After two years, plastic plumbing fittings are self destructing

[skyguy]

This past weekend, we attended the Colorado Rally in Ft Collins. It was a great Rally, but I spent most of it working on plumbing.

This started with a small fresh water leak, and the fresh water pump cycling. Diving into the valve system behind the basement wall I found one of the three elbows for the hot water bypass cracked and leaking. Once the plastic cracks, it takes a lot of very careful effort to extract the rest of the elbow from the brass fitting that the elbow screws into. A trip to two parts stores, and lots of parts later, I had replaced the broken plastic elbow with brass fittings.

Apply water pressure now revealed the middle elbow was cracked as well. At this point, I connected the two hot water lines with a barbed connector and a couple hose clamps and called it fixed until I get more parts.

Like others have done, I will be replacing ALL of the plastic fittings with brass. I may be extending a couple of the hoses as well. I believe the short hoses caused undue pressure on the plastic elbows, leading to premature failure.

This same weekend, my flush connector also self destructed. I will be contacting bandbmolders.com to see if replacement rubber caps/washers are available.

If you recall, I replaced the top plastic hot water fitting last fall, because it cracked as well. I wonder if Heartland should spend a few extra dollars and use brass!

 

[GETnBYE]

Sorry for your troubles, I feel your pain. I'm in my overnight stay on our way to the rally,my nipple cracked on my water heater and water went everywhere, spending the night without water, luckily where we are staying has a bath house. Will work on it later, hope I can find parts to repair it quickly when we get to the rally. Wayne

 

[lwmcguir]

Sounds like HL should package a parts package for all the commonly affected fittings that fail.

 

[JohnDar]

Al, when my flush connector bit the dust last year, I replaced it with a fresh water connection, complete with brass check valve in it. I could not find a tank flush fitting at the RV dealer. Works just fine and gives a secondary stop should sewer trout learn to swim upstream. The original B&B Molders plastic fitting did not have a check valve in it, only a reduced internal diameter.

 

[wyleyrabbit]

Skyguy, I feel your pain. Ever since changing over most of ours to brass, I have not had a problem with any of the plumbing lines. I still have a few to do: toilet flush pex elbow, hot and cold supply line elbows to bedroom sink, and that should be it. I know it's a hassle, but in the long run, it's worth it.

I strongly believe that a trailer of this caliber should have come with brass fittings in the first place, or at least have been an option.

Once you're finished changing over to all brass elbows and tee connections, you will sleep better! So turn on some tunes, and spend some time getting it right. You'll be glad you did.

Cheers,
Chris

 

[todalake]

I haven't noticed any leaks in our trailer. Don't most new houses use plastic instead of brass and copper now? The last 2 years we have left our trailer outside at the campgrround in northern Wisconsin and when we opened it up in the spring we didn't have any leaks. We leave our trailer at the campground instead of bringing it home for storage. I feel a 1000 miles of flexing is harder on the trailer than a Wisconsin winter.

 

[JohnDar]

Other than some loose fittings at sinks (quickly found), I've only had one PEX fitting leak in the basement. I found it while dewinterizing last year. End result of that little project is that I now have spare brass fittings, a short length of PEX pipe, and tools to do either the crimp or cinch PEX clamps. With the access panel I put in the basement wall behind the UDC, I can check the plumbing back there easily, so maybe catch a leak before it becomes a flood. So far, no additional problems.

 

[TedS]

Al, it was a good rally. Nice to meet you and everyone there.

After seeing you struggle to dig out the broken fitting, I had to go look at the fittings on my 2011 Bighorn. The elbows in both threeway valves in mine are white plastic; yours was black. Is white plastic a Heartland material upgrade? You are right, brass is better.

I did check my top fitting in the water heater. It is brass from the factory!!

Why not brass as OEM? A dozen fittings can't make that much difference in total trailer cost.

 

[wyleyrabbit]

I haven't noticed any leaks in our trailer. Don't most new houses use plastic instead of brass and copper now?

Most new houses, including ours, use PEX piping instead of copper. But they use brass elbows and tee connections, not the cheap crappy (my opinion) plastic ones. I don't think anyone questions the quality or reliability of the PEX tubing, but most everyone that's had a leak behind the UDC that was the result of these plastic elbows hates the plastic ones.

 

[jkncjordan]

Strange . We camped last weekend and I started noticing a leak in the bathroom. I also heard a hissing sound under the bathtub. I couln't really see anything being that it is a small compartment under the tub so I went to the outside shower and removed the panel and noticed that my cold water elbow on the outside shower was misthreaded, leaking, and hissing at me. I was able to destroy my hands while fixing the issue, but thankfully it was where it was at least somewhat accessable. I have started checking my plumbing now to ensure I hopefully don't enounter this again.

 

[hoefler]

Another thing to consider, while Pex is very tolerant to water freezing in the lines, the fittings, plastic or brass, are not. If a poor winterizing is done, any water that may settle in a fitting area, will freeze and break the fitting. I have seen this particularly when the lines are blown out with air and no anti-freeze is used.

 

[ChopperBill]

This past weekend, we attended the Colorado Rally in Ft Collins. It was a great Rally, but I spent most of it working on plumbing.

This started with a small fresh water leak, and the fresh water pump cycling. Diving into the valve system behind the basement wall I found one of the three elbows for the hot water bypass cracked and leaking. Once the plastic cracks, it takes a lot of very careful effort to extract the rest of the elbow from the brass fitting that the elbow screws into. A trip to two parts stores, and lots of parts later, I had replaced the broken plastic elbow with brass fittings.

Apply water pressure now revealed the middle elbow was cracked as well. At this point, I connected the two hot water lines with a barbed connector and a couple hose clamps and called it fixed until I get more parts.

Like others have done, I will be replacing ALL of the plastic fittings with brass. I may be extending a couple of the hoses as well. I believe the short hoses caused undue pressure on the plastic elbows, leading to premature failure.

This same weekend, my flush connector also self destructed. I will be contacting bandbmolders.com to see if replacement rubber caps/washers are available.

If you recall, I replaced the top plastic hot water fitting last fall, because it cracked as well. I wonder if Heartland should spend a few extra dollars and use brass!

Our early "11" has brass fittings on most of the high pressure lines behind the docking station. If I recall the only ones that are not brass are the elbows that go to the W/D. Plan on disconnecting them anyway so I dont have to winterize them.

 

[57chevyconvt]

Had the same fitting problem (white plastic - PVC) as was described after the 5'er (2010 BH 3410RE) was only 6 months old. I couldn't find a 90 deg. NPT to 1/2 hose fitting at Lowe's or Home Depot. Therefore I made my own by silver soldiering some brass fittings together. I used my Drimel Tool with an 1/8" tile bit to cut some slots, 90 deg. apart, in the PVC fitting to accept a large flat blade screw driver blade for extraction of the PVC fitting that remained in the bronze 3-way valve. It appears to me that Hartland has used some type of pipe thread sealant that is not compatable with the plastic fittings. Loctie makes a pipe thread sealant with Teflon that is specially formulated for PVC fittings. If you need pictures of how to extract the PVC plastic fittings, you let me know and I will take a few and upload for your viewing.