What are they thinking when building NEW trailers?

[Lakota Wolf]

Sometimes it is a bad thing to be the nice guy in the RV parks,,, Not complaining, But alot of people get the word that I work on RV's and they come knocking on my door, or catch me tinkering outside.

A *newbie to the RV world has a 2 yr old Innsbruck by Gulf Stream 28 ft bumper pull trailer that has a serious water issue. The issue is,,, City water back filling into the fresh water holding tank. This results in the tank filling up, and being under pressure balloons the tank to almost twice its normal size till it finally blows the holding tanks fill cap, and blows out about 10 or so gallons of Green funky alge coated slime water.I *volunteered,, being the nice guy I am, to kinda give it a looksie.  Heres what I have assesed.  City water line comes in and grey water line goes directly to the under belly 50 gallon water tank (fresh water tank). Then 2 Black water lines come out, one going all the way from the front of the trailer to the very back corner to the water heater,, the other going to a 4 way *T to supply cold water to the kitchen sink, bathroom sink, toilet and tub. (seperate lines mind you.), They didn't think to put T's at each spigot. The hot water then goes 3/4's the way back towards the front of the trailer to the galley (kitchen and then again breaks off to a 3 way split,, to feed the kitchen sink, the shower and bathroom sink,, again, seperate lines with long runs.

In MOST city water connections,, they have a T fitting to intigrate the water into the water line system of the trailer and several have a Pressure shut off valve (spring loaded, as to NOT fill the holding tank).

I assume sense this trailer is almost new,,, some one at the factory doesn't know how to plumb water systems in a trailer. The owner has taken it to 3 different RV repair places and was told it is a cluster fudge run of plumbing and would require a whole new system. His warrantee was for only one year, so hes outta luck with dealer or manufacture eating the cost of the repairs. A spokesperson from Gulf Stream told him ALL these trailers are plumbed that way so as to not have to fill the holding tank seperatly for each trip.

**Note.... this morning around 4 a/m I heard a gurgled boom noise and a loud thud..... neighbors water tank split in the middle and dropped on the ground, and of course gushing water from the city water blowing thru the line.  Got his water shut off and surveyed the situation and it definitley needs a new holding tank, or if hes only going to stay in RV parks with services,,, capping the water lines into the main feed lines for the whole trailer. It's sad to see a hard working Contractor spend good money on a trailer he thinks will last him several years, get a hold of a shoddy built, low quality trailer and have to spend umteen dollars just to keep it together,, along with a couple rolls of duct tape and some mechanics wire. Plus, his 2 yr old awning is already shredding apart and half falling off from the elements and the seams on the front corners are seperating, due to the siding being cut to short to match up to the front panels,, and the gutter seam is only stapled not screwed in on the front.  I love OLD RV's,,, Built to last more then 2 years.

[Larry D Hatlestad]

I know that it's to late to fix it but someone at the dealer should have put a ball valve in the line that was feeding the fresh water tank so the owner could open or close it when he needed it.

[Lakota Wolf]

Thanks for the compliment.. I have a ton of RV horror stories from over the years, and I cringe at newbies trying something before they practice a little bit. In a lot of RV parks I see RV's that are set up and never see pavement of our highways. Most are retired folks who love the area,weather etc, and they sell there huge Mcmasions and prefer the simple RV spot life.