Found why my bathroom is soaked!!! How to replace leaking purge valve?

aaron7 · October 29, 2013, 11:10 AM

After weeks of having a bathroom that kept getting wet... I think I found the culprit!

Under my vanity is the (I believe) air purge valve for winterizing. Looks like it's weeping as it's wet.

How the heck do I replace that? Haven't messed with anything that wasn't threaded on the water lines!

Mr. T · October 29, 2013, 11:22 AM

That gray water pipe is notorious for leaking at the joints. I would bet you have a leak somewhere in there. If mine, I would cut out as much gray pipe and the joints as possible. Reduce the gray pipe to two joints joining modern pvc pipe. I don't know about the bleeders. I might attempt to keep them in the mix if they work okay. Then again, the bleeders may be integral to your system. I would love to know what you decide to do.

Don T.

jkilbert · October 29, 2013, 06:17 PM

Those are drain valves for your water system. One hot and one cold. It is very possible for the lines to start leaking at the connections or the valves themselves. Just pull the ring to open the valves, just make sure you have a spigot open to let air in. Since those are under your vanity also check drains, spigots and for leaks around the bowl from spilled water.

aaron7 · November 03, 2013, 01:58 PM

If we shut the water off and only turn it on for showers and it stays dry. Soon as I leave the water on it starts leaking, and fast! I don't SEE the leak but the carpet under the vanity is the first to get wet so it has to be there.

Now, I understand I cut these out and replace them, and I have an idea of what to use (the finger-trap slide on connection kind) but not really sure what exactly to replace them WITH. Replacement drains? No drains and just pipe?

I've never done any work like this before but we can't live like this!!!

ClydesdaleKevin · November 04, 2013, 07:45 AM

If you don't need to drain your system for winter, you can always bypass them altogether. Just cut off the tubing before the valves and block them off. You can use the Shark Bite type slip on fittings, which I don't trust, or a PEX fitting if you have the crimping tool, or we use Flair-It fittings, which you can find at some RV dealers, and many True Value type hardware stores. They go on without tools, come in a variety of fittings and sizes including block-offs, and are water tight. They are also great for joining new PEX tubing to the old grey tubing.

Flair-It might even make drain valves to replace yours, and I know they make the elbows to replace leaky grey ones.

Kev

ClydesdaleKevin · November 04, 2013, 07:49 AM

By the way, the website for the company is www.flairit.com. We use the standard white Flair-it fittings, which work great! If you go to the website you'll all the available fittings. Heck, apparently they even make fittings to transition from copper pipe to Pex! I didn't know that!

Kev

aaron7 · November 04, 2013, 09:26 AM

Ok, those look promising! Since we're down in AZ I think I'll just cut and remove these valves and put straight piping in where they were.

Hopefully the rest of the RV won't leak once I fix the weak point!

BTW, I can't just block these off as they are in-line with the plumbing.

aaron7 · November 04, 2013, 09:47 AM

Is this grey piping PEX? And if not, will these Flair-It fittings work with it still?

Thinking of cutting out everything in the pics and just running new pipe for each line under there.

pvoth1111 · November 04, 2013, 06:23 PM

toilet paper finds leaks

ClydesdaleKevin · November 05, 2013, 07:37 AM

While the grey pipe is not called "Pex", it is the same diameter inside and out, and is flexible enough to use with the Flair-It fittings. We've added a washer/dryer to our rig, as well as installed a new on demand hot water heater, and those Flair-It fittings made the plumbing side of the job easy peasy lemon squeezy! Like I said, they connect grey to pex and back again, so it makes all the plumbing jobs on our rigs so simple, without having to make long runs of new pipe to fix things!

I swear by them. We been fulltiming for years, they are all we use, and we've never had a leak from one that I installed.

We have fixed many leaks from those grey pipes over the years with these, and they stay fixed and never leak.

Kev

aaron7 · November 05, 2013, 09:14 AM

Great to hear!

As much as I'd love to gut this thing, replace the carpet, put in new cabinets, replace all the plumbing... it's just a dream. Give me mechanical stuff and I'll figure it out but when it comes to contractor stuff I'm useless!

Just trying to get by

Mr. T · November 05, 2013, 09:38 AM

I feel for you and understand you not wanting to start something you are not comfortable with. However, now is the time, before things get worse.

Go ahead and cut the pipes, get them out of the way, giving you some clearance for a few other things that need to be done. Be sure to save a piece of the gray so you can take it with you to the hardware store.

Use a razor blade knife to cut the carpet along the wall and the cabinet facing. Cut out a nice rectangle piece of carpet. Be as neat as possible because you can reuse the carpet after it is dried out. Let the wet floor dry out. What you should be looking for is warping of the floor.

Head to the hardware store to get your couplings, do your pipes and give the floor time to dry. At this point you have probably spent 15.00 or less and well on your way fixing the problem.

Let us know if the sub floor warps. Then there will be more to do. If it doesn't warp, you are good as gold. Buy some carpet adhesivie, glue the carpet to the floor and your done.

Don T.

aaron7 · November 05, 2013, 12:14 PM

I did get it all nice and dry using a small ceramic heater we have, love that thing!

Went to two hardware stores but none had the couplers I needed. I was able to get the hose though. Going to make the trip out to an RV place about 20 miles out. We'll see what they have!

Oz · November 05, 2013, 12:38 PM

http://www.classicwinnebagos.com/forum/index.php/topic,5990.0.html

Flair-it. Look at the site. No doubt, they have what you need and they're so easy to use.

Oz · April 24, 2019, 09:18 PM

Thanks Rick and Kevin.
Taken care of.
Too bad, all they had to do is get the okay first. But, when someone fails to have the decency to do so, I have no qualms responding appropriately.

Rickf1985 · April 25, 2019, 08:57 AM

I just had one this morning from a well known outdoors company that I buy ammo from pop up on my military vehicle forum the same way, links to ammo and bulk ammo. Well, that is great but it is still spam. If you want to offer ammo to our members at a discount then do it the right way but not by spam. He is also gone. AND he lost my business personally because I do not support spammers!

tmsnyder · April 25, 2019, 09:12 AM

Buy it cheap and stack it deep!