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Old 01-04-2017, 05:44 PM   #1
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Manufacturer defect?

So, we bought our brand new 2016 Berkshire XL 40A from Lazydays in Tampa, FL. Drove it off after PDI to our favorite campground and settled in for a week of shakedown. Found a few minor problems and one MAJOR one. For some reason, our black tank kept filling up, but our grey tank never registered at all. Put up with this for two days before I decided to get to the bottom of the problem. Let the black tank fill up and then let it fill up a bit more. Took less than a day. Ran a little water in kitchen sink and to my great surprise, the water in the drains started to backup. Long story short, the kitchen sink is plumbed to the black tank. In 35 years of RVing in everything from popups to TT, to hybrids, to multiple fifth wheels and now a MH, we have NEVER seen a manufacturer do this. We returned to Lazydays to report our manufacturer error and to get it remedied. Lo and behold, according to Forest River, for this make and model, this setup is in fact exactly how its supposed to be. We are considering our options. We do not intend to drive this thing away from Lazydays in this condition. Had we known it was plumbed this way, we would not have accepted delivery.

My question to all of you - has anyone seen this sort of thing before? Needless to say, we are not happy with Forest River or with Lazydays.
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Old 01-04-2017, 06:10 PM   #2
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It's not unheard of. I've seen several posts with a similar complaint on this forum. I think usually it's an outside kitchen sink to the black tank.
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Old 01-04-2017, 06:16 PM   #3
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WoW!!! hard to believe.. What is plumbed to the grey tank?? only the bathroom stuff?. maybe someone with a XL 40A will chime in
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Old 01-04-2017, 06:17 PM   #4
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Your black tank has a huge capacity, and it filled up in 2 days from the toilet and kitchen sink? You have a real issue or do a lot of dishes! Some other FR products are plumbed this way also, code wise it must pass! Youroo! !
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Old 01-04-2017, 06:20 PM   #5
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Wife has a nasty habit of washing in the kitchen sink with too much water. ie. she leaves the water run and run and run. I can deal with that. What I can't, and won't deal with is sewage backing up into the kitchen sink from the black tank. This is just plain wrong and needs to be addressed by FR.
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Old 01-04-2017, 06:20 PM   #6
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Did you or Lazydays talk to FR? would recommend you get a hold of Randy Houser at the Berkshire division and speak to him or Andy. Lazydays might just be giving you BS. Haven't heard of anyother Berkshire having this issue.
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Old 01-04-2017, 06:25 PM   #7
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As far as "it must be code," the short answer is there is no binding building code for RVs like there is for brick and mortar. There are industry standards that most manufacturers adhere too and that they receive certifications from, RVIA being the most common in the US. Bottom line is RV manufacturers have alot of leeway in what they do. One assumes, incorrectly it seems, that common sense is part of the process.
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Old 01-04-2017, 06:28 PM   #8
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Here is Randy Houser # 574-522-1583 or Mitch Wirth 574-295-2117
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Old 01-04-2017, 06:29 PM   #9
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NO3Put you made my point for me. The FR rep I talked to today gave me a bunch of BS about this being standard for this model manufactured during this time period. I explained that in 35 years of RVing I have never seen this in any other model built by any other manufacturer. I am not giving up yet, but this is more work than I should have to go through considering what I paid for this thing.
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Old 01-04-2017, 06:35 PM   #10
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Pearley44, don't know who you talked to, but get a hold of Randy at FR. Email to him works best. Rhouser@forestriverinc.com he is hard to get a hold of on the phone at times but will usually reply to emails within a day or two. Does you gray tank fill up?
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Old 01-04-2017, 06:39 PM   #11
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Grey tank does fill up, but it takes alot more to do it considering the only thing going in there is bathroom sink and shower. Towards the end of the day today I did get in touch with the FR rep at Lazydays, Bob Richardson. He seems helpful so we'll see where it goes. I will keep Randy's info close by. Thanks so much for your help.
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Old 01-04-2017, 07:51 PM   #12
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Not the 1st time I have heard this on this site. Not sure if only Berks or other models as well. I want NOTHING connected to the black tank except toilets. I mumble that the galley gray requires bending over to empty but it is a separate tank.
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Old 01-04-2017, 07:52 PM   #13
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It's not unheard of. I've seen several posts with a similar complaint on this forum. I think usually it's an outside kitchen sink to the black tank.

Never in a Berkshire. They have always only had a gray tank and a black tank.



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Old 01-04-2017, 07:59 PM   #14
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Grey tank does fill up, but it takes alot more to do it considering the only thing going in there is bathroom sink and shower. Towards the end of the day today I did get in touch with the FR rep at Lazydays, Bob Richardson. He seems helpful so we'll see where it goes. I will keep Randy's info close by. Thanks so much for your help.

Do you have two toilets? There are no Berkshires that have their black tank hooked up to a sink drain. This is absolutely unacceptable and is just not the way it is supposed to be done. It is dangerous to have the black tank hooked to a sink or shower. Can you tell if the gates at the black and gray tanks are working? If for some reason the gray gate was left open or was broken the gray water will drain into the black tank. Check that but other than that I agree call or email Randy.
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Old 01-04-2017, 08:23 PM   #15
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We have a 2016 Berkshire xl 40A bought at mhsrv. We have the same situation in that the toilet and the kitchen sink go into the black tank. Fills up pretty fast considering. The two sinks at the vanity and the shower go to the gray. We found out the same way you did and did some testing. That's what we found. I think in our case we found it sooner rather than later because we were trying to figure out the Atwood tankless water heater and ran a lotof water till it got hot each time at the kitchen sink. We've made the adjustment on the water heater and I think got that wrestled, but still know that the black will fill up way before the gray-backward in my mind. We love the coach, and the floor plan and this and the big Carefree slide covers (on the big slideouts they will catch the side wind and partially unravel when driving in high wind) Are the only things we've had issue with. I'm not sure there'll be a fix.
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Old 01-04-2017, 08:37 PM   #16
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Lgave, as to the large topper, they make a metal cover that is like the cover for the awing, not sure where to get them but someone will chime in. a few people have put them on.
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Old 01-04-2017, 10:06 PM   #17
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Wow I can't except this being designed like that. Absolutely no way I would be ok with this. A shower could over flow and you would have raw sewage coming up from the drains? Wow not a good plan.



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Old 01-04-2017, 10:35 PM   #18
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Originally Posted by rockfordroo View Post
It's not unheard of. I've seen several posts with a similar complaint on this forum. I think usually it's an outside kitchen sink to the black tank.
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Originally Posted by Phil57 View Post
Never in a Berkshire. They have always only had a gray tank and a black tank.
I never commented on how many tanks they have. I said that there a number of instances on the forum of a sink being plumbed to a black tank. (Actually, a second gray tank is what he NEEDS.)

I believe it's usually done because they can't easily get the sink drain line over to the single gray tank because of some kind of obstruction.

Looking at the OPS floor plan, the shower is to the rear of the toilet while the kitchen sink is forward of the toilet. So I'd bet his gray tank is located behind the black tank and receives water from the shower and bathroom sinks. Since it would be difficult to plumb the kitchen sink around the toilet and black tank to the gray tank, I'm betting they simply plumbed it to the black tank.

Of course, I could be wrong.
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Old 01-04-2017, 10:45 PM   #19
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I still have a hard time believing they would do that. I looked at the floor plan and the gray tank would be just beneath the sinks and shower and close the the kitchen sink. Mine would be much harder to plumb and all of my gray water goes to my gray tank. And I of course can and most likely could be wrong. I just can't believe FR would do that on a top Line product. If they did it's damn stupid.



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Old 01-04-2017, 10:48 PM   #20
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I just reread the OP post and it's the Kitchen sink. That's way worse than the bath. That's awful. Don't ever mess up when back flushing or your kitchen will be full of poo



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