Fresh Water Tank

RPORGERON

Member
I Have A Trailrunner 27bhss. This Weekend, Filled The Fresh Water Tank Up. 4 Hours Later When I Got To My Destination, The Fresh Water Was Down To 1/3 Full. When I Got Home , I Filled It Up Again To Check It. No Water Came Out. So I Hooked It Up Again And As I Moved It The Back Hose On The Drivers Side Started To Leak Water. No Water In The Tt. Evidently, The Water Came Out Of That Hose On The Road. What Is The Problem?
 

jbeletti

Well-known member
You will need to cap your vents as the sloshing of water is pushing it out the vent tube, then a siphoning effect is taking place. Cap the vents for travel only.

Also, search on the Bighorn and Landmark Plumbing forums here for hundreds of other posts on the matter.

Jim
 

sailorand

Past British Columbia Chapter Leader
go to Home Depot and get some brass 1/4 turn shutoffs and put them on the hoses. Just remember to open them as you fill. That should solve your problem
Rand
 
C

Chulinw

Guest
Follow Sailorand and you will have the problem fix. He gave you the best answer and I followed it and it did correct the problem. Like he said make sure you open the 1/4 to open when filling so the air can exit. Try to travel with only 1/3 tank of water and fillup just prior to getting to the dry camp area and this way you will not have all the weight on the travel. Water is 8lb per gal and that is lots of weight.
 

sailorand

Past British Columbia Chapter Leader
Chulinw
Great advice, not to travel with full tanks. On our trip south we had enough to flush and wash for 2 days and that is all. Filled in Quartzsite when we went into the desert foe 8 days and then dumped as soon as possible.
I did care full FW tank once to see if it would drop out, while the trailer was under warrenty, nothing happened thankfully.
 

mufflerman

Well-known member
Guys have your dealer run the vents together and up to the fill port.
Why take a chance of blowing up your tank because someone forgot to open these valves, Mine work great. All these trailers that we've all owned over the last 30 + years have never had vent valves under the trailer that we had to open every time you fill up the water tank. Do you think the manufacturer will warranty a tank with valves that didn't get opened, Mine was done at dealer and did I say it works great.
 

vangoes

Well-known member
Mufflerman
That makes a lot of sense. Like you, the various trailers and motorhomes I've had in the past never had this problem. As there was no prior problems, I never noted how the vents were on them
 

Loco

Well-known member
Rpor.
Muffler man is right. The valve idea does work but if you forget to open them you will have swelling belle. It can push your floor up or push the tank out the bottom. I have pictures of my fix of the tank vents in the Cyclone area under tank vent fix by Loco. I fixed mine with 1/2 marine hose from vent to vent than up to fill area.
 

Dirt1st

Member
I have seen much talk about water "siphoning" out of water tanks when the trailer is moving. Unless there is a hose on the inside of the water tank that is connected to the vent hose, siphoning cannot happen. A siphon requires both ends of the "siphon" to be below water level.

Unless there is a hose inside the tank that is connected to the vent outlet, any water lost is due to "sloshing" around during travel.
 

mufflerman

Well-known member
Dirt,
You are exactly right, The water slosh'es out because the thanks are shallow, the vents are on the sides of the tank near the top. As I've said before on other posts, connect all vents together and run the up to the fill port(there's a nipple right beside the fill port designed for the vent).
You can see in Loco's pics below.
I DEFINETLY would not put valve's on the vent lines as other's have suggested.
Loco did a great job of taking pics of his work (repairing the factory error),
I had my dealer repair it the way I wanted and send heartland the bill.

Below is a copy of Loco's post on the water tank repair.
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Here are some pictures of 2007 cyclone repairs I made to the wiring and water tank vents. This is the way it should have been done the first time.I ran 1/2 marine hose from vent to vent with fittings and ran it up to the fill point vent. This way you will fill you tank all the way up with out losing any water. Also some pics of the wiring before and after I fixed the wiring the way it should be. I must note that I have been talking to the factory and they are trying to take care of these things so it will not be like this in the new units. We will see. They better or they will not be in business long! Like I said I love the rig over all. It just needs a little more time
spent on the things under and behind the walls.

Attached Thumbnails//heartlandowners.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=661&stc=1&thumb=1&d=1155520841 //heartlandowners.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=662&stc=1&thumb=1&d=1155520841 //heartlandowners.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=663&stc=1&thumb=1&d=1155520841 //heartlandowners.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=670&stc=1&thumb=1&d=1155523370 //heartlandowners.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=671&stc=1&thumb=1&d=1155523370 //heartlandowners.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=672&stc=1&thumb=1&d=1155523370 //heartlandowners.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=673&stc=1&thumb=1&d=1155523370 //heartlandowners.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=674&stc=1&thumb=1&d=1155523370

//heartlandowners.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=677&stc=1&thumb=1&d=1155523370 //heartlandowners.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=678&stc=1&thumb=1&d=1155523370
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I had to delete some pics of wiring, would only allow 10.
 

pkr

Member
I have recently aquired a 2007 27bh and can't for the life of me get much water into the tank. It spits back 90% of what goes in. I've pulled the filler panel, and followed the plumbing inside and around toward the front - all looks ok thus far. I'd like to get a look at it - it acts like a hose is collapsed or pinched. Is the tank located under the sink cabinet in the kitchen? Does the cabinet floor come out to get to it?
 

Goldenwingers

goldenwingers
I had the same problem with my Mt. Rushmore. I could keep no more than 1/3 tank of water when moving and this is probably all I would want to travel with most times but there are times when I simply need more water than that so while having some work done on my trailer in Elkhart a couple of months ago I mentioned this to the tech and he checked and found that only two of the three vents that should have been coming out of the belly were there and the third was up inside the belly and was draining water in the underbelly. He added more hose to all the vents and put enough hose on them to put a loop in then so the loops went higher than the top of the tank and we have had no problem since.

Don
 

LaurieK

Member
We had the same problem a year ago and the fix was simple. Bill unhooked the fresh water tank vent hose from the filler assembly & blew the excess water out. Be sure to pull any slack from that hose and cut off the extra hose before reattaching. The problem occurs when the tank is overfilled the first time (the dealership for instance). We couldn't get the tank to fill more than 1/3 when we first took it out camping.
 
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