Water Tanks - Elddis

[Robert_5063411]

I recently purchased an Elddis Storm in January, with an onboard water tank.

Upon filling the tank from outside aquaroll, there was no accurate indication (apart from watching on the floor) of when the tank was full above the inlet pipe, which then leaked around the sealer.

I also noticed that the overflow pipe was above the inlet pipe, and consequently the caravan flooded. I have challenged the dealer, who stated that there is no installed authomated mechanism to prevent this happening, and the onus is solely down to customer vigilance.

Can anyone else advise if they have experienced this, or had a simular issue with Elddis.

 

[Chris4]

I have a new Compass Rallye made by Explorer group. Mine does the same. Yes, It's meant to overflow all over your floor. What I do is kneel by the open bed locker and switch the pump off just before the water level hits the over flow. Pointless and useless I hear you say. Must agree to that!!

 

[ProfJohnL]

Robert & Chris,

It is totally unacceptable that you cannot determin how full the water tank is until you have a leak into the caravan. It is a design fault, which directly leads to flooding and the potential for water ingress into wooden structures or other property and subsequent damage.

The retailer is legally obliged under UK law to supply good that are free from design, material or workmanship faults, and where such faults do occur they are obliged to replace or repair. Those are you stautory rights.

Who is your retailer? Basically it is whoever takes your money of you, so it could be a finance house if you are using hire purchase, or the caravan dealer if you payed by cash.

Write to them and REJECT the caravan stating why. Ask them what they are going to do to resolve the problem, and give them a realistic time in which to do it, (e.g ten working days)

Do not contact or involve the caravan manufacture, it is the retailers unique responsibility as they are taking your money.

If the retailer does not replace or repair or they defer it to the manufacture, then contact the trading standards.

 

[VonRyan]

Hi,

I have a Elddis and thank goodness I do not have this problem. But the Law states under the Sales of Good act that all goods must be of a saleable or merchantable condition,the dealer may say this is of merchantable condition as long as you do not use the on board tank. Then imply the consumer protection act which states that any product supplied that effects any associated product to a detrentrmental effect to the product effected is a breach of the act. In simple terms the on board storage tank supplied will mess up the rest of the caravan it was supplied with. Which ever whey you look at it you can take them to trading standards or the C.A.B unless they have provided a disclaimer that states that if you use this on board tank you are in danger of flooding your caravan floor.

Rob

 

[ProfJohnL]

Hello Rob,

I don't think that a disclaimer whould be upheld by a court in this instance because it is a clerly a design or manufacturing fault. This would be civil action and the burden of proof required is only a balance of probability rather than beyond all reasonable doubt.

 

[Chris4]

Breach of the Sale of Goods Act is a civil law matter dealt with through the the Councty Courts and in the small claims court. TRading Standards would only be able to deal with it by way of advice. What we are talking about here is poor build quality. The retaining nut on the overflow pipe was not done up tighly enough. The law recognises the concept of reasonableness and you would not be able to "reject" for that on its own. However there are other things wrong with my Rallye 635 - the door furniture has fallen of the bathroom door and the sliding doors to the rear sitting areas are broken. A friend of mine who has the same model, bought at the same time has identical issues. These are true design flaws. I will give the supplier a couple of opportunities to repair. If they go again I will reject the van. My friend had another problem however, Explorer had omitted some of the fixings holding the bathroom wall to the floor!! It's now loose this is shoddy manufacture.

 

[WatsonJohnG]

I have an external tank to which I fitted a large bore overflow pipe (caravan waste) by boring a hole in the tank and sealing the push fit pipe with silicone sealer.The pipe overflows onto the ground thus showing that the tank is full.You could fill from an aquaroll as I usually do when my low level light comes on.The light shows when the volume of empty tank is more than the capacity of the aquaroll thus it can not cause overflowing.

 

[Mikey1]

Hi i have a Storm and the best solution is to fill the tank to about an inch under the overflow pipe then undo the 2 screws that hold the plate on for the onboard tank gauge and adjust the gauge to read full properly by means of a small adjustment screw .You cant miss it , its the only one on the plate.You will now get an idea on how full your tank is as this will be fairly accurate.