City water pop-off valve? (drips included)

[empresley]

What I think is a pressure relief valve started dripping at the CanOpener rally this past weekend.

After searching the plumbing threads I did not see details related to these pressure relief valves so I am including the photo.
You can see the regulator & then the pressure valve with the black rubber hose going down to exit the belly pan and open to the ground.
Our ’84 does not have this device so they may have stopped installing them during some production year.

The dripping may be trash or just an old valve seat but it is annoying and very messy.
If it fails beyond just a drip it could be releasing a great deal of water.

This is a very difficult place to access in our Argosy and will not be a joy to replace or modify. Being copper vs. pex piping also adds to the difficulty.

Is replacement important?
Would it hurt anything to cap off the outlet side?

Interested in what others would do or have done.

Thanks,
em.

[Moonshot]

Hello EM,

Nice meeting you at the can opener. Your paint job and new wheels look great!

Mine gave up the ghost last year. I remember at the time I researched on here and decided to install a ball valve in its place. One of the functions is to prevent the flow of water out of your city water inlet in case you are boondocking. I believe it also acts to regulate pressure so I am careful to always use a water regulator at the spigot when on city water.

That's what I did anyway. I'm also curious to know what others have done.

Scott

[Chuck]

under what conditions was it leaking? Hooked up to a city-hookup, or running from onboard water w/ the pump? Water heater on, or off?

What about now, while parked in your driveway?

Water is dribbling out for one of 2 reasons: there's too much pressure in the line, or, its busted.

There have been discussions here in the past as to the "need" for this device, and at least some people w/ plumbing credentials said that it wasn't. (?). All I know is that "airstream" thought it was necessary, at the time.

It should be easy enough to replace, that is...if you can get at it. can't tell from the pic. I know, its impossible to access in my trailer without removing the bathroom. ( ). But if you can get a pair of vicegrips on it, it should just be threaded into that "t" fitting, and you could take it out and get a replacement...screw it back in. Or, you could put a threaded plug into the hole.
plugging the outlet: I suppose you could, but then the tube would fill with water, and it could freeze, then burst, and make another mess.

[Chuck]

Originally Posted by Moonshot

One of the functions is to prevent the flow of water out of your city water inlet in case you are boondocking.

No.

the part he's talking about is a pressure relief valve, only. the pressure "regulator" is the big thing with the bell housing and the tag on it; the backflow preventer is just to the left of that--that is the only part that keeps onboard water from flowing out the city hookup.

[HiHoAgRV]

What's up? Mine started leaking at the Can Opener also ! A slow drip out of the plastic hose under the rear of the trailer.
I never hooked to the city water so it wasn't due to local pressure. I tapped on the valve and hope it's stopped.

[Devoman]

Mine broke also along with my LP regulator.I have a new regulator now but have to order the water connector.I read somewhere that the reason it was plastic behind it was because the metal get cold and can freeze up faster.Is this true.

[empresley]

Originally Posted by Chuck

Under what conditions was it leaking?
Hooked up to a city-hookup, or running from onboard water w/ the pump? Water heater on, or off?
What about now, while parked in your driveway?

Sorry I forgot to include that important part of information. Here it is:

We were hooked up to city water and the dripping started about 12 hrs. after the connection was made.

The water heater was on the entire weekend but the rate of dripping never changed (about 2 dps (drips per second ).

I varied the temp. of the hot water (hotter when getting ready to shower / moved to a cooler temp. during the day and while sleeping). I don't believe the temp. setting was having any effect on the drip rate.

I assumed it was pressure related because it would stop very soon after the city water supply was shut off (stopped immediately if I open an interior faucet and relieved the pressure).

We have limited experience with this unit since the stripping and re-painting started as soon as it followed us home.

My best answer is that it only leaks when under city pressure but I can easily put some water in the fresh tank, pressurize the system and monitor the overflow pipe. Will do that tomorrow.

Thanks for everyone's feedback,
martin.

[clancy_boy]

Hey em, nice photo. After our discussion on how you were going to do it - how many shots did it take before you got the fitting framed right?

After reading the above posts, maybe try an inline pressure regulator and see if the drip stops, maybe Topsail had some high pressure in their lines.

Good seeing you again, Mike

[empresley]

Originally Posted by clancy_boy

Hey em, nice photo. After our discussion on how you were going to do it - how many shots did it take before you got the fitting framed right?

Sorry again! I keep leaving out details.

The hole in the cabinet wall for the vent pipe is larger than it needs to be.
I squeezed the camera passed the vent pipe and aimed by being able to see
where the auto focus light was hitting. Took about 15 shots due to being so anal. The 3rd or 4th was probably as good as any.

Blanche added a correction; she relieved the interior pressure by flushing the toilet.

martin.

[Chuck]

sounds like its possible that its doing exactly what its supposed to do...especially since there were others that had the same exact "coincidental" dripping at the same time at the same campground. If thats the case, then its the pressure regulator that isn't doing its job. Only way to tell is to test it out at home, or with a pressure guage so you know exactly what you're dealing with. I'd say that if its not dripping at home, the pop-off is doing its job...use a hose-end regulator in the future (as the on-board one is so difficult to reach).

I remember a rally where multiple people had problems because the campground water pressure was so high. must not be that uncommon for on-board regulators to fail.

[Fyrzowt]

Here's a thread I posted on the same subject a little over a year ago. This was after I replaced a water heater, the problem has resolved itself.

http://www.airforums.com/forums/f445...lve-28019.html

[Happycampers]

I had the same thing happen on our 75 Argosy, I bypassed it and just used an external pressure regulator.

Marvin

[empresley]

Following up the original post:

The pressure relief was leaking & after pulling the regulator it was found to
have a cracked body.

Decided to remove the entire water supply system and replace with pex.
I am going to relocate the new regulator to make more accessible, delete the over-pressure
valve & install a removable panel where the new hole is cut in the closet wall.
This will have everything upgraded to pex except the copper running under the shower
and to the water heater.

New kitchen cabinet, sink, plumbing... all needs to be ready for April's Springstream rally.

[Kajtek1]

I just removed both of them from my project.
While pressure regulator did not hold excess of 150psi off the trailer, the safety valve hold it in.
That safety valve is another overprotection on the trailers. We all have safety valve on water heaters, don't we?
I am planning to install water regulator on the hose, what will free some storage space in the rear where old valves used to be.

[empresley]

Update on regulating water:

Well this little project started with the leaky pressure valve during the CanOpener. Not long after, I decided to replace the kitchen cabinet & sink.
The idea was to use watts slip on connectors to make the transistion from copper to pex for everything under the sink and up to the front fresh water tank.
I discovered that the copper tubing was stretched from freezing while under the PO’s supervision. I started cutting back the tubing hoping to find a normal diameter before reaching the bath area where the main lines disappear under the cabinets and shower. This was not to be. You can see in the After photo that compression fittings were used at the last possible location. The pex has been installed from the city connection up to the fresh water tank. This includes the kitchen and rear lavatory. Copper remains for the shower and hot water supplies. This can wait until the bath has to be removed for some major issue.

The Before photo shows everything as it was except the new converter (from BestConverter) which was installed between the exterior painting and leaving for the CanOpener.
Pex is the obvious plumbing change.
Old regulator was trashed and replaced with an external in-line unit that happens to be a Watts product.

Elec. changes were:
Better wire management to eliminate the jungle look.
Ordered and installed a HD 30A switch to interrupt 12v from the battery when ever necessary.

[clancy_boy]

Great Job.