Fresh water tank emptying too fast

[Bill M.]

Okay, upon re-reading: Do you actually have a gray water tank? How many gallons? A 12 gallon tank like Richard mentioned and if it is tipped a little it would not hold much. Our gray tank is about the same size as the fresh water tank. I had forgotten the older models without gray tanks. My oldest is 1987.

Might be as simple as a leak on the fresh water side and no or small gray tank? You need to do some crawling around and questioning things to work this out. Measure the gray tank capacity using a bucket to fill. Feel the belly pan for water and leaks. The insulation could hold a bunch of water. As someone suggested use the pump as a leak indicator.

20 gallons of water going somewhere wrong has always left a visible trail in our trailers. Several times.

Based on what you have said so far you better get full hook up sites and keep the sewer drain hose connected. Eating out helps too. The people I have caravanned with that had no gray tank carried a bluebooy. It is going to be a matter of finding out what you have and how you have to adapt to use it.

[CBWELL]

Specifications for a 1975 trailer show a 45 gal. fresh water tank. I am away from home, and cannot access my 1976 shop manual, but if I remember correctly the grey and black tank sizes were approximatley 25 gal. each. Some of the forum members should have a shop manual at home and could confirm size of grey and black. My 1976 did not have a tank drain, and the fresh water tank was drained by using the on board pump running till no water came out of the tap, and draining into the grey tank and directly out. If water is leaking into the belly pan it should be dripping out somewhere near the axles as |I have never seen a belly pan that was sealed completely. If in doubt about the belly pan, go under, tap on the pan to confirm it is not against a tank and then CAREFULLY drill a 1/8" hole in the belly pan. After rereading your original post about filling the grey tank in about an hour while on city water, and no taps or shower is open, then you have a line that is incorrectly plumbed to the tank or related drain line to the grey tank. One other possibility is the internal relief valve was replumbed incorrectly and dumping into the grey tank.Water lines are above the floor in most cases, so it is simply a matter of following till the problem is found. The only below floor water line on my 1976 was the crossover under the floor from the closet to the other side in a centre bath model, and that was a continuous copper line.

[azflycaster]

From the 1975 operators manual...

[A W Warn]

Originally Posted by TzNan

Hi Alan - thanks for your thoughts. We had a complete rebuild of the trailer down to the frame so we don't have one of those hoses and no water line seems to be out of place or disconnected. It is our thought as well however that the fresh water has to be going somewhere. Is it possible that it is sitting somewhere in the belly? (BTW - The tanks are one of the few original parts). Our builder is also perplexed.

Neither the belly pan nor the tank surrounds are water tight.

I had forgotten how small the waste holding tanks are!
The tank specs are on page 76 in the owners manual>
https://www.airstream.com/wp-content...-manual-55.pdf

[Tony Lee]

Simple.
The fresh water tank is emptying fast
The grey water tank is filling fast
There is no water on the ground

Run the rig on the pump? Is the pump cutting in and out at regular intervals.
Yes >> then check which faucet/appliance is leaking/using water
No >> then there must be some weird piping arrangement that is interconnecting the two tanks. Common vent line plus syphoning or??

[TurkeyRun]

I once completely drained a newly replaced fresh water tank, and the fine plastic shards left in the tank from installing new fittings clogged the check valves.
I know you said you cant see water on the ground, but could it be backflowing through the pump to the city water inlet and leaking there?
I would inspect the check valves in the pump, at the city water, and upstream of the pump if you have a 3rd chwck valve. 45 year old trailer. Likely crud in the lines.

[Rich W]

How about draining and rinsing the gray tank, dump a few bottles same color of food coloring in the fresh water tank then fill the fresh water tank and wait to see where the colored water goes?

[Overstreet]

Originally Posted by Shacksman

I don't think the tank could hold anything near 50 gallons. Fill it and empty into a bucket to see what is in there.

I agree check to see what the capacity of the domestic water tank is and the grey water tank. Fill the domestic water tank. Fill a measured container, ie gallon jug, at the sink. Then pour it down the sink drain. You will know how many gallons on one when empty and one when full.

Fill and do a static test. No pump. No draining. Give it an afternoon and see what happens.

Turn on pump..give it time. See what happens.



I think there might be a leaky faucet. I think too that it is common to not know how much water we waste washing hands, flushing toilets, and washing dishes.

Also all years and models of Airstreams are different. Yours and mine are different. However there is something wrong with the time it takes to fill your tank. I put 56 gallons on my AS in 10 minutes. I used to put 36 in my SOB in a little less time. Why yours takes 30 minutes means you got low flow or a restriction or a really BIG tank.

[uncle_bob]

Hi

With *any* tank after many decades, there is a very real chance of a giant block of solid "something" being in the bottom of the tank. Does it fill half the tank, 2/3, 3/4 ...??? There is no way to know without looking. Depending on just what the stuff is, there may be ways to dissolve it out.

Bob

[Belegedhel]

Here is something to try: Fill your FW tank, make sure it is all the way full (ie., don't trust a gauge). Plug your trailer in to shore power, turn on the FW pump, then leave it for 24 hrs.. If you find water in the grey or black tanks, then clearly you have a leak or pathway from the FW tank to the waste tanks. If not, then you can proceed to the various analyses suggested (ie., verifying the volume of tanks, using some kind of inspection scope to look for obstructions, etc.). You might also block all the drains in your sinks and shower pan just to ensure water isn't mysteriously pooling there during the test.

Those 70's era FW tanks had the breather, inlet, and pump (outlet) ports located in a sort of "notch" that straddled the two halves of the tank. The breather lines connected to the inlet port (where you would insert a hose or dump a bucket of water in, not the shore water connection). Your description of the time it took to fill the FW tank makes me wonder if your breather line is either blocked (with crud), or has been removed/plugged by the rebuilder. If you have no breather on the tank, you might not be getting it full in the first place, even though water will no longer go down the fill neck.

Are there any modern gauges on your tanks (ie., something like the SeeLevel gauges)?

You say that you have the original tanks, I assume that includes the grey water tank--can you confirm whether you are still using the original grey water tank, or if it has been replaced by something larger (which seems the logical thing to do on a complete rebuild)?

When you described water coming up through the shower pan when hooked to shore water after limited use, again, even though the original grey water tanks is small, it sounds like you have a mystery path from a fresh water line into the plumbing system. I am more suspicious of a leaking faucet than a plumbing mistake.

Good luck

[Belegedhel]

Below is a link to a somewhat related sounding post. Modern trailer with modern features, but who knows what your rennovater installed during the rebuild--might be worth a read for inspiration:

https://www.airforums.com/forums/f16...r-97537-2.html

On post #22 of the thread below, a similar problem to yours is revealed/concluded to be a leaking fold-down faucet. Does your rebuilt trailer have something like this?

https://www.airforums.com/forums/f16...-192890-2.html

good luck!

[TzNan]

Thank you all for your thoughts.
To answer some questions:
Yes we have a grey water tank. We tested its volume by emptying it and then filling it one gallon at a time and came up with 16 gallons before I can see the water rise in the p-trap. So it might even be able to tolerate more before it overflows.

We have an on demand hot water heater, not a tank for hot water.

We did test the volume of the fresh water tank based on the time it took to fill a one gallon jug at a similar water pressure. Based on our time to fill, we are in the 50 gallon range.

The thing that is perplexing is that water is also oozing up through the floor boards when the shower pan fills (issue related to the grey water filling, not the fresh water emptying).

Please keep in mind that the grey tank did not overflow from filling the fresh water tank and using that water via the FWP. It fills when we are hooked up to shore water and the tank is not open.

A number of you have asked questions that I can't yet answer but I have sent a message to our builder to have him answer them. I will then answer you directly to see if you have further thoughts based on our answers.

Thanks again for all of your time and energy.

[OTRA15]

Originally Posted by TzNan

. . .
. . . I have sent a message to our builder to have him answer them. I will then answer you directly to see if you have further thoughts based on our answers.
. . .

Looking forward to your update, for this custom-built trailer.

I have not taken the time to make sense of all the clues here, but it might help [IMO] if you could make a brief list of the known facts, such as all the tank capacities, and things you have witnessed. It will help if you can be very precise in your terminology. For instance, this is confusing IMO:

" . . . water is also oozing up through the floor boards when the shower pan fills . . . "



What "floor boards" ? Is the shower pan actually filling? By "oozing up" do you mean that you get water sitting on top of the bathroom floor?

If you are referring simply to the floor in the bathroom, please describe the flooring material, and the sub-strate to which it is attached. Is that standard vinyl sheet goods or tiles on a plywood sub-floor? The more precise you can be, for all the folks reading this thread, the less margin for error you create with imprecision.

Is there no water dripping anywhere from the belly of the trailer, even after a few hours?

Good luck,

Peter

[uncle_bob]

Hi

I would agree very much that the accuracy of the advice given is tied to the detail in the observations provided.

For example:

With the water pump off, nothing is pressurized in the trailer. If there is a leak in a line, that line likely will empty. The fresh water tank will be fine / stay full. If there is a leak in the tank it's self (or the short pipe to the pump) the tank will empty. Careful observation will help eliminate this and that from the problem list ....

That said any "water oozing up through the floor" is a really bad sign. Floors in these trailers are normally made of wood. It is not tolerant of getting / staying wet.

Bob