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Old 11-14-2012, 11:56 AM   #1
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Fesh water tank level

Every time I go dry camping, I seem to arrive with far less water in the tank than I started. Over the weekend, my wife was driving behind me and noticed a lot of water draining from the motorhome. It wasn't continuous. Instead, it was intermittent. I looked at how everything was plumbed underneath and noticed that the overflow/vent is ran down and terminates at a level below the bottom of the tank. I'm wondering if the water splashing around occasionally fills the vent line and then it starts siphoning water out of the tank. Anyone else experience this?
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Old 11-14-2012, 02:50 PM   #2
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It is rare that I start out with a completely filled fresh water tank. The few times I have started out full, by the time I get to my destination driving the "smooth" roads of Nebraska, I am lucky to have 1/2 a tank remaining. I believe the movements of the trailer when traveling causes water to slosh out the overflow tubing on the fresh water tank.

I wonder if clamping off the overflow once the tank is filled would help??
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Old 11-14-2012, 06:33 PM   #3
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Yes you can loose water out of the over flow tube. If you plug it you will stop loosing water.
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Old 11-14-2012, 07:12 PM   #4
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Yes you can loose water out of the over flow tube. If you plug it you will stop loosing water.
Just remember to un-plug it when you start to use the pump or when you refill the tank. You could either collapse or rupture the tank otherwise.
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Old 11-15-2012, 09:42 PM   #5
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Just remember to un-plug it when you start to use the pump or when you refill the tank. You could either collapse or rupture the tank otherwise.
Got it, thanks. Reaching across the rear tires, I still can't reach the overflow tubes. Maybe I'll look at extending it out to the side and installing a valve.
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Old 11-16-2012, 01:36 PM   #6
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The vent line can't siphone, because it's at the top of tank or on side of tank near top and it doesn't go down inside tank...open ended inside
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Old 11-16-2012, 03:10 PM   #7
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Its not the vent line its the overflow tubes that are under the trailer and I have had the same thing happen and loose part of my water on the Hwy. I got a male hose repair end put it on then put a cap on and no more water loss.
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Old 11-16-2012, 04:04 PM   #8
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You are losing your water due to sloshing, and a little bit is exiting your overflow/vent pipe. My vent line and overflow is one in the same. The little vent you see on your gravity fill port, most likely is plugged on the inside (mine is and it is not connected to anything). My tank has a tube (vent/overflow) that comes out of the top of the tank (next to the water pump), makes a 180 degree loop and then exits the TT through the floor. IF yours is similar, you could raise the height of the tube (possibly replacing it with a longer tube) so there is less likely hood of the sloshing water to exit the overflow tank.

Personally I would not want to clamp my overflow as I would be afraid I or someone else would forget to open the valve.
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Old 11-17-2012, 10:30 AM   #9
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Just remember to un-plug it when you start to use the pump or when you refill the tank. You could either collapse or rupture the tank otherwise.
Mine has been plugged since my second camping trip.. The fill spout is vented so there is no vacuum created..
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Old 11-17-2012, 04:36 PM   #10
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This is a fairly common occurance in Jayco and Starcraft (Jayco's twin) RVs and has been discussed a few times on this forum
Here is a link to the best solution, in my opinion. I did what this guy suggested and it has worked great. http://www.jaycoowners.com/showthrea...t=22fb%20water

This is for RVs that have the overflow tubes underneath. These RVs have a separate vent tube located right next to the fill tube, so that idea about crushing your fresh water container because of vaccuum really doesn't apply. However, you do need to remember to open the spigot onyour overflow tube when filling or else you could put excess strain on your tank by overfilling. (The overflow spigot is the one that you attached to the overflow hoses as suggested by the attached link.
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Old 11-17-2012, 07:37 PM   #11
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Great suggestion. I think I will do exactly that. I too, have the two vent lines. Thanks for all the input.
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Old 03-22-2013, 05:31 AM   #12
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Just wanted to add a data point. We very rarely camp where water is available so we end up taking it with us almost every trip. We always seemed to run out of water quickly, even though we have about 3 times the capacity that we were used to in our old pop-up trailer.

Last week we took our first trip of the year and I installed simple quarter turn inline valves on each of the 3 fresh water overflow lines of our 2007 Seneca 35GS. Wow, what a difference! I'm convinced that on longer trips we were losing almost half of our fresh water.

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Old 03-22-2013, 07:37 PM   #13
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Ditto here rcbrust - installed valves - leave them open except when traveling. Saved a TON of water.

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