CY 3010 Fresh Water Tank - Some water is inaccessible - Discussion

[dougw]

Today was the first time I had to fill my water tanks up and this is what I had found. First, the water pump started sucking air when the 1/3 light was on, which is pretty much like every one that has posted here. I have a water flow meter that tells me how much water I put into the tank. Around 40 gal or so into filling it up, the full light came on. I stopped filling after I had put in 70 gal total. Up till around 60gal I could hear the air coming from the vent next to the gravity fill. After that I could hear the water filling but had no signs of over flow.

This leads me to a separate question. How do you know the tank is full? The light are useless. Does the water come out of the fill and vent lines or will it over flow from under the coach onto the ground? Other suggestions?

Thanks
Doug

 

[kbsplus2]

supposing they hooked up all the lines, the water will back up the fill line and blow out the vent line hole. Over pressuring is a cause for concern as it sounds like HL isnot confident about the durability of their tanks since they will not put the taps on the bottom. Nothing should start coming out from under the coach. One issue almost everyone has had has been the vent hose was cut way long and not up (low spots in the tube)which when it gets water into it will not vent properly but cause water to spit out intermittently. This will lead most to think their tank is full. I have had the underbelly off my razor and had the pleasure of witnessing all this myself. I can't get 20+ gals out of my tanks or use the 100 gal capacity. (Whichever way you want to look at it)

 

[dougw]

My old trailer had both a vent line routing over board as well as up to the fill inlet. The overboard line would drip first since it was a bit lower and just bent over the tank towards the ground.

I guess after this trip I'll just look into getting one of those bulkhead fittings listed in an earlier post and "Y" the 2 outlets from each tank together. Then probably use a second fitting to drop another vent line which would drip first when the tanks are full. So far that seems like the simplest fix to me.

DW

 

[cabin fever]

Today was the first time I had to fill my water tanks up and this is what I had found. First, the water pump started sucking air when the 1/3 light was on, which is pretty much like every one that has posted here. I have a water flow meter that tells me how much water I put into the tank. Around 40 gal or so into filling it up, the full light came on. I stopped filling after I had put in 70 gal total. Up till around 60gal I could hear the air coming from the vent next to the gravity fill. After that I could hear the water filling but had no signs of over flow.

This leads me to a separate question. How do you know the tank is full? The light are useless. Does the water come out of the fill and vent lines or will it over flow from under the coach onto the ground? Other suggestions?

Thanks
Doug

It comes out of the fill, got tired of running out of water when the light said full.

 

[combine_billy]

I like my camper, but the fresh water setup is a major pain in the neck.

Still can't believe they can't engineer themselves out of this problem.

 

[dougw]

Seems easy to me, "Y" the 2 tanks together with the pick ups on the bottom and be done with it. All though after looking at it I'm not so sure on there mounting system for the tanks either. seems like more support is in order.

 

[Katoum]

I had rig at a dealer last week. He did a small fix and extended the draw into the fresh water tank so could pull more of it out. Still leaves about
an inch of unusable and undrainable water in the rear tank. the front
tank always has over two inches of unusable and undrainable water in it.
I looked at the tanks while they were working on them. The reason the
1/3 light stays on in the fresh water tank is the sensor is just barely at
the water level to keep it on. It will never shut off with this set up.

Dealer finished all he could do and called Heartland to see if they would
authorize a better fix such as a drain on the bottom of the tanks. So
far 5 business days have passed and call not returned from Heartland.

I'm due to pick up my 3010 tomorrow, and now I'm getting a little nervous as it is freezing up here in the white north country. I dry camp and this is a major concern to me. There is really no excuse for something this simple, but how Heartland and there dealers resolve this issue is paramount in my opinion. I have made the my dealer aware of this thread and if the tanks do not drain, my deal will not be completed. I'm thankful that this forum has brought this to my attention.

 

[kbsplus2]

I can't get the email I got on my yahoo acct from HL to attach to the post. NOT a HAPPY CAMPER HERE. Spent this much $ and such a basic, important thing I have to fix on my own. How's that for fair. Does anyone else feel HL is liable for more than sending replies that say "tough, that is the way it is"?

 

[jimtoo]

kbsplus2,

I do not think that any Heartland employee replied to you with the words, "tough, that is the way it is". Please give us a name and copy of the email.

Jim M

 

[dougw]

As a new owner and after running out of water on the last trip I can say I'm not a "happy camper" about this. I probably can make do with it for most trips, but I would like to see it resolved. One can only hope that perspective buyers will find this post and read it before hand. This would be about the only "leverage" we have as I see it, other then taking the trailers in and having them call the manufacture.

DW

 

[cabin fever]

kbsplus2,

I do not think that any Heartland employee replied to you with the words, "tough, that is the way it is". Please give us a name and copy of the email.

Jim M

It was probably the one I got and it was from another unhappy camper. this is what my dealer says

'Bruce,
I now know what you are referring to. From my experience here Heartland has not really admitted to having a design flaw. We have asked on a couple of different customers units, still while under warranty, to remedy the situation. They have never given us approval to make any changes to the plumbing system.

One of these customers had paid to have a fitting hot air welded into the bottom of his tank. We then installed a 1 ½ gate valve in order to drain his tank completely. This particular trailer was a fifth wheel and at the time had only one 100 gallon tank and not the two tank set up that you have.

Maybe if you contact Heartland’s owner support in person they may be able to help you cover the cost of the repairs. So we can remedy the problem but unfortunately we will not be able to do that free of charge. If Heartland wants to cover the repairs that’s great, and we can schedule you an appointment to have that done. Another thought is if you purchased an extended service agreement they may also cover the cost of the repairs.

Regards,


Michael Auer
Service Manager
Ray Citte Inc.

 

[kbsplus2]

kbsplus2,

I do not think that any Heartland employee replied to you with the words, "tough, that is the way it is". Please give us a name and copy of the email.

Jim M

No, tough, that is the way it is wasn't the exact wording but that is what it boils down to. Gary Randolf said in his email that HL did nothing wrong they fixed what they could but this is how they do it and continue to do it and they will not do anymore. Send me an email and I will forward the HL email to anyone who cares to read themselves. Fact is I don't have what I bought and I don't make it a practice of throwing a couple hundred lbs in to see how my truck tows and now I can't sanitize the tanks and can only imagine how the ice is only prolonging my tank's life. False advertising, hope the customer doesn't find out?

 

[mdhill]

I am taking my 3010 into a licensed HL repair shop in Fontana, CA this coming Monday to repair the water tank issue, along with some other stuff as well. I'll definitely post back once it's done and with any new info...
Probably won't have the coach back till the end of the month though...

manke3010, did you get your trailer back? If so was the fresh water problem resolved?

 

[mdhill]

I'm due to pick up my 3010 tomorrow, and now I'm getting a little nervous as it is freezing up here in the white north country. I dry camp and this is a major concern to me. There is really no excuse for something this simple, but how Heartland and there dealers resolve this issue is paramount in my opinion. I have made the my dealer aware of this thread and if the tanks do not drain, my deal will not be completed. I'm thankful that this forum has brought this to my attention.

I am taking mine in for some warranty work very soon. My main concern
is the 20 gal or so of water I cant drain. I am afraid of bacteria. All I want is the ability to really drain the water tanks. Not leave 20 or more gallons
behind to grow bacteria. Doesn't seem like too much to ask for.

Katoum, if I had known of this issue and HL reluctance to correct it would
have made a differece. Jury is still out for me. We will see how HL responds to issue when trailer is in for some other items.

 

[Manke3010]

I am taking my 3010 into a licensed HL repair shop in Fontana, CA this coming Monday to repair the water tank issue, along with some other stuff as well. I'll definitely post back once it's done and with any new info...
Probably won't have the coach back till the end of the month though...

manke3010, did you get your trailer back? If so was the fresh water problem resolved?

Hey guys,
I've been holidng off responding as I want the owner of J&L (Joe) to complete his repair so I can be 100% specific as to what he's doing and if this fixed the problem.
Dougw and a few others are definitely onto what my guy is talking about.

I know he's going to beef up and improve the mounting and installation. He's also going to add draw lines into both tanks. But again, he's not quite done, and I've been out of town at my folks' place for the holidays so I should have more info next week...I'll be sure to post back once all is done. But Joe was pretty confident he'd be able to get me to draw 97-99% of the total tank capacity once he was done. They are a great shop, really happy with them.

 

[rtataryn]

Thanks for the update Luke. I'm looking forward to hearing from you on exactly what they did after it's all complete. I've held off on mine for now, as we're well into our Northwest winter up here, but once things thaw out this is a top priority that must get resolved before the next RV season. Thanks again for keeping us posted.

Rod

 

[dougw]

So I started on looking into / fixing this issue myself. When I pulled back the bottom cover to access the water tanks I found that both the 1/2" particle boards that support the tanks have flexed so much that the boards have cracked. I can only imaging that this happened at the dealer when they checked the tanks out. They had them filled to the brim when we picked up the trailer.

You will be able to see this in some of the pictures I have posted here plus other stuff as well.

http://helibuf.com/pictures/water tanks/

After dumping all the fresh water from the dump line I put blue lines on each of the tanks showing the water level. These are ~ 2in above the bottom of the tanks.
Pictures #222-223

In picture #235 you can see the sensor pickups. As you can see they are very low to the bottom of the tank.

In photo #237 I have added another vent line that will vent to the ground if the tanks get too full. There are 2 vent lines going to the front top edge of the forward tanks and then one on the top of the rear tank. When I cut the line to install my vent line between the 2 tanks, there was a lot of water still in the vent line. So my thinking is the water is just been sitting in this line and not allowing any of the tanks to vent. The top of the forward tank seemed like it was being "suck" in which suggests to me that the tank hasn't been venting and started collapsing. Where I put the new vent line is in a low spot between the 2 tanks which will hopefully be the first place the water heads for and will dump to the ground. I will put a small hole in the blanket when I get that far.

In picture #238 you can see how high the water pump inlet line is above the bottom of the tank. This is right at the same level as my blue line, wonder why?<G> This might be an easy fix for the suggestion that was posted earlier for using the copper pipe with the flare end in it. Just remove the fitting and add the pipe as a pickup tube and point it towards the center of the tank. Or just get either the screw on bulkhead fitting or get a welder to attach the new outlet on the bottom of the tank.

Pictures #244-247 is the replacement boards I made up. Cut the the same size I laminated support pieces to the bottom part of the board in hope of helping with the flexing of the tanks and such keeping the water from setting in the lower center section of the tanks. As you can see I have kept away from the outside edges so the boards can still hang on the "L" brackets in the frames. I left a tunnel in the center section so that metal cross brace that is on the trailer can still fit. Then on the tank side I have covered the counter sunk screws with thick tape to make sure they don't dig into the tanks.

So in the end I'm hoping to keep the bottom of the tanks flatter to eliminate puddling in the center. Then I'm hoping to have 2 outlets on the lower left rear of the front tank as well as the front left corner on the rear tank that will "Y" together and connect to the water pump inlet line, hence using up as much water as I can and possible making the sensor lights work better.

Doug

 

[js700]

Great pics Doug.....Thanks for taking the time and effort for the nice write up.WOW..I am scared to look at my wood underneath.

 

[combine_billy]

wow, what a mess

 

[tcbrady]

dougw,
Thank you for bringing this to our attention. We have reviewed your pictures and we have reviewed our process on the production line. We believe there was a failure of a bolt that led to the collapse of that wood shelf and your tank popping out of its support. We believe this to be an isolated incident in the current and last model year Cyclones produced. Sorry yours failed. We'll continue to be alert to this going forward.
Best regards,