Water - Pulsing water taps !

[Marco]

Until recently I had a Coachman with a pressurised water system e.g.. It had a pressure switch which turned on the pump & the taps worked like household items. In my new Compass they seem to have micro-switches in each tap that turn on the pump. However, when you run the taps you get nothing followed by a pulse of water at somewhere approaching the speed of sound which glances into the bowl before coming back at the tap operator. After maybe 5 or 6 repeats of this performance & with operator now wet head to foot & standing in a puddle the system seems to purge itself of air & works fine. Give it 10 mins & it's the same. I wondered if the water 'head' in each pipe dropped because the tap did not have a seal e.g. it ran back down the pipe. So I purged each tap & then put gaffer tape over each one to stop air getting in &

Left it half an hour. Whilst not perfect it was much better & I wondered about putting a non-return valve in each pipe after the inlet on the cold & heater on the hot.

All ideas & experiences on this type of system would be gratefully received.

Marco

 

[rob_jax]

Hi Marco,

The water system in our Eriba Triton is roughly the same:

We have an inboard water tank, 12 volt submersible pump in the tank, and simple plastic tubing to the Reich tap body.

When you lift the tap lever water flows out immediately, turn off, wait overnight then turn it on again - water flows immediately.

When we drain the system for storage, I just un-clip the battery, lift the tap lever and the retained water in the pipe just flows out past the pump. Very easy.

So I think you have a faulty tap unit - it's not sealing when the pump is turned off - allowing air back into the system - which then needs to re-prime each time you use it.

Solution: Get the tap unit serviced or replaced. There is no need for a non-return valve on this type of system.

Robert

 

[Marco]

It does it from all the taps & the shower hot & cold. The pipe run in the van takes it down to the sink (& Tee's off to the shower) & then round to the main sink. As Im writing this I'm thinking that a fault on the tap on the first basin could cause this. Question - not knowing this type of system does a tap with a microswitch on it have a water seal? I had guessed not because there is no pressure before the pump comes on. However, a failed seal could lead to that problem. Are there any tap experts out there?

Many thanks Marco

 

[Marco]

Rob,

At the bottom of my thread on 540 towing instability, Andy has the same water problems so a faulty tap, whilst not imposible, is possibly not the problem as he has the same van.

Marco

 

[MarcR]

Hi Marco

I have a compass, on the inital purge I get the coughing and spluttering but after that its fine. I normally open both sink and shower room taps so the water doesn't come shooting out. If you think you are losing the water back down the pipes, purge your pipes and lift the pump out of the aquaroll or whatever and see if the water is coming out. Have you traced the pipes through the van to make sure there isn't a leak. The reason I ask is I bought my van second hand and when they built and fitted the gas pipes they had drill through the waste pipe from the shower, luckly I found the problem otherwise the water would still be shooting out.

Marc

 

[rob_jax]

Hi,

This type of system is common on all Eriba caravans - for both the hot and cold systems - and as far as I know no one has experienced this type of fault.

Eriba use the Reich taps, which have a micro-switch under the tap lever to switch the pump - and I don't think there is any sort of valve in the tap body.

It might be worth checking your system - fill the tank, prime the tap and then watch to see if the water runs out of the piping. It could be that you just have a loose fit between the plastic pipe and the inlet connector on the tap.

I'll do the same over the weekend and investigate the Reich taps.

Note: Since most Eriba caravans last through to 40+ years - well most of them are still around - the micro-switch will fail in 5 or 10 years depending on how often you use your caravan.

Robert

 

[Marco]

Thanks everybody for your inputs.

I checked the van & no leaks. Andy on my 540 instability thread has the same problem on the same basic van! Assuming no leaks, if air was getting in somewhere (& water got out!)then you would get a flow of water before it then spluttered, but this is not the case - the air is up at the tap. Its also the same on the hot side. This is what lead me to think that the head of water on the taps was reducing & the water maybe either ran back to the hot water tank or into the filter for instance & thus a non-return valve would do the job (+ a drain **** to do that side of the system).

I am lost as to why this is not a common fault with this tyope of system though.

Marco