Almost everything that goes wrong with RV plumbing comes down to one of three things. Too much pressure at the hookup, water you did not filter, or waste you could not get rid of cleanly. This section covers those decisions in the order the water travels, which is also the order RV plumbing tends to fail in.
Who this is for. Anybody hooking a travel trailer up to a campground water supply, or emptying its tanks. If you are new to it, read down the page in order. It follows the water from the spigot to the dump station.
At the hookup
RV plumbing is built for domestic pressure, and campground water pressure is not controlled and can spike well past what trailer plumbing is built for, which is the cheapest expensive lesson in RVing. RV water pressure regulators covers what the published figures actually mean and which ones are worth trusting.
Filtering is the next decision and the one with the most marketing around it. RV water filters covers what a hose filter genuinely removes, what the certifications actually cover, and the gap between the two. The short version is that they do a real job on taste, odor, chlorine and grit, and not the job the packaging implies.
Waste
RV sewer hoses covers the fittings, the supports and the failure everybody who has owned one has a story about. This is a category where the cheap option is genuinely worse rather than just less pleasant.
RV toilets covers what actually decides whether a replacement will fit, why neither Thetford nor Dometic publishes the one measurement you need, and five worth considering.
When something breaks
RV water heater repair covers the most common failure in the system, what can be checked without tools, and where the line sits between an owner job and a shop job. Anything involving the propane side of a water heater belongs with a technician.
Most plumbing failures show up as leaks or pressure loss, but a water heater failure shows as no hot water—or worse, an electric heating element that won’t shut off. The good news is that heater repair is straightforward once you know what you’re looking at. The bad news is ignoring it can damage the rest of your system.
Water you are not watching
The plumbing that causes the most damage is the plumbing nobody is standing next to. Water leak detectors covers what can be sensed in a trailer that is parked and empty, and is honest that the leaks which matter in storage come from outside rather than from the pipes. Temperature sensors and freeze alarms cover the cold side of the same question.
Related
Draining and winterizing the system, and what is still at risk once it is done, sits in the RV storage and security guide and in storage and winterizing.