cambridge problem
Dear Rvers and future Rvers
If you have or plan to purchase an RV please check the plumbing, especially the way the black water tank is vented. I have worked in construction for over forty years and have always had an RV for travel. I have owned a Newmar, a Fleetwood, a Jayco ,a Beaver, and a Coachman. Each one of these had the black water tank vented through the roof. We have had this Keystone Cambridge fifth wheel for a year and from the start noticed that something was wrong with the black water tank. When the tank is 3/4 full and you flushed the commode, at times the tank was pressurized and it would blow the water and everything else out onto the floor and walls. I thought that the vent might be plugged so I got on the roof and ran water down both vents but they were clear. We also had a problem with sewer gas getting into the unit. I was baffled.
Last week I was flushing out the black tank the same way I and many others have always done by filling the tank 3/4 full and then draining it. While I was doing this a friend came by and I didn't pay attention to what I was doing and I over filled the tank. I have seen this happen a dozen times to others and the water from the black tank would come out on the roof but with the way Keystone did the plumbing the whole unit was flooded with dissolved tissue paper and stinky black water. When the tank overfilled the only place for it to go was out of the bedroom sink and then flood the unit.
Instead of running the drain for the bedroom sink over to the shower drain they ran the drain to where the vent pipe goes into the black tank, and then added a pro vent to the drain under the sink cabinet. The pro vent is like a check valve and allows air into the drain but doesn't allow air out thus the pressurizing of the black tank. What was happening was that the tank would pressurize and blow back through the P trap for the sink and cause the sewer smell in our unit. It was also the reason that the commode would blow whatever was in it out.
I don't know if this was plumbed like this as a cost savings or what. All Keystone had to do was to run the sink drain over to the shower drain and run the vent pipe over to the gray water vent, a total of 10 feet of 11/2''pipe and 2 tees.
My wife and I are now staying her mother until the smell is gone which may take a while as the carpet pad was soaked and the filthy water seeped under the shower and all the cabinets.
Mike Boughton
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