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Old 07-17-2013, 02:19 PM   #1
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Question What water is filtered? 3170DS

Hi,

On a trip and no longer live in the state where I bought my motorhome. Called the original dealer but got some odd "off the cuff" remarks and wanted to verify or refute them here with the experts.

First the problem:
I stopped in a state park late at night 2 nights ago with very little water in the tanks. Wanted to be able to flush and rinse dishes so I just went to the closest POTABLE tap and filled the tank up most of the way.

Next morning I went to the bath house and was agast at the iron stains EVERYWHERE. The water evidently was so hard and iron-laden that you could chew it if you tried.

So, on departure I decided to purge that gross water from my fresh water tank and flipped the little lever in the access bay. Forgot to stop at the park exit and turn it off again and ran the tank completely dry. Drove all day with (I think) the pump on and no water....

Got to the next park with good water/full hookups and proceeded to rinse some clean water through the tank and then hook up to the city water connection.

When I went inside, I had good flow from the sinks and tub but no bowl-rinse in the toilet. Fiddled with this and that. Found the water filter half-full of air and purged that. Even called Coach-net Tech Assistance who told me it was probably a stuck back-flow preventer valve and to take it in for service.

Finally decided to see if I was getting water at the flush valve and disconnected the compression fitting on the back. Low and behold - about a tablespoon of grey/black grit was clogging the inlet screen on the flush valve. Cleaned that out and toilet is right as rain.

Question 1 - how did all of this grit get to the toilet? Does the water filter not filter ALL water that enters the coach? (The original dealer service manager told me it only filtered the kitchen sink.) Anyone have a plumbing schematic for 3170 or Sunseekers in general?

Question 2 - Why was this "junk" not fouling the aerators on the kitchen or bathroom sink?

Question 3 - Did I do harm to my water pump by running it all day dry? It seems to pump with good water pressure now - but should I be ready for an inevitable failure?

Question 4 - Could this "grit" have been the guts of my water pump making its way to the first fixture used after there was water available again (the toilet)? It didn't feel like metal or plastic - it felt like beach sand and looked like the calcium deposits you would see in a very hard water area.

Thanks in advance. Happily flushing and washing (for now! )
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Old 07-17-2013, 03:08 PM   #2
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Even with the factory installed whole house style water filter I still use another on my hose connection. Most RVers I am seeing in this RV Park are also using the same filter on their fresh water hose. On my #3051S the fresh water tank fill goes into the tank first and then through the filter only when the pump is on. So use the Camco filter when filling your fresh was tank too! I would rather have a little lower pressure than crap in my lines. Also, I purchased an extra Camco RV filter at Walmart or get one at Amazon.com.


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Old 07-17-2013, 03:23 PM   #3
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My filter filters everything in the trailer. The filter is after the pump and the city hookup is tee'd after the pump. So no matter which water i use the whole house filter filters everything. You need to do some snooping around to verify how it is plumbed.
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Old 07-19-2013, 09:30 PM   #4
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The filter should filter everything that is pumped from the fresh water tank and supplied thru the city water connection. Sometimes, as was the case with my coach, the person building the unit takes a short cut to save installing a line and taps in the city water connection after the filter. The schematics show all water from either the pump or city water connection piped thru the filter.

In this case either the filter blew thru or there was some debris left in the line during installation. The debris you found could only come from the pump if the filter blew thru.
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Old 07-19-2013, 10:34 PM   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by flynmoose View Post
Question 3 - Did I do harm to my water pump by running it all day dry? It seems to pump with good water pressure now - but should I be ready for an inevitable failure?
Although the FW tank was empty, the water pump may not have run at all unless there was a pressure drop...as in a open faucet, leak, check valve not holding. The fact that its still working and providing good pressure indicates no harm done.

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Old 08-17-2013, 10:42 PM   #6
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Just a follow-up for anyone who might read this in the future.

1) Water pump is still going strong after another 5K miles on the motorhome.
2) No further pressure issues with the toilet.
3) No further junk in any of the fixtures - so it must have been installation 'junk' that made its way to the toilet.

Thanks all for your help.
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