Community Forums

jrugarber · 04-05-2020, 11:21 AM

Good morning to everyone!

It has been a while since I have been able to look at the forum and now, with an instituted layoff I find myself with an excess of time.... allowing me the luxury of placing drain holes in the awnings, pulling an errant sock out of the Tecma macerator toilet (rear), replacing the seals in the Thetford toilet (mid) and cleaning/repainting my chassis battery compartment and cleaning the terminals.

I am debating on tackling this next project and was looking for some thoughts.

Repair or replacing the fresh water tank. I have some type of leakage from above the halfway mark that has been in existence since late last summer. We are currently in Florida hooked to city water with no reliance on the tank. I had spoken to NIRVC ( Atlanta ) where we are going to be replacing the front A/C Unit in June and I was advised that Entegra will NOT cover the replacement of the tank under warranty. I will be reaching out to Entegra tomorrow to understand their rational in not covering an item that is seemingly not able to be "damaged" by the end consumer short of a willful desire to not be able to use the tank as designed when not under city water.

My question,

If I am not able to come to an equitable solution with Entegra
has anyone had any experience with, at a minimum repairing and/or possibly replacing the tank?
Is it able to be attempted and completed successfully by a half-crazy, moderately mechanically inclined, fully bored Owner? (me!)

I apologize for the long post, I wanted to try and cover some of the back story to this event before I asked.

Any thoughts and/or advice would be appreciated!

Thanx in advance.

John

Gary.Jones · 04-05-2020, 12:20 PM

John

I can help a little, but not much.

On my 15 Anthem, the coach came with a fresh water tank with a crack about halfway up from bottom to top. Drove us nuts for a while. The crash was on the side of the tank that faced the forward partition of the wet bay and was impossible to see until a smart tech used a camera to take pictures of the vertical wall all around the tank. The leak was obvious. If we filled the tank, the tank would empty down to about half full and would stay there nicely. We guessed it was a crack but could not find it until the tech located it.

Now, this was within the 2 year warranty period (actually we figured it out within a few months of taking delivery of the coach and was found by an NIRVC tech at the Kerrville Rally of ECOA. Entegra Coach had no problem picking up the tag for the problem as it clearly was nothing that I could have done. It was cracked when they installed it, or was cracked while it was being installed. They shipped a replacement tank (the wrong one) and had to take that one back and then send the correct one (the wrong one was an Aspire tank with maybe about 2/3 or half the capacity of my Anthem tank).

The job of replacing it was unknown to me as the work was done by a local RV sales/repair company. My understanding was that they simply removed the outer wall panel of the rearmost passenger side bay, and it was the top tank and they simply removed it from on top of the other two tanks. I wasnt there when the job was done. However, the shop seemed to have no problems doing the job.

I have subsequently been told that if you find the right place, several shops specialize in "welding" together new fresh water tanks and they can be purchased from those companies. Maybe someone on here has a recommendation on a good company.

Gary

jrugarber · 04-05-2020, 12:43 PM

Thanx Gary,

I'll keep everyone posted as to my progress on this project.

Looking thru the "wet bay" it seems as though the tank, if looking at the Coach from the front, is tallest on the passenger side, hence the visual window in the wooden panel and then drops down and spreads out along the basement floor ending
~ 3/4 of the way towards the drivers side, ( behind the "wet bay") roughly 12"15" tall, I would imagine the width ( back to front) of the compartment opening. Imagine an "L" shape with an elongated base moving from left to right.

Tony Wilson · 04-05-2020, 04:14 PM

I had my 2018 Cornerstone leaking water tank replaced right after taking deliver.

It seemed tank had been damaged during assembly at plant. A local mobile rv service replaced the Entegra provided tank. It is an easy work. 1-2 hours. Remove the covers on the passenger side, disconnect pipes behind service area, remove level sensors and drains in the passenger side.

Tank slides out trough the passenger side.

I heard as well that tank can be repaired. I would caution that sometimes leaks only happens when there is enough water in the tank to pressure the leak open and force water moving out. In my case, only after 1/2 to 2/3 full the water started to leak and the crack was in the very bottom.

jrugarber · 04-05-2020, 05:04 PM

Tony,

Thanx for the response,

I'll look a bit more in depth as to the
accessibility of the plumbing and associated sensors.

voltdoc · 04-07-2020, 08:07 AM

So I had a minor leak in my fresh water tank. It was caused by an overdriven screw on the black carpeted assembly covering the tank area on the passenger side wet bay. The screw point was protruding from the wood assembly and when the tank filled the sides flexed and pushed itself into the screw point. The screw eventually rusted and the leak became more constant. I started to look into having the breach spin welded but the hole was so small I just plugged it with a stainless screw, fender washer and some sealant and it's been fine.

Here's a good video that shows the spin welding process on a polyethylene tank: https://youtu.be/crmnzfDZDPU

The SeeLevel sensor for the fresh tank is on the forward facing corner of the tank on the passenger side. It is a flexible circuit board with an adhesive backing. If done carefully it can be removed intact and reused (I have done this).

Good Luck!

Here are some photos of my tank:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/kCLHEp3MuYPrj3ct5