Hello everyone! My family took our renovated Airstream out all last summer, and this year have been out since June and are currently in Heber City, Utah. It's been very smooth sailing and we've been very blessed in our travels! Until a couple days ago
. It was then that we noticed a leak coming out near our holding tank dump valves. Thinking it was likely a leak in one of the the drain valves, I cut out a "access panel" hold near that area, only to find that the valves and connections were completely dry, and that the water was coming further "upstream" on the tank cover.
This is an odd one, and I've been racking my brain to figure it out. Here's how we can force the leak to happen:
- With the drain valve closed OR wide open, we turn on both our kitchen and bathroom faucets to max, which prevents the drains from emptying into the gray tank fast enough causing the shower trap to fill up to the surface of the shower floor. We then can audibly hear a "glug glug glug" and outside the drips turns into a steady stream.
- We use the shower with a lot of water or even a little - if we don't reach that "shower floor" point with the water level, it only has a small consistent drip for the leak. If we reach that "shower floor" point, it turns into a steady stream underneath the Airstream, just like the above.
This made me deduce that it
must be a leak in the fittings somewhere between the shower drain and the shower trap, so yesterday/today as a short term solution (because of lack of access to the drain pipes) I was testing my theory by using some "Flex Seal", applied liberally in that general area of the drain within the shower, using a brush applicator. However, before I could confirm my findings, I saw that under the airstream today the drip had started again (without us using the shower/the water reaching that "critical" level). The tank was at 31% when this happened.
I did double check all of our fresh water connections throughout the rig, and there were no leaks in any of them.
So now I'm thinking it's likely that I have a crack either in the gray tank OR in the main "drain" coming into the gray tank... both of which are completely inaccessible from above without serious destruction.
I think my options are to either (a) rip out the entire shower, as all of the drains that lead to the gray tank are directly under it, or (b) remove and drop the shroud/tank cover from underneath to assess/correct this issue from that direction. I'm inclined to go with option (b), but I worry about that option as I can't find anyone else who has taken off their tank cover in this situation and like to know what I'm getting into.
Is it "safe" to take off this cover? I know it provides support for the tanks, and thus know we would need to have these tanks drained at the very least - but is that enough or are their other considerations I should bear in mind before undertaking this endeavor?
Thanks in advance
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