Alde 3020 system has an inside water leak.

[turk123]

I just wanted to run something by the group. I added a quart of Alde fluid to my system and the next day it developed a water leak. It is under the dinette seat and to the rear of the dinette facing the sofa. The leak is water, not Alde fluid.

As far as I can tell, it seems to be coming from the Alde Flow tank. There are no Pex lines that are leaking. Traveling for three months in the heat of the northwest, I have to admit I did not relieve any pressure to form the air "bubble" in the tank. Could this be the problem?

I am at the Airstream factory for Alumapaloosa and I made a call to the service center and they will try to work me in tomorrow. They seem to have made the decision to replace the entire unit! My Alde system is out of the one-year warranty. Seems kind of short for such an expensive unit.

Does anyone have any Ideas????

[turk123]

Just talked to service, they got me in 7:30 this morning.

My Alde Flow is leaking as I expected. They can't repair it but they will replace it. Two hours to replace. Don't know the cost and it's out of the one year warranty.

[LilPeanut]

Ask them if they think not restoring the cushion can cause anything other than venting water under the rig.

[turk123]

My problem has been solved! Well, I had to throw $1625.00 at it to make it go away!

The problem was indeed the Alde Flow unit. It is the small tank that sits next to the silver box that does all the magic. It had a stress crack in the weld. It is on the bottom of the unit and it had a small pinhole leak.

I am at Alumapaloosa and the guys at the service center worked me in on the last day of their workweek. It took about 3 hours of labor to replace the unit and bring the fluid level back up to normal. They also bled all the lines to remove air. They even replaced all the catches on the dinette seat and gave me the old ones as spares.

I ask for the old unit and I will be calling Truma Gerätetechnik GmbH & Co. KG to complain (yes, that is their full name here in the states!)

I was told by a little birdy that a ground wire was not installed on the unit causing the fluid to get caustic and destroying welds in the system. Now that issue may not be directly related to my problem as my issue was with the water side, not the glycol alcohol side. But my unit ran for two years before the recall to change the fluid and to add the ground wire. The damage to the 3020 may have already happened.

Alde is blaming Airstream, and Airstream is blaming Alde. That leaves us as customers to "Bixxh and moan" to defend our position when our units fail. The battle may have just begun.

[JTChapmon]

We also have a failure of the Flow tank. This morning our ruggable between the sofa and dinette soaked. I investigated and found water leaking from the Flow system. All fitting are tight and there are no hose cracks. We have been using our Classic everyday since we purchased it new exactly 30 days ago. Of course this happens on a Saturday morning so we are without hot water for a while. I have the Alde system by-passed so no more leaks. I am certain I could swap out this unit myself but I have figure out how to capture and reuse the glycol.

[BigSxyWhtGuy]

Originally Posted by JTChapmon

We also have a failure of the Flow tank. This morning our ruggable between the sofa and dinette soaked. I investigated and found water leaking from the Flow system. All fitting are tight and there are no hose cracks. We have been using our Classic everyday since we purchased it new exactly 30 days ago. Of course this happens on a Saturday morning so we are without hot water for a while. I have the Alde system by-passed so no more leaks. I am certain I could swap out this unit myself but I have figure out how to capture and reuse the glycol.

It’s a fun process to change it out yourself. You either need radiator clamps or drain the entire system which then takes a pump to fill it. We went clamp method. About $100 in clamps from Amazon gets the job done [emoji22]

[turk123]

Originally Posted by JTChapmon

We also have a failure of the Flow tank. This morning our ruggable between the sofa and dinette soaked. I investigated and found water leaking from the Flow system. All fitting are tight and there are no hose cracks. We have been using our Classic everyday since we purchased it new exactly 30 days ago. Of course this happens on a Saturday morning so we are without hot water for a while. I have the Alde system by-passed so no more leaks. I am certain I could swap out this unit myself but I have figure out how to capture and reuse the glycol.

The Alde flow seems to be the weak link in this system. I met the Truma rep at the Hershey RV show. He is hooking me up with his tech department in Elkhart, IN.

The part runs about $770.00 from Airstream. My total bill was just over $1650.00 including labor. It took them about 4 hours and quite a bit of Alde fluid. They had to bleed all the line again. I bought a gallon of the fluid to top it off.

[hsgsports]

Hello Tom

Is there a way I can check to ensure the ground wire is attached? Can you describe where I need to look for it?

Thank you.

[tymcknobel]

I find this thread very fascinating because as of this morning we discovered a leak under the Alde Flow tank. We noticed some leakage around the dinette towards the wall and door side but most notably there was a continual drip from a screw below the trailer near one of the tanks we think. We bypassed the Alde Flow tank and the leak seems to have stopped. Me thinks there is a design flaw.
We have a 2021 classic 33.

[turk123]

Originally Posted by tymcknobel

I find this thread very fascinating because as of this morning we discovered a leak under the Alde Flow tank. We noticed some leakage around the dinette towards the wall and door side but most notably there was a continual drip from a screw below the trailer near one of the tanks we think. We bypassed the Alde Flow tank and the leak seems to have stopped. Me thinks there is a design flaw.
We have a 2021 classic 33.

I would call Alde' in Elcart Indiana. We were told the welds were leaking. That is not something that can happen in 30 days. It is important to keep the air bubble in the Alde flow as a cushion to the pressure, but this is not something I've done regularly as it is something you are supposed to do every week or every few days. That is a design flaw requiring the user to remember. It's more of "We've found a solution, but it requires you to remember to do the procedure". It is a workaround to a design flaw.

I kept my Alde Flow when Airstream swapped it out. I contacted a Alde repair man in Florida where we will be for the winter. He said there is nothing he can do to check if other damage has been done to the system (something I was concerned about when they told us that the fluid needs to be changed when it was the lack of the ground wire that caused the issue.). I believe my Alde flow failed due to the "change" in the fluid caused by the lack of a grounding wire making the fluid more caustic, which caused the weld to rust and fail. The replacement fluid is the same as before, just a different color.

The pressure in the Alde flow tank is the highest in the system. The thickness of the metal making up the tank is very thin and the welds are susceptible to rusting. That is what happened to mine.

I've included some images. You cannot see the welds in your system unless you take the Alde flow out. As installed, the welds are facing the floor.

Also, to answer a previous question about how to determine if you have a ground wire, my trailer is at Jackson center so I can't take and pictures.

[turk123]

My system lasted 2 1/2 years before failing. The fluid was changed out and the ground wire was added after two years. So my Alde Flow failed out of warranty. By the way, the warranty of this $4500 system is one year. That figures.

[tymcknobel]

Thank you for sharing the pictures and advice. Our Alde Flow failed 2 days before our first anniversary of Airstream ownership. That air cushion thing, we just learned about it in early fall, so we've only been releasing the pressure regularly for maybe 3 months. We love this system but disappointed to find this tank is fragile. We'll call Alde-Truma Monday and see what can be done. We did note that the Alde Flow is not bolted to floor. As for a ground wire, I assume it's there. I believe the unit was manufactured in 2020. We'll see...

[turk123]

Originally Posted by tymcknobel

Thank you for sharing the pictures and advice. Our Alde Flow failed 2 days before our first anniversary of Airstream ownership. That air cushion thing, we just learned about it in early fall, so we've only been releasing the pressure regularly for maybe 3 months. We love this system but disappointed to find this tank is fragile. We'll call Alde-Truma Monday and see what can be done. We did note that the Alde Flow is not bolted to floor. As for a ground wire, I assume it's there. I believe the unit was manufactured in 2020. We'll see...

Hi Ty. Is the Airstream dealer near Morgan Hill still repairing Airstreams in the parking lot? We took our Airstream there when we lost the subwoofer and needed the screen and door adjusted. They told us they could not do any of the work as it was out of their range! Horrible dealer back then.

They had a 6 x 12 storage shed to hold all their tools!

I am assuming they did not know about the cushion either.

[BigSxyWhtGuy]

Originally Posted by tymcknobel

Thank you for sharing the pictures and advice. Our Alde Flow failed 2 days before our first anniversary of Airstream ownership. That air cushion thing, we just learned about it in early fall, so we've only been releasing the pressure regularly for maybe 3 months. We love this system but disappointed to find this tank is fragile. We'll call Alde-Truma Monday and see what can be done. We did note that the Alde Flow is not bolted to floor. As for a ground wire, I assume it's there. I believe the unit was manufactured in 2020. We'll see...

You should be under warranty with airstream. Have you tried them already?

[tymcknobel]

Hi Tim!

Hope you're right! I think we will call Truma first, then Airstream. BTW, in addition to noticing the unit's not bolted to the floor, we've also had some leaking from an elbow connector. Being that you've worked a lot with your Alde, what connection fittings have you used? Ours has those shark teethy things that I think my husband calls them, but we were wondering if brass clamp plumbing fittings would work better with those lines? Just pondering... Thank you!

One more comment here about that pesky air cushion. So, yes I found that in the manual. If it's so important, why isn't that on page 1 of the Alde manual?! No one at Airstream dealer walkthrough mentioned it.
This draining procedure is to be done every 10 days, requiring us to dismantle part of dinette seat every 10 days to flip the valve thingie, and I wonder how many times before those plastic latch hooks break on dinette and we'll need to repair those. Glad we have extras. My husband thinks a better access point should be considered. Of course, I know--we all think that procedure is ridiculous, even if required.

Tracy

[BigSxyWhtGuy]

I have always replaced items like for like with the Alde. I’m not sure what elbow you are talking about but the T share bite style one on the hot side (red bite plastic instead of blue on cold side) is a pressure valve. Some time hard water scale build up occurs and you can take the valve off and knock off the build up with white vinegar I believe. If the drip out the clear hose continues then you can just replace the valve.

Haven’t had one of those valves fail yet in doing the air think the past three years. I have replaced a ball valve though with a silver metal twist style instead of the black plastic ones.

Airstream has a great bumper to bumper warranty for 2 years and the 3rd year covers anything airstream makes from what I understand. We only had the two years. You can go to JC and they can likely modify your Alde system to your liking to ease the need to remove the two pop clips holding the front and side of the dinette together. If not them, there are numerous 3rd party airstream modifiers that I am sure can assist with your Alde customizing.

[tymcknobel]

Thank you, Tim--those are great suggestions! Maybe we just had faulty unit. It's not like we're taking our Airstream overlanding but the rough freeways in California might have injured the unit too. We really try to be careful...

It's going in the shop Wednesday for diagnostic evaluation, so hopefully we can get this resolved soon.

Cheers,
Tracy

[tymcknobel]

Originally Posted by tymcknobel

Thank you, Tim--those are great suggestions! Maybe we just had faulty unit. It's not like we're taking our Airstream overlanding but the rough freeways in California might have injured the unit too. We really try to be careful...

It's going in the shop Wednesday for diagnostic evaluation, so hopefully we can get this resolved soon.

Cheers,
Tracy

Just confirming- the Alde Flow tank failed and was leaking quite a bit when the technician tested it out. We'll have it replaced but if the second one fails, we might consider a different water heater.

[johnparris]

Originally Posted by BigSxyWhtGuy

It’s a fun process to change it out yourself. You either need radiator clamps or drain the entire system which then takes a pump to fill it. We went clamp method. About $100 in clamps from Amazon gets the job done [emoji22]

@BigSxyWhtGuy would you mind sharing a link to the clamps you bought for this job? I’m about to do the same job and would appreciate the help.

[johnparris]

Does anyone here know if these tanks can be repaired? A new weld maybe?