Water Routing Controls and Inlets – Fifth Wheel Pictorial Guide

Last updated on June 8th, 2019 at 09:42 pm

November 19, 2012 by Marlan at Rv52 Leave a Comment

Water Routing Controls and Inlets :

On the driver’s side of the RV, amongst all the controls, you should be able to find a siphon hose inlet and some control that allow you to route water different ways through your RV water system.

The siphon inlet can be used a couple of ways:

To “suck” in non-poisonous safe anti-freeze that you put into the RV water system during the winter so that you won’t freeze the water in the system and break some pipes or have other freeze damage.
To suck in water to fill your fresh water tank.
I guess technically, there could be a third use – to suck in fresh water into your system and actually use that fresh water with a large outdoor tank. I never really see that in the literature, but it does seem like you could do that.

To make the siphon work, you would have to be using the on-board water pump which is used to create water pressure in the RV.

You should know that RV’s have a concept where the water system is pressurized. Why? Because by allowing the system to take on a little pressure the RV water pump has something to work against. It pressurizes the RV system, I think to 60 pounds of pressure and then shuts off. When you turn on a faucet pressure drops. When it drops below 40 pounds of pressure the pump turns back on. This way you can generate water pressure for showers, kitchen sinks, and toilets even though you are simply using your own fresh water tank. This whole concept would not work unless the system allowed itself to store a little pressure. I think that is actually pretty cool. The downside of this is that when you are on city water or shore water for fresh water connections, a big surge in pressure can cause problems in your RV water systems. Our local RV repair person says water leaks are the number one thing he fixes. I surmise this is at least partially tied to water pressure surges on city water.

The water routing connections are never explained very well on the internet. I’ll try to do it right here in simple and plain language.

1) Hot water heater bypass mode – Allows water to flow from the fresh water tank (using the pump) OR city water to ALL RV systems EXCEPT the hot water heater. This is VERY similar to Winterize except Winterize is meant to suck antifreeze in the siphon connection.

2) City Water/Pump – Normal operation – water goes from the fresh water tank (using the pump) OR city water to ALL RV systems, including the hot water heater. Of course the OUTPUT of the hot water tank goes to all the hot water faucets in your RV.

3) Tank Fill – This takes water from the siphon hose connection OR the city water connection and sends it into the fresh water tank.

4) Winterize – This takes “liquid” – should be safe anti-freeze – from the siphon valve and sends it EVERYWHERE in the RV system except the hot water heater. The idea here is that you can use this technique to put antifreeze in the system without putting it into the hot water heater, thereby saving 6-10-12 gallons of antifreeze before you get the entire hot water pipes filled with anti-freeze.

There are a billion articles on the internet for winterizing your RV – and everyone is very passionate about the subject. I believe it is probably a good maintenance activity – but honestly – I lack passion on the subject!

Pictured below are the siphon hose inlet and the water valve control center. You should be able to locate these on any RV with a little looking.

rv water system antifreeze injection spout

rv hot water heater bypass and water routing connectors

RV Hot Water Heater Cover – Fifth Wheel Pictorial Guide

Last updated on March 4th, 2019 at 01:05 pm

November 12, 2012 by Marlan at Rv52 Leave a Comment

RV Hot Water Heater Cover :

Walking around the RV, you should be able to locate the hot water heater cover. Of course the hot water heater is BEHIND the cover, but I thought for a first pass in the pictorial guide, I’d just have you identify where the hot water heater is. The idea being that when you are shopping for an RV, you can walk around the unit and really identify almost every single thing you see in the RV. This should help you become VERY familiar with an RV without too much effort.

The cover on the hot water heater is pretty easy to locate. Usually on the drivers side of the RV and it usually has a large rectangular cover with vents cut into about 1/4 of the panel.

RV52 has a more complete set of RV Hot Water Heater Information Pages over on the RV52 Master How To section.

Here are some notes on RV hot water heaters that should help you out.

RV hot water heaters are pretty small for most RV’s : 8, 10, & 12 gallons. I think if you had a very high end motorhome you might have something more like a home hot water heater, but that would be rare.
RV hot water heaters are special.
- They can use DC voltage to run their electronics.
- They can heat their water in more than one way ( our current RV can use electric or gas )
- Of course you would not use electric to heat hot water when boondocking
By virtue of having a smaller hot water heater, you’ll save on water.
Because you can easily turn the hot water heater off and on, you can save on heating hot water.
I wrote a really nice article about updating the igniter from pilot light only to electronic/DC ignition.

The darned mud daubers love to build nests behind our hot water heater cover. You can get covers to prevent mud daubers from getting in.

You’ll see lots of people talk about having to put anode rods in your hot water heater. If it is an Atwood, you don’t have to do that. It is baloney.

Here a picture of the hot water heater cover :

RV52 has a more complete set of RV Hot Water Heater Information Pages over on the RV52 Master How To section.

RV Fresh Water Fill Connector – Fifth Wheel Pictorial Guide

Last updated on June 8th, 2019 at 09:41 pm

November 8, 2012 by Marlan at Rv52 1 Comment

The RV fresh water fill connector is where you can fill the fresh water tank inside the RV with water to take with you somewhere fun.

RV Fresh Water Fill Connector :

There are times when you are traveling with your RV when you’ll want to take fresh water with you for an activity called “boondocking”. I can think of a few activities here :

Parking at the “big event” ( like a football game ) for a weekend
Parking at a VERY remote state park
Parking at a remote place – not necessarily a state park
Traveling for a long enough stretch that you might want to park at a Walmart or similar place

For these activities you’ll need to carry fresh water with you so you have something to drink, cook, and use for limited showers. Of course, you’ll want to make sure you fresh water tank is clean and disinfected. That is a whole article or chapter on its own. Just know that it important.

You’ll be pretty amazed at what you can do with RV fresh water and power ( battery or generator ). We took our RV to a Texas A&M football game without a generator and the RV did pretty good overall.

With an RV with ONLY a battery and fresh water you should be able to do the following…

Take a hot shower
Cook on the range
Use the oven
Take a shower
Have good water pressure ( there is a pump that makes pressure )
Use the toilets
Have lighting ( especially if you have LED lighting – 5x longer battery life )
Microwave
Use the refrigerator – just like usual
Put the awning out and in

The only activities you really cannot do…

Air conditioning – too much power
Heating – I think the furnace FAN requires too much power
TV – TV requires 120AC

All in all – most things work. If you have a generator you can have a full blown home anywhere you can get your home to. If you are really careful, you can even baby your generator and get lots of life out of a single tank.

To me, a big part of the magic is having fresh water. So you have to fill up the unit and for that, you’ll do it using a connector that looks pretty much like a standard water hose connector. You should be able to locate it on the drivers side of the RV in amongst all the different connections and controls. Just look around for it.

WARNING: Water is very heavy – in fact it is 8 pounds per gallon. I would HIGHLY recommend traveling empty whenever possible and filling your fresh water tank as close to your destination as possible.

On a representative Jayco, this is done via the city water connector.

Jayco travel trailer city water connection for rv - shore water — Jayco travel trailer city water connection for rv – shore water

In the picture above, on our Open Range, you would turn the red-blue-black levers all pointing to the right. When you do that the fresh water would be directed to fill the fresh water tank. As you see it here, I’m NOT filling the fresh water tank, but instead, the settings for the red-blue-black levers are set to deliver the fresh water from the shore to all the pipes in the RV.

We never boondocked with our 40 foot RV. We have with the Tiny Texas Tumbleweed though.

In the above picture you can use this black spout to inject antifreeze into the Open Range System. I could appreciate the fanciness of the Open Range system, but I thought it was a little over fancy or over complex.

I went ahead and put a nice collection of pictures which will show the fresh water tank fill connectors. Don’t confuse this with the city water or shore water – this is about filling the fresh water tank in the RV.

RV Fresh Water System Repair parts and accessories

Outside Shower – Fifth Wheel Pictorial Guide

Last updated on June 10th, 2019 at 08:54 pm

October 29, 2012 by Marlan at Rv52 Leave a Comment

Outside Shower :

One of the ideas behind an RV is that ONE of the ways that people use the RV is for truly outdoors activities. Things like the following come to mind :

Construction work ( hot, sweaty, dirty, muddy, sandy, etc. )
Camping at the beach ( hot, sweaty, sandy, muddy )
Camping while 4 wheeling or “muddin it”
Camping while fishing ( you get the idea )
Camping while doing anything where you don’t want to go inside and track dirt.
You have kids with you. Need I say more!?

For this reason, some RV’s have an outside shower. The idea isn’t that this is your clean-up shower and that you are to be traipsing around outside naked ( ok at some parks! ) but that you get 99% of the trackable nasty and messy off before you go inside to a more civilized type of shower. Sand in particular is a nice thing to keep outside.

So if this is something you are interested in, you might find this on the drivers side of the RV somewhere close to the fresh water connections and other things that go in and out of the RV.

Here is a picture of the shower faucet for our RV. Notice that the shower is not there since we don’t use it ourselves. We keep it stowed.

Many people will say in an indignant tone ” I don’t need that – I can just hook up to the outside water using a “Y” connection on the water hose. That is a silly feature.” My answer to that is – I can get hot water with my outdoor shower connection – but if you go straight from the water hose your showers will be cold. I can’t speak for other people, but my RV is supposed to make camping like living at home – not more like camping!

RV Fresh Water Connection – Fifth Wheel Pictorial Guide

October 25, 2012 by Marlan at Rv52 Leave a Comment

RV Fresh Water Connection :

When you are parked somewhere wonderful with your RV for any time period longer than 2-3 days, you’ll want to be connected to a source of fresh water.

While it is true that the RV can usually carry fresh water in the fresh water tank, that tank won’t last you very long unless all you do is wash dishes and drink water using that tank. If you are driving with your fresh water tank full – you should remember that water weighs EIGHT ( 8 ) pounds per gallon. That weight adds up in a hurry.

The RV fresh water connection uses the same type of connector as a regular garden hose. I’ve seen it plastered all over the internet that you should only use special medical grade or drinking water grade hose for the fresh water. Honestly I don’t know what the truth is. I’ll tell you a secret – Sheri and I use ordinary garden hoses. But we do filter our water. I’m sure whatever the bad chemical is in the hoses will get through the filter, but so far we have not died. It just seems like one more of those recommendations that gets passed around that soon seems to be “gospel” when no one has actually ever checked. You be the judge.

I also see lots of recommendations to have a water pressure limiter on your incoming water. I DO think that is a good idea, particularly in a new park where you don’t know exactly what kind of pressure the park has. Sheri and I do put on a limiter and if the pressure is too weak, we take it off. I will tell you that of all the issues we have had with our RV, water leaks seem to be the biggest problem. Not necessarily because of pressure, but maybe because of turning pressure on, then off, then traveling with vibration, then turning pressure on again. I can’t prove it, but that is my hunch. So you should probably have a limiter on your system. You could put it at the fresh water connection here or you could probably put it at the RV park valves connector.

We did try an inline filter from Walmart and you can get the same thing from Amazon. We finally decided that the inline filter knocked down water pressure too much, cost too much, and using it to filter water for showers seemed a bit wasteful. We now use a Pur filter pitcher for water that we place in our refrigerator. You can order Pur pitcher filter refills here too. We have been VERY happy with this pitcher and the water tastes great. We are thinking about a reverse osmosis system instead though.

Here is a picture of the fresh water connection in your fifth wheel :