I'm just curious...If you're hooked up to city water and it's on, is there some sort of valve that the pressure triggers to keep the trailer's water tank closed?....What would happen if you turned on the pump while it was connected?....would the city water just override the pump? Could you damage something? (not that there's any practical reason for doing this, but you know kids would be bound to try anything)

depends on your setup...on mine... even with the water hooked up, the pump still ran and water was pulled from the tank as well as from the city hook up..from talking to friends it seems that every RV is different,,,,at least that is what I learned....

Mine has a valve that I can switch from tank water (runs the pump) or off the city water, pressure of what ever is there is what is in the trailer. If I have city water hooked up it won't fill the tank, that is a different inlet. Our old trailer we had there was a automatic type switch..think it had a spring, if the city water was hooked up and pressure was on that side, it pushed the plunger to close off the inlet to the tank..when the city water wasn't on, the spring held the plunger open for the tank-pump to feed the trailer. I always put a pressure valve on when I use city...don't want to blow fittings off the trailers pipes.

On my trailer the two water connections are separate. The city water connection by-passes the holding tank and pump. I'm not sure what would happen if I put water in the holding tank and turned the pump on while still being connected to city water. Not sure if the extra pressure would damage the system or not but I'm not curious enough to try it to find out.

Most have a ONE WAY valve from each leg (tank and City).Here is a pretty good diagram of how it works...

Your pump should be inline between your fresh tank and the rest of the plumbing. It has built in back flow prevention so that when using city water it doesn't go into your tank.EDIT: downtheroad beat me to it with a very nice diagram!

Water hookup question... | Good Sam Community

RoyB
Explorer II
May 25, 2013
I would think the bigger problem might be that the fresh wter tank does not have water in it. On mine I have to manually fill my fresh water tank. When my trailer is conencted to city water it does not fill the fresh water tank.

Turning on a the PUMP is not a good idea if the fresh water tank is empty.

Roy Ken
MontanaCamper
Explorer
May 25, 2013
limbery wrote:
Thanks for the great responses (and nice diagram)....but still wondering of what would happen if pump was turned on when city water was present....I guess if there is a backflow valve, then the effect would be the same as when the pump is on but no taps are open, so in other words....nothing would happen as long as there is city water pressure...

In my case the pump will pressure up to a valve that is turned off and won't let water into the system...but only if the city water is hooked up and the valve is turned that way.
Denlor
Explorer
May 25, 2013
you should have a switch to turn your pump (for fresh water tank)off so when connected to city water pressure you pump will not come on.

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