Water Pump Draining My Batteries?

[clintbonnie73]

Originally Posted by rockfordroo

Your fridge probably has a door heater that will drain your battery fairly quickly. Open the outside panel of your fridge and look for a wiring diagram. Mine is below. My door heater is item "K." It is wired in parallel with the fridge's inside light "G" and door switch "H." You can see they are all powered from pin J2.
Attachment 140450

I've attached a document showing you how to de-energize the heater while keeping the inside light functional. If you don't care about losing the light, you can just pull the wire off connection J2.

Door heater is new to me.. What exactly does a door heater do ? Seems strange to have a heater inside a refrig.

[5picker]

Originally Posted by clintbonnie73

Door heater is new to me.. What exactly does a door heater do ? Seems strange to have a heater inside a refrig.

It keeps condensation/frost from building around the freezer/refrigerator door seal area.

[SidecarFlip]

Originally Posted by 5picker

Same logic could be applied to your sticks & bricks home.
Do you shut the water off every time after each use?

Yes... I know you're going to say the R/V gets lots more abuse because of going up & down the highways but geesh... I want water when I want water and don't want to be fumbling around looking for a switch.

Turn the pump on only when you want water... turn the water heater on only when you want hot water... don't throw toilet paper in the toilet... don't even use the toilet.... put the awning out... put the awning in... don't tow with the factory tires... don't carry water in the fresh water tank... do what you want but I'm using my R/V.

Whatever. I turn mine off when not using it, but then your mileage may vary.

FR tells you not to carry water in the FW tank on some models because the sub standard lippert tank braces will fail.... Not my thing.

[BigGuy87]

Originally Posted by SidecarFlip

What I don't get is, why anyone wants to leave the water pump switch ON, all the time. Thats a mistake. If something fails in the system, a pipe bursts, a fitting lets go, you have a flood because the pump will pump the FW tank dry if it's left on. Very bad idea. The pump switch is located where it is for convenient ON and OFF use.

When you're camping with full hook ups, do you go out to the water hydrant and turn it on and off each time you want to use water? Same or greater risk.

[SidecarFlip]

Originally Posted by 5picker

Same logic could be applied to your sticks & bricks home.
Do you shut the water off every time after each use?

Yes... I know you're going to say the R/V gets lots more abuse because of going up & down the highways but geesh... I want water when I want water and don't want to be fumbling around looking for a switch.

Turn the pump on only when you want water... turn the water heater on only when you want hot water... don't throw toilet paper in the toilet... don't even use the toilet.... put the awning out... put the awning in... don't tow with the factory tires... don't carry water in the fresh water tank... do what you want but I'm using my R/V.

Furthermore, my home has sweated copper plumbing, mot PEX with crimp clamps applied by the 'Amish craftsmen whose work is already suspect (as has been noted on here) countless times....

[SidecarFlip]

Originally Posted by BigGuy87

When you're camping with full hook ups, do you go out to the water hydrant and turn it on and off each time you want to use water? Same or greater risk.

Cannot answer that in as much in 20 years of camping, I've only used a campground's hookup one time and I shut the water off before we went to bed because I don't trust the quality craftsmanship. 99% of the time we do not stay in campgrounds and if we do, it's a primitive one.

Don't like campgrounds at all. Too many people, ill behaved kids, noisy, like living in a city where everyone is burning wet wood and it stinks.

I already live in the boonies, why would I want to pay for the 'honor' of putting my camper in an setting where your 'neighbor' is 15 feet away, it's noisy, smoky and people are inconsiderate.

Not me bud. I'll take a BLM or State campground primitive site anytime over that crap.

Different strokes for different folks. I like my dessert quiet and peaceful.

[pgandw]

I did learn the hard way to turn the water pump off before hitting the road. I decided to drain the water tank on the way back from a trip. At the time, we had well water at home and the sulfur smell would start to come out after the water sat in the tank for a couple of months.

Forgetting to turn the pump off as we drove home with the tank draining, I learned of my mistake on the next trip. I filled the water tank, and went to turn on the pump to fill the water heater, and found the pump already on, and the pump inoperable. A $65 SPUT (Stupid Pop-Up Trick). And for 4 days in the Black Hills, I had to haul water for cooking and cleaning.

Now part of my pop-down checklist (all learned the hard way through SPUTs):
- turn off water pump
- latch fridge door closed
- close and securely latch Fantastic Fan cover
- make sure all 4 stabilizers are up

Fred W - trying hard to learn from other people's mistakes instead of my own
2014 Rockwood A122 A-frame

[5picker]

Originally Posted by SidecarFlip

Furthermore, my home has sweated copper plumbing, mot PEX with crimp clamps applied by the 'Amish craftsmen whose work is already suspect (as has been noted on here) countless times....

Millions of homes have PEX plumbing (not sweated copper) and don't blow apart.
But maybe they weren't plumbed by the suspect Amish craftsman you refer to?

Yep... my mileage does vary.