We recently picked up our RV after leaving it in the shop for 3 months. More on that in another post, but suffice it to say that we didn't winterize it because we never planned to be out of it for so long. The shop assured us that the brief freezing temperatures experienced in Georgia over that 3 month period were nothing to worry about, as they weren't going to be "hard freezes", so we didn't need to do anything to prep the RV.
Whether or not that is true I can't say, however on our first trip out after the shop, after the first shower, we noticed a huge puddle of water on the bathroom floor. We weren't sure exactly where the water was coming from, but it was late and we were tired, so we sopped it all up with towels and decided not to use that shower again until we could have someone look at it. Luckily, our RV has 2 full baths, so no big deal. The next day I used the rear shower instead, and within minutes Christy noticed another puddle forming on the floor. Exasperated, I quickly finished my shower and sopped up the water yet again.
My first week back on the road, with a new job, and 2 broken showers. I did NOT have time to deal with this. Luckily we were at a rally and they had a mobile handyman on premises ready for just such an occasion. I was more than happy to let him troubleshoot the issue. He quickly determined that the faucet fixtures were leaking on the back, after the valves, in the mixing T:
The area circled in red is a small stream of water spraying from a leak in the mixing T. This is with the shower barely turned on, and the pause valve open. If I turned the water up more or closed the pause valve the water sprayed uncontrollably. This gushing stream of water had been spraying in the space behind the shower, running down the wall and running along a conduit behind the toilet before pouring onto the bathroom floor.
After a few emails and phone calls with our RV manufacturer's service department, we were assured that the parts and labor to fix this would be covered under warranty. We could have our mobile handyman here at the rally do the work, pay him, and get reimbursed. Yay! Problem 1 solved! But there would be more.
Now we had 2 working, non-puddle-forming showers again, but we still had wet walls and floors behind the showers and toilets. A quick post to the Facebook group for our rally and our friendly neighbors came to the rescue, loaning us 2 small fans, a small space heater, a hair dryer, and a dehumidifier.
I ran the various appliances in cycles, with the most effective seeming to be the hair dryer. The shower has several access ports that let you get to some of the plumbing behind it, so I put the hair dryer into each of these, and into the space behind the toilet to dry each in turn. Before long everything seemed to be in good shape again, so we returned the loaned appliances and breathed a premature sigh of relief.
The next morning Christy discovered another puddle on the bathroom floor... in both bathrooms. No one had showered this time, and it was smaller than before, but I was in no mood for it! We cleaned up the puddles and I hoped the problem would magically go away on its own. No surprise here, but it didn't. We went through 3 or 4 soaked towels in each bathroom over the next day or so before I gave in and decided to see what the problem was. It was the weekend by now, so instead of enjoying my time off and the beautiful Florida weather, I broke out the tools.
It seemed there was a very slow leak from the supply line providing water to each of the toilets. Nothing spraying like before; just a slow drip that could soak a washcloth overnight. I tried tightening the connectors but it had no effect and I was wary of breaking the fragile plastic pieces on either the hose or the toilet and making the problem even worse.
After more fiddling, I determined that the leak wasn't coming from the connector to the toilet, but rather where the supply hose and fitting were joined together. They were joined by some kind of permanent clamp holding the hose in place so there was nothing for me to tighten or adjust. I cut off the clamp and set off to Lowes to buy a pair of tiny, adjustable, replacement hose clamps.
My theory here is that I actually caused this leak myself by blasting the hot air from a hair dryer onto this hose (which is designed for cold water only). It's likely the material started to shrink from the heat, allowing the water to slowly escape. No matter; with fresh parts and tools in hand it wouldn't be a problem for much longer. I tightened the new clamps, reattached the hoses to the toilets and had Christy go out and turn the water back on while I inspected my handiwork for leaks. It didn't take long to find one.
Within seconds of pressure being restored a powerful stream of water began spraying out from under the conduit behind the toilet about a foot to the left of the area where I had been working. I grabbed a handful of towels while yelling out the window to Christy to turn it back off. I had no idea what was wrong this time but I just wanted it to be over. I went outside and climbed around underneath the RV and opened up several access ports, looking for a valve that would cutoff water to the rear bathroom completely so I could just look at this more another time. Unfortunately it didn't appear that anyone designed for this scenario and I could find no such valve. I had no choice but to figure out what the problem was if we wanted to have any running water during the rest of our trip. I started ripping off the trim around the conduit so I could lift it up and access the leak behind it and soon discovered a pinprick-sized hole in the toilet supply line. It seems that I caused this incident as well!
After I disconnected the supply line from the toilet I had given it a little tug to pull it out from behind the toilet so I would have better access. When I did this, the hose caught on one of the trim nails inside the conduit and ruptured the line (brilliant idea, by the way, lining the plumbing conduit with tiny nails suitable for destroying the hoses it contains). There was no good way to replace this hose, as it snaked off underneath the shower and down through the floor to join up with some plumbing which I had no access to without removing the entire solid molded plastic bay container on the bottom of the RV.
I tried to fix it by covering it with rescue tape, which I had on hand for just such an emergency after reading other RV blogs. Rescue tape is a stretchy, rubbery, self-bonding material that is supposed to withstand high pressures when properly applied. Unfortunately the dirty, wet, cramped space behind a toilet does not lend itself to the proper application of rescue tape and my repair job failed miserably with the tape bubbling up and the water stream finding an escape within seconds of repressurizing the line.
I had another solution in mind, but it involved going back to Lowes. With the superbowl starting in minutes and my home team Falcons* playing in it, this was not what I wanted to be doing. Sacrifices must be made, however, so I found the game on the radio and set off to find more parts. All I needed were 2 more hose clamps and a straight through hose barb like this:
I cut out the section of hose with the hole in it and replaced it with new piece and within minutes we were leak free again! I cleaned myself up and sat down to enjoy Christy's delicious Instant Pot dinner while the Falcons proceeded to poop the bed and blow a 25-point lead to lose the superbowl in spectacular embarrassing fashion. No matter; I would enjoy my victory over leaks instead.
*In the spirit of full disclosure, I should reveal that, while I am from the state of Georgia, I'm a rabid college football fan and don't really care much for the NFL. I was cheering for the Falcons but for the most part don't really care. The addition of this part of the story to the blog post was mainly for the added dramatic impact.
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