hello everybody, 1972 nomad newbie questions

[Louis Soto]

hi everybody, new to the forum and also new to rv'ing. i am from riverside california. i am 38 yrs young, married and have 3 wonderfull girls (3, 9, and 13). i build choppers (motorcycles) for a living. i deliver these bike pretty much anywhere in southern california. i love to take my family with me on "working vacations" when i do (usually over weekends). we love spending time by the beaches. a few weeks ago i went to visit a friend with my wife and i saw this trailer with a for sale sign sitting in a neighbors driveway. i commented to my wife how i always wanted to buy one but i could never justify the cost of buying it considering the amount of use i would give it. anyhow i asked my friend if he knew how much they where asking and he didn't know. we decided to walk overthere and ask. the owner said he was asking $500 or best offer. needless to say, i offered him $450 and we struck the deal. i couldn't believe my luck!!! it is a 1972 nomad and it is in very decent condition. the owner just never used it so he decided it was time to sell it. i have zero experience with trailers so please be patient as i have many questions. my first question is about the bad odor in the trailer. it smells like it's been closed for many years or something(kinda like mildew i guess). i looked around but i could not see any rot or mold. there is one little corner of the ceiling that had water damage but it has been repaired  and everything is quite dry. i have been reading about how these trailers tend to sweat. is there anything i can do to get rid of the smell? we will be reupholstering all the seat cushions and putting down some new linoleum flooring. we are kinda hoping that will take some of the smell away but i doubt it. any input folks? 

ps: here are a couple pics of what i do and the only pic i currently have of the trailer. will take some later today:

 

 

 

[Louis Soto]

hey pat thanks for posting. my name is Louis but you fine folks can call me Lou. thanks for the link i will try those things as well. what should i be looking for when i check the "repaired" area?

[Louis Soto]

hey pat i was looking for the link you said about repairing the roof at the bottom of the home page, wasn't quite able to find it

[Louis Soto]

my trailer is in very good shape with the exception of that one little area in the corner where the ceiling is hanging down a tad from water damage. could the smell be coming from the septic tank? i was brave enough to open the tank's shut valve and found that the tank was empty. the trailer did have water in the water heater tank which i emptied yesterday.

[William Briggs]

Lou, the old nomad I grew up with had only one holding tank. Later models added a 2nd tank so you could keep toilet flushes ("blackwater") seperated from sink and shower water. Nowadays they often have three--allowing you to keep shower and sink water separate. In a crunch some land managers will allow you to discretely discharge the sink water to the ground. Some even allow you to discharge shower water.
Holding tanks are seldom a big problem with smell. They are vented through the roof. I would certainly look behind that bit of water damaged ceiling. Chances are, your smell is coming from there.
Because the shower and sinks in your nomad discharge to the blackwater tank, I would dump a cup of water down each of those drains to make sure the traps aren't dry. Otherwise the holding tank smells might be finding a path into your rig through those dry traps.

[William Briggs]

Seeing that old Nomad takes me back 40 years! In ours, the entire freshwater tank was pressurized. Nowadays, only the water lines themselves are pressurized. The water, being under constant 40 lbs of air pressure, picked up this weird texture ... similar to carbonated water.

The other interesting thing about those old units is there is no power converter ... ours had an odd configuaration of 12-volt lighting, 110-volt lighting, and even a propane-fired lantern over the dining booth. Made life a LOT easier when the engineers invented the concept of a power converter.

Perhaps the biggest problem in the old Nomad I grew up with, was the use of copper lines for plumbing. Copper is terribly unforgiving in sub-freezing temps. I'd suggest, as you find the need to work on those copper lines, that you gradually replace them with more modern material.

Your girls will enjoy the adventure very much ... if I'm not mistaken, your floor plan has a drop-down bunk bed over the sofa bed at the front of the rig. Plus the dining booth makes a bed. So you'll be able to sleep everyone comfortably.

I can't tell you how many nights and great memories I have from that Nomad similar to yours. I know my parents bought that rig used and kept it for more than 20 years. Enjoy!

[Louis Soto]

thankyou for your replies william, you guys are really helping me out to become familiar with these units which in general i don't know anything about! i did security for my uncles construction site a few years ago and stayed in one very simular to this one(his was a little smaller though). the other day i tried putting a little water down the sink just to see what happens and it fell out through a pipe at the back of the trailer. i would say the pipe is about 2 1/2 inches dia. or so(white with a cap, cap wasn't on) when i looked into the pipe it it tees off toward the shower/sink and then to the septic tank. you can see the shut/open valve door for the septic through the pipe. where is the water from the shower sink supposed to go during use. i assume the septic tank valve is supposed to remain shut during use right?

[William Briggs]

Lou, that question stumped me, but I called my Dad and he told me how that plumbing arrangement worked on the Nomad...

He said those rigs were built with only the one holding tank, which catches the toilet flushes. Normally, the sink and shower just drains out of the back of the unit, exactly as you described. HOWEVER, he did say there was a valve in the sink/sewer drain line which could be used to divert that graywater into the blackwater (toilet) tank, if necessary.

Back in the 70's, however, he said he never diverted the graywater into the blackwater tank; he just discretely drained it onto the ground. I think most parks would take issue with that practice these days.

Keep us posted; we old men enjoy giving advice, while you boys do all the work!

[William Briggs]

Lou, if you haven't yet found the "stinky slinky" -- pull the end caps off the back bumper. Stowed inside the bumper you'll find the sewer hose, also known as the "stinky slinky."

If your house has a sewer cleanout which is easily accessible, just hook the stinky slinky to the trailer, drop the other end into that sewer cleanout, and pull the valve to dump. Some houses where I've lived, it's easy to get the trailer reasonably close to the home's sewer cleanout; other houses it's impossible. Still other houses don't even have an outdoor sewer cleanout.

You're correct in saying the valve emptying the blackwater tank should remain closed at all times, except while dumping. And the blackwater tank should be reasonably FULL before dumping, if possible. You want the pressure of a full holding tank to help flush the tank when it empties.

I live full-time in an RV park, and continually stay connected to city water, sewer, and electricity. However, even in that situation, I do not leave the blackwater tank valve open. If I were to leave it open, then the liquids would readily drain into the city sewer connection, leaving the solids in the bottom of the tank to dry and harden.

So, although I remain connected to the city sewer connection by leaving the "stinky slinky" in place, I always keep the blackwater tank CLOSED until it gets at least 3/4 full (for me, that takes about a week). Then, when I open the drain valve, that twenty gallons of blackwater trying to all get down a 4" hose creates a suction which tends to help flush any solid material out of the holding tank.

A few times a year, I fill the blackwater tank with fresh water, then dump it, just to get a good rinse inside the tank.

I seldom use chemicals. Some of those chemicals are downright dangerous and pass through the city's sewer-treatment plant unmodified -- only to wind up in the drinking water!!! Better to use no chemicals at all, if possible. I do keep a bag of "ecologically-friendly" treatment tablets under the bathroom sink. I rarely use them but occasionally will in the hot summer. When temps get over 100 degrees here in Oklahoma, the bacteria in the holding tank goes crazy and can result in some funky odors.

Eventually, I want to redo the cap on the tank's vent-pipe on the roof. Some of those cap designs do a LOT better job of sucking smelly air from the holding tanks. But, as I said, it's very rare that I have any problems with odors from the holding tank.

[Louis Soto]

hey guys, i get so excited to read your posts about this trailer, sometimes it gets difficult to concentrate in the shop during the day, i can't wait to get back to the trailer project! anyhow i took some pictures of the trailer finally this afternoon. i have alot of questions so please bear with me. i will explore the trailer to see if i can find that valve which you said was used to divert the sink/shower water to the blackwater tank. i would imagine however that some of the vapors will come up through the piping into the sink and shower? today while looking at the water heater system i noticed a knob that goes connected to the wiring in the heater compartment, i am pointing to it in one of the pictures. what is this knob for? it is missing any type of knob or plate with writing on it that might give me a clue.

 

[David Grant]

It sounded to me more like a gentle oldy moldy smell.  You didn'y mention poop in your post.  Open all windows, remove all cloth, do the nice wipe as an earlier post suggested.  My sister suggested I try Mellaluca. (No I don't sell it), But it worked great.  I treated the few old, previously wetted areas under windows and even my wife says I worked a miracle.  She was even willing to sleep in the 57 Yellowstone/"Baby Elephant".  Mellaluca aka as Tea Tree Oil was found in Australia by aboriginies, they bathed in the pools near the trees and it cured all of their injuries. It is antiseptic and anti mold, but Does NOT stink like some modern chemical...

[Keith Gigabyte]

lou..my 1976 nomad

[William Briggs]

I've never seen that valve before. I called my Dad at 9:30 this morning; woke him up. (He's the weirdest old man I've ever known ... I thought old people were to get up about 4 in the morning!) ANYWAY, my Dad said his Nomad didn't have that control. His Nomad was 3-4 years older, and all the controls to the hot water tank were accessible from an exterior panel on the port side front of the unit. So, I can't help on the water heater knob. It would be GREAT if it were a bypass -- those old water heaters didn't seem to be plumbed with a bypass. But my first guess is it is the thermostat control.

BUT, LISTEN UP, your freshwater system is pressurized by an AIR PUMP, which keeps the freshwater tank under about 40lbs of air pressure. That air pump will have a switch somewhere in the unit, and that switch will be very near the spot you are describing. ARE YOU SURE the switch you are describing is connected to the water heater, and not the air pump?

BY THE WAY, thanks for sharing the interior pics. Man, those take me back. If you'd pick up the galley and put it on the starboard (passenger) side of the unit, then move the dinette to the port side, you'd have the exact floor plan of the rig I grew up in. Even down to that ugly green linoleum. HOWEVER, you'd need to change the appliances to "avocado green" instead of "harvest gold." And the upholestery was dark green as well, but I think everything else is almost identical to that Nomad built in the late 60's.

There are a lot of pics on this site, where folks have remodeled the older trailers. You'll want to look at them. We tend to agree it's best to keep the rig looking "from its period" instead of trying to go completely modern with the color-scheme.

The bathroom is laid out in a slightly different configuration. But I do remember you had to turn on the bathroom sink to get the water running in the shower!!! That's exactly the plumbing arrangement you show on the pics.

I think I like the floorplan of your Nomad better than the one I grew up in. The galley on the port side makes a LOT more sense, because the plumbing makes more sense. It's all right there, along that one wall, instead of running all over the rig. PLUS, the box containing the refrigerator and furnace adjoins the bathroom, thus opening up the unit making it look larger and brighter.

COMMENT: I didn't see the water damage you were speaking of. I saw some delaminating wallpaper in the bunk bed area, which probably affects every unit more than about 10 years old. My A-class has the same delamination problem above the bunk bed. The heat simply does not circulate up there when the bunk bed is closed, allowing condensation to form, forcing the wallpaper to delaminate.

COMMENT: I did see what you're saying about the graywater drain underneath the rear bumper. That drain tees into the main drain line AFTER the blackwater valve and immediately BEFORE the sewer connection. There's no place for the graywater to go!!! I hope my Dad is right about there being a diverting valve somewhere upstream. IF NOT, all is not lost. You can buy one of those holding-tanks on wheels for fairly inexpensively; you can usually find used ones on CraigsList for $20 or $30. AND, these days many of the state parks are offering at least a few campsites with sewer hookups, which makes the idea of a graywater tank a non-issue.

AND, the graywater holding tank is a very temporary solution anyway. For me, a single man, the blackwater tank holds about a week of toilet flushes, which is fine. But I shower in the rig every morning, and wash dishes, and leave the water running while I brush my teeth--basically don't try to control my graywater generation. So I'm lucky if the graywater tank lasts 3 days, and if I have someone traveling with me, it generally doesn't last but 24 hours.

So, my point is that, with 2 adults and 3 little girls, you AIN'T going to be able to hold all the graywater you generate, anyway, even if you had a graywater tank. The best answer is to make sure you have a plan to get rid of the graywater as it's generated, if at all possible.

I do have an idea for an inexpensive way to divert the graywater into the blackwater tank. If you find that the rig doesn't have a diverting valve, let me know and I'll sketch out my idea and post it.

FINAL COMMENT: Should you find you ever need to do any freshwater plumbing, post your problem on this site a few days before you start the job. There are a LOT of positive changes which have occurred in the area of freshwater plumbing since 1972, and we can give you advice at that time. For example, I'm almost sure your freshwater tank is pressurized with air. By simply removing that air pump and replacing with a $40 pump in the water line, your system will be easier to maintain I think. AND it will be a LOT quieter. But that work doesn't need to be done, until you have another plumbing project.