Water running out of belly of the travel trailer

[Camp4Fun4US]

Hi to all,

We have a 2017 Keystone Passport Ultra Lite. I've had it winterized for about a month now. Lines blown out and pink juice poured into all the drains. It's been siting in our yard until we could get it put away in our shed, which we did today. During this time sitting in our yard we have had a handful of heavy rainfalls, which I never really thought about until we moved out camper today. My son moved camper, and we usually do one final "ride around the block" - we live in the country just to see it on the road one more time. Well our driveway had a slight incline and as he was going up the driveway water poured out through the seams of that plastic underbelly and around the low areas or where there was foam around spouts/or small holes of the belly under the camper. I was shocked as I know the camper has been totally drained out for over a month and we have never had this happen throughout this summer, which makes me believe the heavy rain we had had something to do with it. I did not find any puddles or water stains in the camper, so where in the world could this water be coming from? Water also came out of the water heater which I'm use to seeing as there usually is water left to be drained and water came out of the fridge vents too, not a lot but some drained out of there too. I can't really do anything now, as we had to put it away but now I'm going to be thinking about this until we pull it out next spring!! Has anyone had this happen to them or experienced this? Thanks

 

[skids-JAY]

I am betting the water from the refrigerator is unrelated. The exhaust vent probably allowed some of that horizontal rain in. Question is, was the water from the corroplast areas pink? Did you check to see if air from the city water supply holds pressure at say 35psi? I ask because you may have blown a hose connection apart. (Just ideas)

 

[Camp4Fun4US]

Thank you for the ideas Skids

I appreciate your reply and your time.

No the water that came out was all nice and clear water, no pink.
I'm guessing the city water lines held pressure as when I unscrewed the caps to allow the low lines to drain, there was pressure when unscrewing them.

The bummer of all of it is, it is now neatly tucked away in our shed for the winter so I really can't do much with it but think about it until we pull it out next spring. But at least its indoors now from the winter elements.

I have never noticed any leakage when using any of our tanks otherwise, fresh, which we use all the time, gray and black so this just baffles me.

The one thing that I keep going back to that I maybe did different this year, and never really used until this year, is I used the "flush the black" connection and the very last time I used it, just before winterizing the camper I really let it flush out. I did have the drain valve and cap open as it states too, so I'm pretty sure I did it probably. I'm thinking that there has to be a bad connection possibly around that? Again I won't know to try it until next year. Which makes me wonder now, how easily is it to check any connections under the belly of the camper!

It's gonna be a long winter as it's gonna bug me until I know. haha

Thank you again for any advice you gave!

 

[skids-JAY]

OK, I would suspect the vacuum breaker / check valve if is hidden behind a wall. Mine is under the bathroom vanity and completely accessible. If it is malfunctioning and located under your vanity, you would experience water in the cabin. If it is behind a wall (terrible design) I would just quit using it and use a spray wand for cleaning the black tank. Maybe I would consider drilling a couple of drain holes in the corroplast at low sags for drainage and monitoring.

 

[jasin1]

Hi to all,

We have a 2017 Keystone Passport Ultra Lite. I've had it winterized for about a month now. Lines blown out and pink juice poured into all the drains. It's been siting in our yard until we could get it put away in our shed, which we did today. During this time sitting in our yard we have had a handful of heavy rainfalls, which I never really thought about until we moved out camper today. My son moved camper, and we usually do one final "ride around the block" - we live in the country just to see it on the road one more time. Well our driveway had a slight incline and as he was going up the driveway water poured out through the seams of that plastic underbelly and around the low areas or where there was foam around spouts/or small holes of the belly under the camper. I was shocked as I know the camper has been totally drained out for over a month and we have never had this happen throughout this summer, which makes me believe the heavy rain we had had something to do with it. I did not find any puddles or water stains in the camper, so where in the world could this water be coming from? Water also came out of the water heater which I'm use to seeing as there usually is water left to be drained and water came out of the fridge vents too, not a lot but some drained out of there too. I can't really do anything now, as we had to put it away but now I'm going to be thinking about this until we pull it out next spring!! Has anyone had this happen to them or experienced this? Thanks

how is the caulking holding up on your roof? have you looked at it recently? maybe caulking at front cap or rear wall is compromised and water leaked down …or possibly at the refrigerator exhaust which would explain the water coming from the vents…some of it went into the coroplast and the rest came out the vent when you moved it

 

[Camp4Fun4US]

So I had to investigate. You're right, the hook up for the black flush hose is on the outside of the bathroom sink lower cabinet. And unfortunately we do have the one that must go down into a wall (eventually) or into the unknown bisk. It's such a weird set up after looking at it! I am really thinking this has to be where the water came from, some where below this set up as there has not been any water in our travel trailer anywhere any other time. Again I won't be able to play with it more until next spring, darn it. Hahah I'm just one of those that's wants to take care of it right away. But I took some pictures of the weird set up of the connection coming into the camper.

I checked the roof and caulk during the winterizing process, even conditioned it and I did not see any cracks or seals that needed attention. But I will check it again once it comes out in the spring! I will be checking everything again!!

Thank you so much for your help and your time, I really appreciate it!!

 

[flybouy]

Nothing weird there. The black plastic object connecting the white hose and white pex line is the anti-siphon valve. The white pex line runs down thru the floor to the flush out fitting on the black tank. If that a ti-siphone valve was leaking it would mean water flooding the bathroom floor and the inside of that cabinet would be wet. It's possible that the pex line is leaking or the fitting at the tank is.

 

[Camp4Fun4US]

I bet that's it! Bathroom floor was never wet at anytime. I bet that's were the leak was in the connection! Like I mentioned I let it flush for a good long time, enough to create a big puddle. If that's it, I won't be using that black flush system anymore, simple as that. We shall see this coming spring...thanks guys!

May you all have a Happy Thanksgiving!!

 

[JRTJH]

Here's one more "maybe it could be" to consider. Do you remember towing through a rainstorm this season? It's possible that a section of the coroplast is not securely fastened under the trailer and when towing, the coroplast "billows" and acts as a scoop to feed water into the belly when the roads are wet....

We have another member who experienced that exact thing. His coroplast near the tongue of his trailer was loose and filled the belly with water.

Maybe that's not your problem, but if you can roll around under your trailer on a creeper with a bright flash light, you might find places where the water could have entered....

The way you describe the water as "clean", I wouldn't suspect a ruptured black or gray tank or a leak on any plumbing fixtures on those tanks. BUT, you might have a split fresh water tank or a loose/separated fill port or vent port on the fresh water tank.

Those two, the physical security of the coroplast to the trailer frame rails and the fresh water tank fittings you should be able to access and inspect on a "somewhat warm winter afternoon" sometime before spring...

Good luck and keep us posted on the progress.

 

[LHaven]

I bet that's it! Bathroom floor was never wet at anytime. I bet that's were the leak was in the connection! Like I mentioned I let it flush for a good long time, enough to create a big puddle. If that's it, I won't be using that black flush system anymore, simple as that. We shall see this coming spring...thanks guys!

May you all have a Happy Thanksgiving!!

The factory black vacuum breaker is cheap and prone to fail. Ours failed at about three years. We replaced it with a bronze fitting from Amazon (hung from a screw and zip tie as weight relief), which worked fine until we removed it to debug an unrelated problem with the sprayer and ended up just replacing it with a solid tube. But we learned to line the shelf under it with a "hospital pan" (into which we stored our various chems) because even under proper operation it often blows a gout of water before closing its flap.

(One of the "failures" was pretty humorous. After rinsing out the black tank at our final CG, I inadvertently overdosed the toilet with Dawn to scrub itself for the trip home. When DW opened the sink compartment at home to unpack, it was wall to wall suds! I can't call it a failure because that's exactly the direction that valve was supposed to provide venting. It was the closest DW or I will ever get to one of those hip Hollywood "foam parties.")

 

[Camp4Fun4US]

Hi there, it's been a while...we're getting close to May when we usually pull out our camper. There's just too many items around it to check anything out other than walk in, can't put the slide out yet but we're getting itchy, can't wait for camping season! Hope all is well with everyone!!

 

[Camp4Fun4US]

Hi there! I know it's been a while since checking in on the form but I wanted to check in. We didn't pull our camper out until the 3rd week of May, to have our shed for a grad party, we did leave for camping after Memorial day. We just recently got back. I found that there was no water leaking from the underbelly with using all our tanks and plumbing for the duration of our camping trip. So my conclusion is that there has to be a leak between the black tank and where the water line meets to flush the black tank. I'm not even going to use the black flush connection anymore. I bought one of those wands to put down the toilet to help flush the black tank instead. So we will see how things go. We leave next week for another week of camping! Happy Camping to all!!

 

[Phildrum]

Hi there! I know it's been a while since checking in on the form but I wanted to check in. We didn't pull our camper out until the 3rd week of May, to have our shed for a grad party, we did leave for camping after Memorial day. We just recently got back. I found that there was no water leaking from the underbelly with using all our tanks and plumbing for the duration of our camping trip. So my conclusion is that there has to be a leak between the black tank and where the water line meets to flush the black tank. I'm not even going to use the black flush connection anymore. I bought one of those wands to put down the toilet to help flush the black tank instead. So we will see how things go. We leave next week for another week of camping! Happy Camping to all!!

At the connection of the drain lines to my gray and black tanks, both of mine cracked. At that connection. The plastic on the tanks is very weak. Here is a link for how to do the repairs.https://youtu.be/N2rVLU3bDMY?si=Awk_vQDkju94xH3j
The quickest way to get the shavings for me was to use my skill saw on a scrap piece of ABS or the cheapest fitting you can buy.
If this is your issue, the underbody plastic cardboard may have just been bellied down and not leaking while parked, but once you got on an incline it was able to find the path of least resistance if your tanks had been full.
On the sprayer black tank cleaning note my sprayers don't do a very good job so I've resorted to having a dedicated hose that I run full pressure through the window with a shut-off valve by the toilet where I completely fill the tanks several times before leaving. And as an additional precaution to get the last bits of waste and toilet paper, I dump a 5 gallon bucket of water from as high as I can hold it. Kind of a pain but I always get a few more pieces and do that a couple times. I never have any clogs and seriously doubt I have any mountains of waste and toilet paper anymore. No matter how much I tell everyone, I can't get them trained to use the black tank differently than a home toilet

 

[Phildrum]

At the connection of the drain lines to my gray and black tanks, both of mine cracked. At that connection. The plastic on the tanks is very weak. Here is a link for how to do the repairs.https://youtu.be/N2rVLU3bDMY?si=Awk_vQDkju94xH3j
The quickest way to get the shavings for me was to use my skill saw on a scrap piece of ABS or the cheapest fitting you can buy.
If this is your issue, the underbody plastic cardboard may have just been bellied down and not leaking while parked, but once you got on an incline it was able to find the path of least resistance if your tanks had been full.
On the sprayer black tank cleaning note my sprayers don't do a very good job so I've resorted to having a dedicated hose that I run full pressure through the window with a shut-off valve by the toilet where I completely fill the tanks several times before leaving. And as an additional precaution to get the last bits of waste and toilet paper, I dump a 5 gallon bucket of water from as high as I can hold it. Kind of a pain but I always get a few more pieces and do that a couple times. I never have any clogs and seriously doubt I have any mountains of waste and toilet paper anymore. No matter how much I tell everyone, I can't get them trained to use the black tank differently than a home toilet

Also, it helps where your flex hose dumps into the Park sewer to have the clear elbow so someone can watch to see if anything besides clear water is running through. So you know when you're finally good.