Strange thing happened to my water valves

I filled my water tank from my garden hose yesterday. My coach has the standard five valves in the water bay. I set the valves to fill and continued until it was full. When I went to change to valves back to the "use" setting, water started pouring out of the back of the valve panel. The full tank of water I had just put in siphoned itself back out of this "leak". When I got home today everything had dried up so I thought I would try to see behind the panel to find what happened. I stuck my head in the bay and could see the back of all the valves. I re-hooked the garden hose up and had the wife turn the hose on just to bit to see if I could observe where the water was coming from. It was coming from the back of the valve I had turned. I noticed this valve looked like it was sticking out the back more than the others. I reached up and pushed the back of the valve in, so it looked the same as the others and the water stopped leaking. I shut off the hose and checked all the valves, and they all appear to have the ability to move in and out. This may be something that the system is designed to do. If it is I have learned something. Maybe it allows the valve to release if excess pressure comes through the valve. Is anyone familiar with these valves. They are black plastic and have a round cylinder on the back with a center that moves if you push on the valve. I guess that is what happened when I turned the valve, I must have pushed it, and it pushed the back of the valve cylinder out and began leaking. After pushing it back in, I turned on the hose and refilled the tank. All is well and the pump works as normal with no leaks what so ever now. Glad it was something easy to fix, but I searched the forum last night for any info on the valves and couldnt find anything. Maybe the experts know something. If this helps someone else, even better. Cheers

My coach has the standard five valves in the water bay.

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I don't think there is any such "standard" valve configuration, so it might help if you elaborated a bit. I've owned two coaches with 3 valves but never one with 5, the of the 3 valves in the two coaches, only one function was in common (city fill/use).

From your description, it seems it was maybe the City Fill/Use valve that leaked? Its a complex valve, actually a diverter that bypasses the pump in one position (fill) and not in the Use position. I've not seen one with a pressure relief and can think of no reason for it, but I've been amazed to find new plumbing methods in an RV before!

Gary RV_Wizard said:

I've not seen one with a pressure relief and can think of no reason for it, but I've been amazed to find new plumbing methods in an RV before!

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I was wondering if maybe is was some type of freeze protection.

    In the deep recesses of my fragile old mind, I seem to recall a similar problem that occured in our Coachmen Catelina.  However, it was only a small leak, that never re-occurred once fixed.  Rene, I think you are correct, it would help prevent damage to the system if you did not winterize correctly.  FWIW it too had 5 valves, so likely was identical to the OP.

Ed

This is what we had in our Mirada ... probably what OP has ... 5 valve.

Howard

Yup, that is exactly what we had on the Catalina

Ed

I'm probably overly sensitive to the phrase "standard" when it comes to anything RV.  I've come to learn that nothing much is truly standard, though many things are common or typical. For that reason, I hate to try to make guesses without more specific info about the RV in question.

That is exactly the valve bank I have. Two days later and all is well. It would appear no one off hand is familiar with the valves ability to push in to relieve pressure, or leak as it would be happened to me by accidentally pushing it.

Same thing happened to me after filling a fresh water tank ( the water leaked out ).  The culprit was a small pebble got lodged in the valve preventing it from closing under its spring loaded pressure.  I think the pebble was picked up accidentally when I dragged the hose over the ground. Lesson learned is to keep both ends of the hose off the ground.

wow, that makes these nuclear reactor controls look simplistic

Its actually not a bad set up. All you have to do is look at the pictures. I will dig out the manuals and see if there is any info in there.