Water pump or Alde drain valve problem?

[cgunning]

Cross posting this on Airforums and FB Airstream Addicts.

We have a 2018 Classic with the Alde 3010 system. A problem just popped up with the water pump and the Alde hot water drain.

1. Not connected to shore water.
2. Temps in the upper teen Sunday and Monday nights. Interior temps stayed at 60 or above.
3. Water pump continues to run after inside faucet(s) are closed and will not shut off.
4. After 5-10 seconds the Alde hot water drain valve (road-side yellow toggle) vibrates up and down rapidly.
5. We must turn off the water pump at main Firefly or bathroom panel. Once the drain valve vibration stops we can usually turn the water pump back on, but occasionally have to turn it off a second or third time.
6. If I run all of the hot water down the galley drain until the water is lukewarm the water pump operates normally for the next 6-12 hours.
7. The JC tech service person I spoke with yesterday said she had no idea what could cause this needed to schedule a service appt.

Unfortunately, the dealer Airstream advisor is out (sick?) today and no other service advisors knows what the problem could be. We are in Denver, planning to leave for the southwest and warmer temps next Wednesday. I'd really like to solve this before we leave.

Any ideas? If I have to replace the water pump, how difficult is the process in a newer Classic?

Thanks for your help!

Chuck

[rmkrum]

That sounds like the pressure switch in the water pump has failed or is failing, and not shutting off at the right pressure. The valve that is vibrating is possibly a pressure relief valve, and it is seeing excessive pressure..

I don't have anything to add about replacing the water pump, my setup is different. Main issue will be locating it, and being able to reach it to work on it...

[cgunning]

Originally Posted by rmkrum

That sounds like the pressure switch in the water pump has failed or is failing, and not shutting off at the right pressure. The valve that is vibrating is possibly a pressure relief valve, and it is seeing excessive pressure..

I don't have anything to add about replacing the water pump, my setup is different. Main issue will be locating it, and being able to reach it to work on it...

Thank you. I’m waiting to hear from our dealer’s AS service advisor who has been out sick. I agree that it has to be either the water pump or the Alde pressure relief valve.

This is the first time in the year we’ve owned our Classic that we have been in high-teens temps. It may be that really cold water getting pumped into the Alde is causing the chattering valve. The Denver temps will be significantly warmer the rest of the week so we can test my hypothesis. I’ll let you know!

[kendrick.l.j]

Hi Chuck, I don’t know where you are on the Alde learning curve so please forgive me for starting out with some basic steps. First, have you replenished the air pocket in the Alde system recently? What is the incoming water pressure set at. Although the AS says the interior pressure should be at 60, Alde clearly states the incoming water needs to be at 50 so I always use my own regulator on any spigot. I recently learned that the Alde has it’s own auto check valve because mine had failed and resulted in a slight drip under the coach but what you are describing doesn’t really sound like that. What you are describing sounds more like the boiler needs to be drained
I see you are new to the forum. There is an entire thread with something like 700 posts that go into great detail about the Alde. I would strongly suggest you take a look at that thread. MUCH ADO ALDE.
Once you get to know your AS a little better, you won’t need to go to the dealer. All things, especially Alde, can be done by the owner in a few minutes.

[kendrick.l.j]

In my opinion, FB Addicts is utterly useless, this site is where you will learn so much more about your AS. The site is very user friendly, just type in Much Ado Alde in the blue search box and everything you ever wanted to know about the Alde system is there.
There’s a lot going on in your Alde right now, drop in outside temperatures is making the system work harder, add in changes in elevation and that makes it even harder for the Alde.
Again, back to some basic information, have you bled the system? You said it was a new AS but didn’t say how new, like days new? Wondering if the dealer set up the Alde correctly. Let me know if your still have problems after you replenish the air pocket.

[Airhead2018]

Originally Posted by kendrick.l.j

Hi Chuck, I don’t know where you are on the Alde learning curve so please forgive me for starting out with some basic steps. First, have you replenished the air pocket in the Alde system recently? What is the incoming water pressure set at. Although the AS says the interior pressure should be at 60, Alde clearly states the incoming water needs to be at 50 so I always use my own regulator on any spigot. I recently learned that the Alde has it’s own auto check valve because mine had failed and resulted in a slight drip under the coach but what you are describing doesn’t really sound like that. What you are describing sounds more like the boiler needs to be drained
I see you are new to the forum. There is an entire thread with something like 700 posts that go into great detail about the Alde. I would strongly suggest you take a look at that thread. MUCH ADO ALDE.
Once you get to know your AS a little better, you won’t need to go to the dealer. All things, especially Alde, can be done by the owner in a few minutes.

#1 Not connected to shore water.

[james.mileur]

Your pump runs a bit past faucet shutoff to replenish the boiler chamber and compress the air cushion. Especially in cold weather, you must restore the air cushion more often as the Alde heat source runs more and higher temps. You may also have a defective safety valve, which you can replace yourself, if AS well ship one to you. The 3010 manual is near the beginning of the Much Ado thread, and a post about the cushion. Welcome to the BAT.

[cgunning]

Originally Posted by kendrick.l.j

Hi Chuck, I don’t know where you are on the Alde learning curve so please forgive me for starting out with some basic steps. First, have you replenished the air pocket in the Alde system recently? What is the incoming water pressure set at. Although the AS says the interior pressure should be at 60, Alde clearly states the incoming water needs to be at 50 so I always use my own regulator on any spigot. I recently learned that the Alde has it’s own auto check valve because mine had failed and resulted in a slight drip under the coach but what you are describing doesn’t really sound like that. What you are describing sounds more like the boiler needs to be drained
I see you are new to the forum. There is an entire thread with something like 700 posts that go into great detail about the Alde. I would strongly suggest you take a look at that thread. MUCH ADO ALDE.
Once you get to know your AS a little better, you won’t need to go to the dealer. All things, especially Alde, can be done by the owner in a few minutes.

Thanks! I been through they entire Much Ado About Alde thread in its entirety at least three times -not sure what that say about my retention skills. It’s a great resource and I did check it it again this week, but didn’t find anything on point.

I replenished the air cushion on Monday and Tuesday this week, but that didn’t solve the problem. Once temps got reliably above freezing I hooked up to shore water, turned off the water pump and the problem vanished. Did a quick check with on-board water and the problem recurred. I also noticed a persistent drip underneath the Alde unit (red drain hose) while on shore water.

My conclusion at this point is the Alde pressure relief valve has failed and must be replaced. I removed our external pressure regulator for the time being. Even with it removed we get much better water pressure via the water pump than we do via the AS pressure-regulated shore water.

Our dealer (WindishRV in Denver) didn’t have a pressure relief valve in stock, but is expediting a replacement from JC. It should arrive by Tuesday so they can replace it Wednesday morning on our way to southern CA. If it doesn’t arrive in time, I’ll ask Windish to forward it to me in CA and attempt the valve replacement myself. It doesn’t look like a difficult replacement as long as I can contort sufficiently or do the job one-handed!

Thanks again. I’ll keep updating the status as it changes.

Chuck

[uncle_bob]

Hi

"much better pressure" from the pump than from the regulator suggests that the pump may be putting out too much pressure ..... Why any of this only happens in the cold ... who knows ....

Bob

[rmkrum]

Interesting thought, Uncle_bob.

I wonder if it would be a good idea to add a water pressure gauge somewhere in the internal water system where one could actually measure what is going on.

My regulator for hose-end use in a campground has a gauge, but it does me no good when the water pump is running.

Just another thought from the "Department of Overkill Engineering"...

[uncle_bob]

Hi

If you want to get an idea of what's going on, rig a gauge to a faucet. That will let you look at the situation and then put the gauge away. Only bad things can happen with bits and pieces of unused "stuff" permanently attached to the water pipes.

Bob

[cgunning]

We solved the problem..at least for now. The Alde hot water pressure relief valve was replaced (under warranty) resulting in no more valve chatter when using the water pump. It was replaced on our way out of Denver on Wednesday and we haven’t been hooked up to shore water for the past three days. So far all is good and no drips from the red drain tube.

We check in to a campground Sunday and will have the opportunity to confirm everything works while connected to shore water too. I’ll let you know what happens then.

Thanks for all the help! Airforums has been invaluable during our first year of full time Streaming.