Terrible water leak inside (black tank)

[game warden]

The wife and I were camping this weekend and went to dump station on the way out .dumped black and then grey tanks out and then decided to clean out black tank. Hooked up the hose to the black tank rinse out on the side and left it run a couple of mins and something just did not seem right. I went around to the side to find water gushing out from under the bathroom door and the from front door also. Took evey towel out of the cupboard and started to sop up all the water inside. Went straight to the repair center and service mgr said oh that is common the valve that vents black tank is cheep and water psi breaks and allows the water to flo out of it and all over the place instead of going to the black tank. Anyone eles had this happen to them?? I thought they forgot to put antifreeze in it and line broke and he is covering it up ..instead of owning up to it

[f6bits]

Do a search here for "Vacuum Breaker" and I think you'll find all kinds of info on similar, if not the same, problems.

[blackty]

2 years in a row since I bought the new one, first flush of the season washes the bottom of my sink. I searched here and was led to remove the stink bug that wedged itself in the vacuum breaker. Pop it out and have a look...Jim

[Festus2]

Game warden -
I know it's not much comfort but you are not the only one to have experienced this problem. The Service Manager's comment about a "cheap" vacuum breaker is quite correct and you might want to have it replaced with one of better quality. As suggested above, if you do a forum search, you'll find numerous posts about this topic (Black Tank flushing system) and what others have done to correct it.

There may be another reason for the malfunction if you did not properly winterize the black tank flush or forgot about it ---- it is easy to forget and not always easy to get the pink stuff into the black tank flush system.

[chris199]

How do you know whether you have the pink stuff in the "flush system"? Is there a specific amt? Something to see or measure?



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[suza]

We were told, by our dealer, to make sure we use a pressure restricting "thingy" when connecting a hose to the black tank flush valve. Could this be the problem. What is a "vacuum breaker" Can you tell, I'm not too savvy about RV terminology

[randy69]

Had the samething happen control panel and voltage converter were soaked. Went to giant Rv and bought a brass anti siphon valve. Use Velcro to strap in place

[gepaine]

Originally Posted by suza

We were told, by our dealer, to make sure we use a pressure restricting "thingy" when connecting a hose to the black tank flush valve. Could this be the problem. What is a "vacuum breaker" Can you tell, I'm not too savvy about RV terminology

The instructions that came with my flush system said NOT to use anything to restrict the flow. Makes sense to me as I think you want as much pressure as is available to flush the tank.

[jsmith948]

What is a "vacuum breaker" Can you tell, I'm not too savvy about RV terminology [/QUOTE]

It is a plastic valve that employs a plastic flapper (like an anti-syphon valve) to prevent the water in the flush sustem from backing up into the hose. Look up under the bathroom vanity and you'll see two PEX lines with this cheap little valve at the top. They can freeze and/or break and then leak all over the bathroom floor. I removed ours and added an check valve at the flush inlet.

[rjsurfer]

Do yourself a favor and just take it out. I pulled out about 20' of PEX when I did mine, just made a direct connection to the flush valve. Or if you want to make it an easier job just remove it and add a straight through connection.

As someone pointed out putting a pressure restrictor on that line makes the flusher much less efficient.

Ron W.

[suza]

, Jack and Ron for explaining the vacuum breaker.

[wva3185]

Quote:
Originally Posted by chris199
How do you know whether you have the pink stuff in the "flush system"? Is there a specific amt? Something to see or measure? Sent from my DROID3 using Tapatalk 2

Every flusher that I have ever winterized has been simply to blow the line out with air pressure. If you have an outside shower you could hook a water hose from it to the flusher and pump anit-freeze to it through the outside shower. I bought a brass coupling from the hardware store that went from the threads on the shower to a garden hose for about $5. I never used it to pump anti-freezer to the flusher but used it to supply water to my Sewer Solution one time in a pinch. HTH