Need a little help with my water system please!!!

[jayk47]

Hi,

I own a 1975 Silver Streak travel trailer. Now I know this is an Airstream website, but, there isn't any kind of forums I can get to for SS's and they must be pretty much related , right?

Anyway, Im a total novice to RV'ing and don't have a manual for my Trailer. I can work the water heater and clear the Grey and Black tanks, but thats about it. Can anyone answer a few questions or give me some advice??

First... When someone says 'freshwater tank' does this mean your holding tank for using water when your not connected. If so, is the big octaganel screw off thing that says 'potable water only' the place to fill my 'freshwater holding tank?? It has a little tap coming off it (for pressure??) I deemed it was for drinking water as next to my sink is a little faucet that looks like its for drinking water..hmm?

Second.. I have three taps above the hose attatchement outside. One is Red, one Blue, and one is Whitish.. I tired to see what happened when I turned them and got no results.. The whitish one continues to turn without stopping... Anyone shed any light??

Third... My water system seems to fill itself up.. When connected overnight the black water was full in the morning without us using the toilet.. This seems to happen periodically without any warning.. Could it possibly be the regulator because it sort of leaks a little? The blackwater tank seems to be bigger than the greywater (which seems to fill up very fast) is this normal?? Maybe 3 small baths and its full.

Thanks for anyones help... This is a great website.. Pity I didn't buy an Airstream!

[Becky B.]

Hi Jak47,

The freshwater tank is your drinking water tank. Potable water means drinking water. You should probably clean this out well with some bleach & water before you actually drink any water that you put in there. On the top of this page is a search section, and if you enter "freshwater tank cleaning" or something like that you'll come up with some posts that will tell you what formulas they used to clean their freshwater (Potable) tanks.

As far as your blackwater tank filling overnight....You must have something that's running slowly to fill that up. If it's your regulator leaking, you should change it out.

In Airstreams, the greywater tanks are bigger than the blackwater tanks. I don't know about SilverStreaks.

Good luck to you!

[Chuck]

Originally Posted by beckybillrae

In Airstreams, the greywater tanks are bigger than the blackwater tanks. I don't know about SilverStreaks.

Good luck to you!

that's not true with older airstreams. and this is a "70's" trailer, so that could be the case here, too. don't know for sure. The first grey tanks in airstreams were very small. by today's standards, we'd think "why bother??"...but by the 70's standards, it was a rare thing to not be able to just let it run out on the ground. before the mid 70's, they had no grey tanks at all!
as far as the black tank filling...I would guess first that its a leaky toilet; both the water supply, and the flush valve, allowing water to trickle into the tank. Typically, that's the only thing that goes into a black tank, but there could be exceptions...and with an old trailer like this, who knows how some previous owner may have modified things. Its not uncommon for people to come up with systems for transferring grey water into the black tank, as it can be used to flush out the black tank when dumping. If thats the case, and there's a leaky drain valve in the system, that could explain it.