Pump running for no reason

[Chippewa93]

Occasionally my pump will run in my 2012 Passport for no reason. All water sources are shut off and nothing has been run for a couple of hours. Is this normal ?

[allmi01]

Not normal. You have a pressure leak in the water system someplace. One of the places to look is you low point drain caps. Make sure they are tight and not leaking.

[BulletOwner1]

Two possible causes;

1. Very small leak in the system somewhere. Bleeds the pressure off then kicks on to re-pressurize.

2. Defective check valve in the pump. Again, bleeds pressure off in the reverse direction and then kicks the pump on briefly.

Just from my experience when checking for leaks don't forget the toilet. Bought a brand new RV and discovered that the connection at the back was cross threaded at the factory :banghead: .

[hankpage]

Another source of a leak that you may not notice is the check valve in the city water inlet on the outside of the trailer. Water will just drip down the side from the hose connection.

[Big old prankster]

I would also check your connections going to and from your hot water heater. You should be able to get to these through the same access panel where you shut your hot water heater bypass on and off. I found our leak there on our second trip. I did not know on our first trip what the cycling of the water pump meant until I found the wet carpet in our slide area. The rest of our camper has hardwood floors.

[tdawg]

my 2013 alpine does the same thing i have checked every water connection and cannot find any signs of a water leak.

[Festus2]

There may not be any obvious signs of a leak. The leakage may be both very small and slow and any water may be evaporating quickly enough so that the usual signs are not there or very hard to spot. This would be true if the leaks were on the outside such as low point drains or behind some interior panel.

If the pump is cycling on and off "for no apparent reason", it is almost always a sign of a leak somewhere. The places mentioned above are all good places to start looking.

[JRTJH]

All of the posts above are good advice, and if you've had your water system in use for a few days look for leaks. Another "possible source is air in the system. When you first fill an RV water system and turn on the pump, all the supply lines are filled with air, It compresses (especially in the hot water tank) and eventually the pump will turn off, but as the HWH heats up, the air will expand, then when you turn on the hot water faucets, there will be two substances (water and air) in the tank, the faucets may sputter a bit occasionally, the pump will run for a time, then in a few minutes, will turn on again to normalize the pressure. As the air bleeds out of the lines (yes, there's air in the low point drains also) the pump will cycle less and less. Air, being "thinner" than water, will bleed out of smaller spaces and can "leak" out of fittings where water would never leak. As it bleeds off, the pump will cycle to repressurize the system. After a few hours to a few days, the cycling will stop. Is it "normal" ??? Well, no, the pump should not cycle, but is it "expected"?? Yes, it's going to happen a few times if the system was completely free of water before use. Once the air is dissipated, the cycling will stop.