Fresh water overflow during tow

[Community Alumni]

During right turns, the new Jayco Eagle HT 26.5 RLS dumps fresh water from the overflow pipes. The amount of water is proportional to the speed going into the turn. During the last 400 mile round trip little of the 3/4th full tank was used as water was available at the camp site. However, a significant amount of water was lost on the road. Does anyone have any insight in this issue? This is my friend's rig and I observed this following behind. Is there something broken or is this a design issue? If he's headed to a dry camp, it will certainly be dry on arrival.

He bought direct from the dealer at the factory in Indiana. Many quality issues were only discovered when the trailer got home more than 2,000 miles later. In my opinion, the people building this Jayco need to become more familiar with the basics of using a ruler and tape measure. Maybe poor quality is endemic to the business. I also had serious quality issues that were only discovered after delivery. Lots of this goes way beyond the scope of the pre-delivery routine at the dealer level. The dealer can't be expected to re-build defects that should never have left the factory in the first place.

[MTPockets1]

Lantley wrote:

htowners wrote:
Most of the SP, FP and ACE campgrounds I've been to have potable water on the way in, so I'm not sure why you would travel any distance with a full f/w tank, it's just unnecessary weight to carry. I have bottled water, a 1 gallon bottle next to the toilet and maybe 1/6 tank on board.
My rig does not have a freshwater fill, just a siphon tube that serves dual purpose to fill the tanks, of add the pink stuff, depending on how the valves are set. If I travel over 1/2 full it will spill out the overflow.
Also I would never cap off the overflow for fear of bursting the f/w tank, even a valve is just one more thing to have to remember.

I always travel with a full fresh tank. I want my water to be from a known chlorinated source vs. an unknown source at the CG. My tank takes at least 20 minutes to fill. I do not want to waste that amount of time searching for the faucet then filling the tank at the CG. The whole process can be very inconvenient. The weight of water has no measurable effect on my MPG's.
If your tank starts to drain after being 1/2 full you need to add valves as others mentioned. Yes it is one more thing to remember. But being able to travel with only 1/2 full tanks is unacceptable to me.

Understand the reasons for travelling with full tanks. In my case, a full tank of fresh water would add a little over 600 pounds. For me, that would put me well over my trailer GVWR, so I always plan ahead and fill only when needed and as close to the site as possible.

[Lantley]

htowners wrote:
Most of the SP, FP and ACE campgrounds I've been to have potable water on the way in, so I'm not sure why you would travel any distance with a full f/w tank, it's just unnecessary weight to carry. I have bottled water, a 1 gallon bottle next to the toilet and maybe 1/6 tank on board.
My rig does not have a freshwater fill, just a siphon tube that serves dual purpose to fill the tanks, of add the pink stuff, depending on how the valves are set. If I travel over 1/2 full it will spill out the overflow.
Also I would never cap off the overflow for fear of bursting the f/w tank, even a valve is just one more thing to have to remember.

I always travel with a full fresh tank. I want my water to be from a known chlorinated source vs. an unknown source at the CG. My tank takes at least 20 minutes to fill. I do not want to waste that amount of time searching for the faucet then filling the tank at the CG. The whole process can be very inconvenient. The weight of water has no measurable effect on my MPG's.
If your tank starts to drain after being 1/2 full you need to add valves as others mentioned. Yes it is one more thing to remember. But being able to travel with only 1/2 full tanks is unacceptable to me.

[AZ_T_T]

htowners wrote:
Most of the SP, FP and ACE campgrounds I've been to have potable water on the way in, so I'm not sure why you would travel any distance with a full f/w tank, it's just unnecessary weight to carry. I have bottled water, a 1 gallon bottle next to the toilet and maybe 1/6 tank on board.
My rig does not have a freshwater fill, just a siphon tube that serves dual purpose to fill the tanks, of add the pink stuff, depending on how the valves are set. If I travel over 1/2 full it will spill out the overflow.
Also I would never cap off the overflow for fear of bursting the f/w tank, even a valve is just one more thing to have to remember.

A lot of us boondock, so traveling with out fresh water is not an option.

[htowners]

Most of the SP, FP and ACE campgrounds I've been to have potable water on the way in, so I'm not sure why you would travel any distance with a full f/w tank, it's just unnecessary weight to carry. I have bottled water, a 1 gallon bottle next to the toilet and maybe 1/6 tank on board.
My rig does not have a freshwater fill, just a siphon tube that serves dual purpose to fill the tanks, of add the pink stuff, depending on how the valves are set. If I travel over 1/2 full it will spill out the overflow.
Also I would never cap off the overflow for fear of bursting the f/w tank, even a valve is just one more thing to have to remember.

[dedbird]

I had the same problem with my Jayco Eagle. My low tech answer was to bend the plastic overflow pipe in half and tie off with a wire holder

[laknox]

The filler cap on my Komfort is probably 3' above the tank, with the vent right next to it. If I fill slowly, I get no siphoning back, especially if I rock the trailer just a hair to get all the air out that I can. I've never had a water-loss issue and would have complained to my dealer PDQ if I had. My b-i-l rented a Cruise America C class and it was delivered full, but the CA people forgot to put the cap on the filler, so he lost most of his fresh water on the way to our camp site. As there was an additional issue with the water system (like a broken fresh water line under the sink), he was forced to drive on to Flagstaff to get that fixed. CA did refill his water tank and reimbursed him for the gas for the near-100-mile round trip to Flag and back.

Lyle

[Raymon]

dbbls wrote:
This is not just a Jayco problem. I put shut off valves on my overflow pipes. Have two of them. Now all I have to remember is to open them when filling and using the pump, and close them when traveling.

I did the same thing on my last 3 RV's. Very simple installation, inexpensive and it WORKS.

Ray

[jalichty]

On my old Jayco, there was an overflow tube under the tank near the rear. I noticed that water would come out of the tube when traveling so I took a wire nut, little plastic thing, and put it into the tube and that stopped the water from coming out. Had to remember to take it out when camping as it kind of set up a little vacuum that slowed down my water delivery until I took it out. Haven't noticed this with out Jayco HT 26.5 RLS yet, but we generally don't tow full of fresh water, prefer to fill up at the campgrounds and haven'g boondocked yet.

[dbbls]

This is not just a Jayco problem. I put shut off valves on my overflow pipes. Have two of them. Now all I have to remember is to open them when filling and using the pump, and close them when traveling.

[Community Alumni]

I can just imagine a wave of water sloshing through the tank on turns and venting out the pipes. My last motor home and the current one have problems similar to this caused by long flat water tanks with poorly designed venting. My installed a riser loop in my current one in a space in the wall adjacent to the refrigerator. That solved the surge venting, but did not fix the air pocket as the vent is attached to the low end of the top of the tank. I have a bunch of left-over plumbing from when I replaced the factory sink in my motor home. I think I have a plan to fashion some sort of modification to keep the water in the tank on the Jayco Eagle.

A friend of mine is building an airplane in his hangar down at the local airport. Every step of the process is inspected and certified. Maybe apples and oranges, but we're talking about engineering design and manufacturing. So, answer this question: If your RV was an airplane, would you fly in it?

[AZ_T_T]

This is a common problem with Jayco's. My FW has 2 long flat fresh water tanks and each tank has an over flow hose. It is easy for water spill out and in some cases create a siphon . I ended up tying the two over flow hoses together and then added a spigot at the end . When filling the tanks the spigot is open and when I'm driving it is closed.

I would actually loose 2/3's of my fresh water on a 3 hour drive.

Good luck.

[deleted-2]

I am in Northern California and have lost water going straight.

[Pauljdav]

honda man wrote:
I am in Oregon to that should not happen they must not have used enough tubing from tank to outside and it should have a loop in it.I know in Oregon if you even leave a drop of any thing on the road while moving, big ticket even if its water but see people all the time draining they boats after pulling out.

So what do you do when it is raining and you have a lot of water draining off your trailer? Pull over and wait?

What about AC condensation
from your car?

You can dump fresh water all you want.

To the OP It is normal for many trailers to lose water going down the road. My dad loses up to a third of his tank. I lose some but it is minimal. It depends on curves and hills.

Paul

[old_guy]

I'm in eastern Oregon and this happens to me all the time. every time I go camping in the mountains here and going around some of the forest service roads I see water shooting out of the tank. I keep trying to think of a way to stop that from happening and the only thing I can think of is a shut off valve but people here have ruled against that idea. so I carry a couple of 6 gallon jugs with me to top off when I get camped