New 3 way water valve

Just spent 3 nights in the parking lot at Elkhart.  One of the items was continuing issues with the water valve.  When the original went bad, I held out for the new 3 way valve.  That install was done in NC.  Still had the same problem with the water tank filling with the city water connected.  In Elkhart Doug looked at it and then came  to tell Dave and I that I wasn't crazy (I didn't think I was but apparently someone thought it was a possibility)  The new 3 way valves do not "click" into place.  Doug thought the issue was that the valve needed to be slightly to the left of straight up and down - that he had been able to make it stop doing what it shouldn't.  The discussion was that this was not a problem with just this one valve but that it is an issue with the design of the new valve and replacing again would not solve it. 

First night with a city water hook up and found that this new position did NOT stop the tank from being filled.  So one of the questions for me is how it is that I have not seen anyone listing this as a problem with the new valves.  I know some of you folks have replaced the original valves on older coaches and I had understood the new units on the line have been having the new valve used.  It seems that if this is a design issue, I should be hearing about someone besides me having this problem. 

Feeling frustrated as I have been trying work around this now for about 4 months all told - old and new valve - and I am a fulltimer.  Just curious - have any of you found that you are having to play with the city water position on the 3 way valve?  My visit opened other questions that I will drop in as separate threads.

We have had our PC since June and have not had any problem with the 3-way valve.  That is weird how you have had such a problem with it.  Hope they can figure out what is going on with yours.  Keep the forum updated on the resolution to it.
Gary

We had our new 3 way installed at the end of April and have been on the road since. No problems other than the water pipe nuts on the back side of the valve vibrated loose.  One strange item, when filling the water tank it only overflows on the passenger side ( boondocking fill), it no longer overflows at the 3 way valve

I agree with Gary that is very strange.  I had the original 4-way valve which was replaced with a second 4-way valve because of a leak in that area.  When in Elkhart they replaced the 4-way with the new 3-way.  None of those valves have leaked into the fresh water tank.  The new 3-way is (IMHO) much better built and has so far worked perfectly.

When the fresh water tank is filling as you describe it is reported to be either the pump check valve or the 4-way valve.  This is a wide spread issue and reported on all RV forums going back at least a decade.

If you search for "rv fresh water tank filling from city water connection" you will find hundreds of listings for the same problem.  In nearly all of them the issue is reported to be the check valve in the pump. 

The obvious culprit is the 4-way valve (and that might be the issue) but more often than not it is the pump check valve.

Several threads on other forums suggest disconnecting the city water and running the pump for awhile to 'reset' the check valve.  Read here: Forest River Forum

Another suggestion is to add an inline check valve which solves the problem.

Leading suggestion for what causes the check valve issue is too much water pressure at some campgrounds.  Sometimes this can be 'reset', sometimes not.  I always use a good pressure reducer at the city water connection.  I've stayed at places that had big signs saying "Not responsible for damage caused by water pressure".  One showed 90psi on my gauge.

Hope this helps in some way.

I have the new 3 way valve and have not had any problems (new build installed in the APRIL time frame of this year).  I guess one advantage of a class A is to be able to open a compartment door and see what was happening in the tank - still wouldn't go back for that though.  I'm really curious to find out what the problem is.

Mike

Jatrax,

Thanks - I have been reading the postings about this for awhile  - even before my original valve failed.  I had the check valve looked at in NC where I had the new valve installed (PC sent it there to try to avoid me driving to Elkhart).and PC also looked at that while I was there to see why it was still an issue.  Doug disconnected the line so he could see it was coming in from the valve - not getting the check valve involved.

I too find it interesting that  the the responses so far are not showing that this is really an issue with the new valve. Based on what Doug said I expected people would be seeing this as mine has been readily apparent.   Hopefully we get to an answer without me re routing to Elkhart again.

Catsaplenty,
Puzzling for sure.  I have read numerous posts where the 'fix' was pump replacement not 4 way valve replacement.  Or adding another check valve in the line to the pump which essentially replaces the one inside the pump.

That is not to say that the 4 way valve cannot be at fault, it can.  But in your case with the 4 way valve replaced and no help I would be looking very hard at the internal check valve in the pump.  Or get someone to add a check valve in that line.  It might be that the check valve in the pump works except under certain conditions.  Which were not met when Doug was testing things so it looked fine at the time.

Anyway, I hope you get the issue resolved.  I can tell you from experience that spending time on vacation fixing the coach is not fun.  Of course in my case I got to buy new tools, so there is a bright side.

It would be nice to have some general schematics of the water and electrical runs so as to know where the junctions and other connections are.  It might allow persons who are can tackle these problems on their own
to for-go a trip to the motherland.

Some of you were curious about how this would be resolved and wanted a follow up.  The answer seems to be that PC is not going to resolve anything.  My first two emails to Dave went unanswered.  I wrote again the other week noting that the responses here in the forum would indicate they were wrong about it being a design flaw that would affect all these valves.  Also noting that if it was a design flaw, if they were actually hearing from all the people with the new valve that they were having this issue, I would like to hear an update on what they were doing to find a better answer to be putting in their units.

Dave's response was that perhaps the valve company might want to give me a replacement if I thought it was a faulty valve.  This despite my long explanation in that email about why I did not believe it was a valve problem and the fact that it was PC who said the issue was the valve.  Also my request  had been for them to ask the person who actually does the plumbing systems in the PC what his experience said about what the problem might be.  As was noted here - it would be nice if we were provided information about how the PC systems were installed so we did have other ways to find solutions. I did not get any information about the system.

Apparently I have been told to take a hike.  This is not the only issue that my return visits to Elkhart failed to resolve - one going back to when I bought the unit in March of 2017 - also never resolved by the company.  The most recent response (besides ignoring me) was to simply say he was sorry to hear it was still leaking.  Dave did say he monitors this forum and my posting so I am sure I will really be cut off now for this posting.

Good luck to all of you with your units.  I know many of you do get satisfactory solutions and I had thought when I bought this RV that PC would always be a place to have work done. . I am not one of the chosen ones though and apparently will have to try to find my solutions outside of PC as I can not continue to have a fresh water system that doesn't work and leaks in and around my slide out that are doing lasting damage. I have gone along with this long enough and in the past even gone through one of the owners to get some action when I could not get a response.  But that is not how it should have to work to get service..  Someone has to want to fix this.   I live in my PC so it isn't a minor issue.  Thanks for your thoughts and suggestions and best wishes to all of you in your travels.

Sorry you are still having issues.  However I am a little puzzled because several responses here pointed you to the pump check valve being the issue not the valve.  Did you have anyone look into this?
If I were you I would replace the pump and see if that fixed the issue.

Jatrax - as i noted I fully expected the check valve to be what would be replaced in Elkhart.  NC shop, after putting in the replacement valve with not change,  had checked and said there was no problem with the check valve - but then again the NC shop said nothing was wrong with anything.  When Dave called me to see how the NC thing went I thought we both agreed the check valve would be the culprit.  But in Elkhart Doug said NO  and that was when he declared it as a design issue with the new valves and nothing to be done.  Of course we have here shown that is not so.  I do remember even with the old 4-way valve there were times that a new 4-way didn't fix the problem and then the check valve was replaced.  So - as I said - I will need to find a place that will do that for me.  I spend a lot of my time in the national forest (where I have been without internet and thus the delay in response) so I am generally away from areas that actually have facilities.  At my next planned stop near civilization I will find someone to work on the water system and the other issues that I tried to get fixed by going to Elkhart.  And by the way - a person from Anderson emailed me to say they absolutely stand behind their products and if the valve was the problem they would give me a replacement.  BUT based on the email stream that he saw, he believed it to be a check valve.  And like you he indicated that a second one could also be added to the system if necessary.   So thanks for your concerns and suggestions.  I am hoping to soon be able to do something with this. 

Thanks for posting back.  Just wishing you well in getting this fixed.  I might think about adding another check valve in the system just because it would likely be the cheapest way to test that.  But that would be me doing the work so I'm not sure what it would cost to have someone else do it.

Anyway, best of luck and hoping it all gets right eventually.