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Jim_HiTek · 05-01-2020, 08:29 PM

A couple days ago, I left a RV park in southern AZ (108 F every day for several days) and headed up to Quartzsite. Hooked up to water, and hmmm, that's funny, I don't have much if any bathroom water. So went out and checked and found after removing the snap on connector, that there was leaking in the water compartment coming from the water inlet. Worked on that for a bit and decided that something was blocking the back flow preventer. Left that alone for the time being and just connected the hose back up so it would prevent backflow with the 'Y' I had on the end of the hose.

Well, silly me, I didn't turn off the valve at the 'Y' and all my water in the tank drained out. Meanwhile, I'm limping along with poor water flow from my bathroom using the pump...which is also erratic in operation.

Next day, drove 5.5 hours, whenever I stopped and tried to use bathroom water with the water pump, no water. Most of this of course was because (I thought) the tank was empty. Got to my destination park, hooked up water (42 psi) and found that I STILL have a water problem.

Here are the symptoms when connected to shore water:

No leaks visible...easy to tell too as the ground is dry.
Bathroom faucet just dribbles water.
Toilet seems to not have water at all!
Kitchen water flow is normal.
All Water Controls down in the basement compartment have the knobs in the same place as always. I did operate them to test, no change.

Here's a couple pictures of my setup:

[Working on getting those pictures posted now]

My question is what could possibly cause the kitchen to be fine, but the bathroom just dribble water? The backflow preventer should affect both, not one or the other, so does that mean there's something else wrong...but what?

Ray,IN · 05-01-2020, 09:06 PM

Is there a screen washer in the fill port or in your water hose? Are the outside shower valves completely off?

Ljwt330 · 05-01-2020, 09:09 PM

You’re correct, if the kitchen flows well the pressure into the system is good so the issue is with the plumbing to the bathroom. From information so far, I’d suggest you first try removing the aerator/screen on the end of the bathroom faucet. Turn on the water and if it flows well, the screen needs cleaning. Because the toilet also seems blocked, there may be a common line that is kinked or otherwise restricted, so tracing the lines may be in order.

Does the shower work well? How about the outside shower?

Jim_HiTek · 05-01-2020, 09:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ljwt330

You’re correct, if the kitchen flows well the pressure into the system is good so the issue is with the plumbing to the bathroom. From information so far, I’d suggest you first try removing the aerator/screen on the end of the bathroom faucet. Turn on the water and if it flows well, the screen needs cleaning. Because the toilet also seems blocked, there may be a common line that is kinked or otherwise restricted, so tracing the lines may be in order.

Does the shower work well? How about the outside shower?

Doh! Haven't checked the showers yet because I didn't think about it. I'll do that soon.

...inside shower is normal. Outside...checking...

Outside shower is weird, the head was on, turned that off but has the same problem inside the house. But that's very definitely where I need to check tomorrow in the daylight. Water was pouring out from behind it when I turned on the valves, found that the head was on, turned that off and the water from the back stopped. The head started working then. So needs some work there for sure. Too dark right now. I never use the outside head so I'm a bit surprised about it going bad.

Thanks...more news tomorrow.

Jim_HiTek · 05-03-2020, 12:10 PM

My knees have been killing me lately and I can't get into the VA hospital to have the surgery so I'm moving a bit slowly.

What I've found so far is that everything seems normal. Nothing is leaking, nothing is broken. I did find that the pressure accumulator is bad...shows 0 psi and won't take any air that doesn't immediately drop back down to zero. That's the only thing I've found wrong with the system so far. So I'm going to bypass it and test again. How that could cause the issue I can't tell as there's only one outlet from it so it should affect the entire system, not just the toilet and BR sink.

Meanwhile, here's the pictures I promised.

This is of my particular setup in a '02 Winnebago Journey DL:

A shot of the rat's nest of tubing behind that panel:

Here's a shot of the pressure accumulator:

I found the Winnie diagrams of the water system and they are pretty much worthless. They show that the pipes coming up from the water compartment go directly to a set of 'T's, and those pipes than branch off and go to both the washer valves AND the bathroom sink valves. If that's actually the case, then why do I have high pressure from both washing machine valves, and only dribbles of water from the bath room sink valves?

So the drawings can't be trusted. Gah! Anyway, back to slowly limping here and there trying to solve this.

bharrisv65 · 05-03-2020, 09:00 PM

Don't know if this could be your problem but we had friends who bought a used MH and after a few days, they had barely any water coming out of the kitchen sink and one bathroom sink and toilet. The shower in that bath worked fine. They also had a second bath in the master BR that all worked fine. After puzzling and checking valves and lines all day, I went down and bought an air tank, filled it up and blew the kitchen sink line out with the compressed air. All sorts of crud came out and the water started flowing great so we did the other lines as well. That solved their problem. Long story short, they had some buildup in those lines so later when they got home, they ran some type of cleaner/scale dissolver stuff though the lines and that along with the pressurized air fixed their problem. Good luck!

Ray,IN · 05-03-2020, 09:11 PM

Jim if your accumulator will not maintain set air pressure the air bladder has failed, time for a new one. It appears you have room to install a 2G accumulator tank,our MH came with one. I replaced it last year, ruptured air bladder. I think the new one was $39 at Menards. Be sure to mount it with air valve stem on top, water connections on bottom-like your picture.

Jim_HiTek · 05-04-2020, 01:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ray,IN

Jim if your accumulator will not maintain set air pressure the air bladder has failed, time for a new one. It appears you have room to install a 2G accumulator tank,our MH came with one. I replaced it last year, ruptured air bladder. I think the new one was $39 at Menards. Be sure to mount it with air valve stem on top, water connections on bottom-like your picture.

Just one question, Ray. Did you have the sort of symptoms I'm having when your accumulator went bad? I'm kind of curious about what symptoms you had before and after replacing it.

mikelcan · 05-04-2020, 10:47 PM

Jim,

I had similar issues this year in AZ. My kitchen sink and toilet flow stopped. Bathroom sink and shower seemed normal. The aerator on the kitchen sink was clogged with mineral deposits. I found an inlet filter screen on the toilet was also clogged. I was able to clean the screen on the toilet and replaced the aerator on the sink.

I ran the kitchen sink a few days without an aerator hoping that any other deposits would flow through before I put the new one on.

Mike

Ray,IN · 05-04-2020, 10:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jim_HiTek

Just one question, Ray. Did you have the sort of symptoms I'm having when your accumulator went bad? I'm kind of curious about what symptoms you had before and after replacing it.

I just had rusty water from the steel 2G tank, where the ruptured bladder allowed water to contact bare metal. The pump ran every time a faucet was opened a bit, but I didn't notice a change in flow rate at any faucet.
As soon as I installed the new pre-charged(air pressure) accumulator tank, I was back to not hearing the pump run every time any water was ran.
I just noticed last week my pump backflow device is leaking, which causes the pump to run every 1/2 hr. I'm off to the farm store to buy a new pump Wed.; same pump make and model at 2/3 cost of RV store.

SailorSam · 05-04-2020, 11:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ray,IN

Jim if your accumulator will not maintain set air pressure the air bladder has failed, time for a new one. It appears you have room to install a 2G accumulator tank,our MH came with one. I replaced it last year, ruptured air bladder. I think the new one was $39 at Menards. Be sure to mount it with air valve stem on top, water connections on bottom-like your picture.

The Water Worker tank from Menards is a nice unit. While I agree that mounting it as you note is probably best, I know a guy who mounted one on its side. 3 years with no issues. He does live where winterization is required.
I'll go along with the idea that you have gotten crud in your bathroom sink strainer and in the line to the toilet. I've had that problem at home.

Good luck getting in and getting those knees taken care of...

Urban Hermit · 05-05-2020, 06:00 AM

have you checked both hot and cold valves at the lavatory? Based on your accounts: there is a blockage in the lines beyond the point where supply diverges for the shower and for the sink and toilet. Did you mention whether the phenomenon involves both hot and cold water? If the sink's hot water tap runs normally it will simplify finding the problem. I can't imagine how a blockage between tank/pump/shore water connection and the water heater could allow normal flow at the shower and the kitchen and affect the lavatory and toilet.

Jim_HiTek · 05-05-2020, 11:44 AM

Thanks, everyone...

Took off the pressure accumulator and could see the blockage right after it. Some gooey black stuff that I expect either came from the pipes at the last RV park (which I did run for a few seconds before attaching) or from some mold or other nasty stuff growing in the accumulator that just let loose. Blew out that line in the water compartment, then installed my accumulator jumper for now (what took all the time was getting parts for that, removing the old accumulator, installing the jumper, plus my bad knees don't help things). My filtered water just started to plug up this morning so the goo seems to have reached that faucet in the kitchen.

So, armed with the knowledge there's some gooey black stuff floating around, went and started removing the aerators and sure enough, without the aerator full pressure water is back at the sink! The toilet flow is still weak, but I'll blow out that line here soon.

I don't have the right adapters to blow out the lines just yet and I intend to do that, but for now, since it gets too hot to work outside after 10 am, I'm done for the day.

Thanks for all the advice!

Jim_HiTek · 05-06-2020, 11:25 AM

Almost back to normal...

Can't find my adapter kit for the air pump so didn't get a great blowout like I wanted. Just an acceptable one.

Did find a small amount of green plant material in the kitchen faucet, and just now, a big wad of green stuff in the shore water hose behind the quick coupler. So the blockage definitely came from an RV park, just not sure which one.

Difficult to figure out how to clean the toilet without removing it completely. All the little jets under the rim were spewing out flakes of black crud after blowing out the lines and turning the water back on. Seems to have full flow though. Fingers crossed on that.

Ordered a new pressure accumulator as my old one won't hold 20 psi.

In 16 years of full time traveling around the country, up to Alaska, and down to Mexico from RV park to RV park, I think this is only the 2nd or 3rd time I've gotten plugged like this, so I forget between occurrences. Most likely came from the park in Mexico as it's not unusual to see some kind of green weed growing in their pipes.

I always turn on the water for 4-5 seconds whenever connecting to shore water before I connect so this showed up even after doing that.

Anyway, thanks for the help!