should have a valve that toggles between city water and the onboard tank for water. Is it possible the valve is not in the city position all the way? There also should be a drain for the fresh water tank to drain if you don't want to keep water in it. Your water pump should have nothing to do with filling the fresh water tank either. It should pump directly from the hose to the tank.

Nedra · 12-18-2011, 10:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steve N Sal

You should have a valve that toggles between city water and the onboard tank for water. Is it possible the valve is not in the city position all the way? There also should be a drain for the fresh water tank to drain if you don't want to keep water in it. Your water pump should have nothing to do with filling the fresh water tank either. It should pump directly from the hose to the tank.

HI Steve, first we have a ball valve and it's either on city water or not and there's no way to have it in between.

Yes, we know how to drain the fresh water tank...we've been RVing for 12 years now so we're checked out on that.

The issue is that the fresh water tank is filling up some how whether we are using water or not. It's seeping slowly into the tank. It's taking about 24 hours to fill the tank to it's leaking in somehow. Perhaps my original question was not completely accurate.

We had this problem once before a long time ago and Al think perhaps it was a problem with the pump and it was replaced but it was so long ago we're not sure that was it.

davidjb · 12-18-2011, 03:32 PM

sounds like a check valve is leaking, if it is internal in the pump you may be able to place an external one on the output side of the pump.

firedoc · 12-18-2011, 06:31 PM

StevenSal have hit it on the head. You should have a valve that in one position the water is fed from the city water supply into the MH plumbing and with your water pump off you will not be using tank water just city water. In the other position (90 degree turn I think) you will be taking city water and filling your tank. If you tried to use your MH faucets they would have no pressure as the water is being directed into your tank and not the plumbing, unless you have your MH pump on in which case the pump would be pressurising your MH plumbing with water from your tank. If that valve is only turned part way you could get pressure into tank and plumbing so you might get some pressure at faucets and some water into tank. This could be filling your tank. We had the valve fail (not totally) and when it was supposed to be directing water into only the plumbing, it was leaking by the valve and slowly filling the tank and we would get a water leak out the external (gravity) fill when the tank overfilled. A new valve solved the whole problem. The dealer will charge an A&L for the repair. You can just get a similar size ball or gate valve from Lowes etc and it is an easy fix.

Since yours is such a new unit I would bet that the valve is not fully turned.

**NLOVNIT** · 12-18-2011, 07:04 PM

We had this problem on a previous RV. It was a leaking check valve, although ours wasn't inside the pump. New valve & no more fresh tank fillling when hooked up to city water. I'd give the check valve issue a serious look.

Lori-

Yondog · 12-22-2011, 02:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steve N Sal

You should have a valve that toggles between city water and the onboard tank for water. Is it possible the valve is not in the city position all the way? There also should be a drain for the fresh water tank to drain if you don't want to keep water in it. Your water pump should have nothing to do with filling the fresh water tank either. It should pump directly from the hose to the tank.

We bought a 2011 open road 35QBA. WE HAD THE SAME PROBLEM. Completed our trip the same way you did by using fresh water tank. Upon return we brought back to the dealer after they CHECKED IT OUT it was fixed. Didn't get a straight answer but assumption was the lever between CITY WATER and FRESH TANK wasn't thrown all the way to city. We now make sure switch is in correct position. Never happened again.
Good luck

Nedra · 12-22-2011, 04:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yondog

We bought a 2011 open road 35QBA. WE HAD THE SAME PROBLEM. Completed our trip the same way you did by using fresh water tank. Upon return we brought back to the dealer after they CHECKED IT OUT it was fixed. Didn't get a straight answer but assumption was the lever between CITY WATER and FRESH TANK wasn't thrown all the way to city. We now make sure switch is in correct position. Never happened again.
Good luck

Thanks, but we've been RVing since 1999 and have had several coaches, including another Tiffin, so we really do know how to switch from city water to the fresh water tank and we do know when it's in the correct position all the way so we don't typically get service until we have exhausted all the basic things and then looked at the manuals if it's something we can't figure out on our own based on experience. We've tried everything and nothing is working so it's either the valve or something even the tech isn't sure about right now. He and Tiffin both feel it's a bad valve.

So we are waiting for a new valve and they are hoping that will solve the problem. But since the tech was able to get the valve to "click" in place after many tries indicating it's closed and it's still leaking back into the fresh water tank we are all waiting to see if the new valve takes care of the problem. He did have me call him if it continued to leak after he got it closed (or so he thought) and when I called he said he would call Tiffin back and discuss it the situation with them again to see if they had any other thoughts. I suspect we will wait until the new valve arrives and give it another 24 hours. IF it doesn't start filling again then we have solved the problem. Basically it's been taking only 24 hours for it to completely fill from an empty tank.

With Christmas on Monday it looks like it will be later next week before we get the valve installed but we just check the tank and when it's full we start using water from there before reverting back to city water hookup.

Nedra

Yondog · 12-22-2011, 09:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nedra

Thanks, but we've been RVing since 1999 and have had several coaches, including another Tiffin, so we really do know how to switch from city water to the fresh water tank and we do know when it's in the correct position all the way so we don't typically get service until we have exhausted all the basic things and then looked at the manuals if it's something we can't figure out on our own based on experience. We've tried everything and nothing is working so it's either the valve or something even the tech isn't sure about right now. He and Tiffin both feel it's a bad valve.

So we are waiting for a new valve and they are hoping that will solve the problem. But since the tech was able to get the valve to "click" in place after many tries indicating it's closed and it's still leaking back into the fresh water tank we are all waiting to see if the new valve takes care of the problem. He did have me call him if it continued to leak after he got it closed (or so he thought) and when I called he said he would call Tiffin back and discuss it the situation with them again to see if they had any other thoughts. I suspect we will wait until the new valve arrives and give it another 24 hours. IF it doesn't start filling again then we have solved the problem. Basically it's been taking only 24 hours for it to completely fill from an empty tank.

With Christmas on Monday it looks like it will be later next week before we get the valve installed but we just check the tank and when it's full we start using water from there before reverting back to city water hookup.

Nedra

OUCH!!!!

Nedra · 12-23-2011, 11:07 AM

Sorry, didn't mean to offend but we are not newbies to RVing. I am not very active on this forum because we travel a lot and I don't have much time. Mostly I pop in when we have a situation that is not "normal" and after we've exhausted our "expertise"....such as this one.

I really didn't mean to sound harsh but I guess I hadn't been clear in previous posts that we had tried the "normal" checks and balances before posting.

Oh well, sorrry

Nedra

Yondog · 12-24-2011, 08:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nedra

Sorry, didn't mean to offend but we are not newbies to RVing. I am not very active on this forum because we travel a lot and I don't have much time. Mostly I pop in when we have a situation that is not "normal" and after we've exhausted our "expertise"....such as this one.

I really didn't mean to sound harsh but I guess I hadn't been clear in previous posts that we had tried the "normal" checks and balances before posting.

Oh well, sorrry

Nedra

No problem. If I have the problem again I can use your experience to point the techs in that direction.

Have a great holiday. Stay safe

Nedra · 12-24-2011, 09:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yondog

No problem. If I have the problem again I can use your experience to point the techs in that direction.

Have a great holiday. Stay safe

I'm sure you won't have the same problem again because now you know how to check to make sure the lever in the correct position.

But if you have a problem similar to ours and your lever is in the correct position, as soon as you describe the problem the techs will know where and what to look for. As you've probably read on this thread, a bad check valve is more common than some of us realize and as soon as I described the problem and what we already tried to the tech he knew exactly what to look for.

Nedra

handsab · 01-29-2012, 01:36 PM

Had like problem on 2012 Phaeton,called Tiffin & was told to "bump back" the ball valve as it was likely the valve might be slightly open when turned to city position. Seems strange but seems to have resolved my issue. Might be worth a try.

Nedra · 01-29-2012, 03:21 PM

turns out our problems was a bad pump. It was working but not working right and it finally conked out all together while we were in Yuma a couple of weeks ago. They had turned off the water in the park to do some repairs and when we switched on the pump it didn't work.

Once we got back to Apache Junction the tech came back out to our coach and replaced the water pump and problem solved.